Asthma - School Policies On Medicines

Some schools don't have a full-time school nurse, so ask the principal or your child's teacher who will be responsible for giving medicine when the nurse is not in school. Policies about children carrying and taking their own medicine vary, depending on state and school regulations, so it's important to learn your local policies and plan ahead before a crisis arises.

The use of medicine in school can be controversial. Health experts agree that children with asthma should have ready, easy access to their quick-relief medicines. But medicine is included in many schools "zero tolerance" drug policies, so students are not permitted to keep medicine in their pockets, bookbags, or lockers. Although it is very rare, prohibiting students from carrying medicine with them has had fatal results. The worst possible result, reported by the New York Times in 2002, was the death of a child who developed asthma symptoms in school but had not been allowed to carry his quick relief medicine with him. By

the time he received any medicine, it was too late.

This rare tragedy highlights the need for parents to be proactive and educate not only their child's teachers but also school administrators about asthma and its consequences. Parents can make a difference by becoming involved when school boards make policies that could be a matter of life and death.

Triggers At School

The risk of exposure to triggers is another important consideration at day care or school. You may have done everything necessary to remove asthma triggers from your home, but your child spends six or more hours each day in school or day care. Take a look around that environment. In Kia's old middle school building, triggers were easy to spot. But most schools whether the building is new or old contain a slew of asthma triggers: dust in carpeting or from chalk; class pets (those cute gerbils, hamsters, and rabbits); cockroaches; strong odors and chemicals used in science, art, or other classes and for cleaning the school; and smoke. Although smoking should be banned in schools, it still occurs.

As an individual parent, you can influence some positive changes if you discuss asthma triggers with school personnel. You can request that animals be removed from the classroom and moved elsewhere. If your child is bothered by chalk dust, he could be seated farther away from the blackboard. If he naps at day care or school, provide his own pillow with a protective covering. Suggest to the school principal that cockroaches are reduced by thorough cleaning, especially in the kitchen and cafeteria areas and through regular exterminating treatments and use of traps. Exterminating, cleaning with chemicals, or

maintaining the grounds (mowing the grass or playing fields) should be done before or after school hours.

If you don't want to stand out as a solitary critic, find other parents of children with asthma and approach school administrators as a small group to make these recommendations. At home, you work hard to keep your child's asthma under control, so don't hesitate to ask others to make a collective effort to protect all children with asthma from triggers at day care and school. Children shouldn't miss school because of this disease. They should be able to pay attention to their schoolwork, participate in all activities, and rarely need to take quick relief medicine if triggers are eliminated.

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