Healthy schools: Allergy kids considered truant?

[Guest guest]

From Healthy Schools Network:

Reply only to cbarnett@... .

My office has come across one-too-many-reports over the years (and two current

ones) that local schools-- mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect-- have

threatened to report or actually reported parents when they have kept their

severely asthmatic/allergic/health impaired children home from school to protect

them from known harmful exposures. The distraught parents have requests in

writing for health protections and have MD back up.

One parent alerted her state legislator that a school official had threatened

her with an abuse/neglect report after she brought documents acquired through

the freedom of information act to a public hearing. A parent whose child was

evacuated to an emergency room documented environmental problems; she was later

barred from entering school grounds.

How widespread is this?

I am looking for other people/groups who have come across similar reports or who

have had that very unfortunate direct experience. If you wish to tell us about

that experience directly, go to http://www.healthyschools.org/tell_us.html

Barnett

L. Barnett, Executive Director, Healthy Schools Network, Inc.

518-462-0632

Coordinator, National Coalition for Healthier Schools

202-453-7555