School diet issue: suggestions please

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Our daughter is on a GFCF diet and I am trying to match, where possible, what

the hot lunch is at her school as she is starting to get comments about what

she's bringing from home. I asked the school secretary this morning if there

were some way to refrigerate her meal between when she arrives in the morning

(7:30 or 8:45, depending on if she goes to child care or comes in on the bus)

and when her lunch is (about 12:30). She told me she could not, because " if we

do it for one child, we have to do it for all " or words to that effect.

Incidentally, it would not need to be warmed, as she is willing (even prefers

sometimes) her casseroles etc. to be cold, but we didn't get into that. This

rationale is false from the get-go, as they give her an aide and various pullout

services as well as medication, which they don't do for " all " children in the

school, but I decided not to get into it at that time (I was already starting to

write this letter in my mind as I left the office).

I am open to any suggestions anyone can give, as I am hesitant to trust a

" blue ice " -type product with anything more than a hot dog and do not want a

ceramic bowl in her lunch box, between weight and risk of breakage, although if

we put the casserole serving or whatever in it the night before and chilled it

that would probably hold the temperature better than a Tupperware-type container

also pre-chilled.

Based on the interactions we have had with the school already this year (see

below), I am not sure who I should make my next request of: our daughter's case

manager, the principal, or, which could cause a rift but would probably get the

job done, the assistant director of special ed.

What really makes this aggravating is that this is the same school where the

new school nurse is pushing for our daughter to do things as much as possible

like the other children, to the point she essentially doubled the time (relative

to what was in our pediatrician's signed instructions) our daughter was supposed

to have her foot braces on in order to use " natural breaks " in the day instead

of going by the clock (we were supposed to be on a sliding schedule to

reintroduce them after she'd had them off for some lesions to clear up) and did

not inform her aide, who would be helping her 4 of the 5 days, of the things to

look for when taking her braces off her or that there was supposed to be a

sliding schedule. If they can disobey signed medical orders that they required

before doing anything about her braces to make her like the others/not make her

stand out (the rationale the nurse gave for using the " natural breaks " instead

of going by the written instructions), it

seems letting her stick her lunch in a fridge so she doesn't risk food

poisoning would be a relatively simple thing to let her do. (By the way, I wrote

the nurse and copied the principal and eventually ended up sending the materials

to the assistant director of special education for the district, so hopefully we

won't have that kind of problem again.)

Where do we go from here?

Thanks for your help.

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