Oh jeez. Of course they are picketing her, how dare their kids be forced to wash their hands and mouths?
This is a tough one for me. This girl has a right to be able to go to school and learn like everyone else. Her disability does not affect the classroom nearly enough as some disruptive kids with social-related disorders would, but the kids being “forced” or “punished” with washing their hands is just tooooo much.
As a side note, according to school data, the number of kids out sick has definitely declined since this was instituted.
What if this kid was one of these parents’ daughters? They’d have the pleasure of watching their daughter break out in hives, slowly becoming unable to speak, swallow, or even breathe due to the peanut-confronted histamines going crazy inside her.
But unless you really know what serious food allergies can do to a person, it’s easy to assume that this girl’s parents are over-protective and over-reacting.
On the other hand, if your allergies are really that serious, it’s going to be very hard to eliminate all allergy concerns, even with the mandatory hand-washing and mouth-rinsing.
The other sad thing here is this: Growing up as a kid with severe allergies, ALL you want to do is fit in. Having to be restricted, isolated, monitored constantly will make you feel like you will never be the same as other kids. This girl probably isn’t home schooled because her parents wanted to let her play and interact with other children, despite her serious allergies.
But she eats her lunch alone. And the fact that kids and parents are in an uproar about the hand-washing rule, well… she’s probably not the most popular girl in her grade. In fact, I’m fairly sure she gets picked on every day, who knows how badly. If I had a daughter like that, I really don’t know if I’d be able to subject her to such daily torment, even if I wanted her to have the school experience that most other kids have.
Here’s more in-depth stuff on this story:
I Love Food and I'm Allergic to Everything 