Why must everyone be punished?

For one student's allergies? [Link]

While she was assured the school would do everything it took to keep Elodie safe, the school continued to run its milk and snack program, which handed out puddings, yogurts and cheese, and hold bake sales and pizza days. She was excluded from many a fun day and BBQ. While students ate chocolates on Valentine’s Day, Elodie’s cards went straight into recycling for fear of contamination. Elodie was also “segregated” at lunch and snack time in kindergarten, and put at risk in Grade 1 when she had to sit at a separate table in the classroom while her classmates ate their cheese sandwiches and drank their milk. When Elodie came home from school one day with watery eyes and shortness of breath, Ms. Glover said it was because her daughter’s teacher had been eating buttered popcorn.

“They left me no choice but to file a claim to get them to the table because I wasn’t getting anywhere,” said the stay-at-home mother of five girls in an interview with the Post on Monday. “I’m not looking for a guaranteed allergy-free environment because I know it’s not possible. But reasonable accommodations that fall in line with our doctor’s diagnosis is just plain common sense.”

While the school is designated peanut and tree-nut free, she said, parents of Elodie’s classmates were not told about her daughter’s egg and dairy allergy, apart from in one school newsletter that was sent home.

Ms. Glover wants the allergens removed from the school, and school and board staff get human rights training. She wants to “bring to light the fact that children have the right to a barrier free education.”

“Anything short of that is discrimination,” she says.