Allergies Awareness at Banded Peak

Banded Peak School continues to take steps to ensure the ongoing safety of our students and staff.  This includes ensuring that we are sensitive to the health risks associated with food allergies within the school.  In alignment with the Alberta School Act, Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and Rocky View Schools’ policies and procedures we are working to limit student/staff exposure to common allergens in our school.

We are working in a number of ways to make students, teachers, parents, and facility users aware that there may be students with severe allergies in our school.  These efforts include:

• "Allergy Aware" stop signs on classroom doors, which signify specific allergies are present.  These might include peanuts, tree nuts (almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts, pine nuts, pistachios and macadamia nuts), and dairy.
• Signs at the entry doors to the school indicating that we request that nuts not be brought or sent into the school.
• “Nut Free” Zones within our school including our Learning Commons, around computers, gymnasium, and specified classrooms
• Signage in our bathrooms encouraging students to wash hands thoroughly
• Educating our staff on how to handle situations should an allergic reaction occur.
• Discussing with students any allergens that might be present in the classroom and how to ensure the safety of all students in the school.
• Informing parents of Rocky View Schools’ Allergy Procedure at the beginning of the school year; including the responsibility of the parent, the student, the school

At Banded Peak we have a number of students who are highly allergic to nuts or products containing nuts.  Exposure to these allergens may result in the student going into anaphylactic shock. Anaphylactic shock is a sudden, severe and sometimes fatal allergic response to a trigger substance such as food, vaccines, or drugs.  It may cause decreased blood pressure, dilation of capillaries or constriction of the airway.  As a result of these severe reactions we request that you do not send peanut or nut products to school with your child in lunches, for snack, bakes sales or classroom celebrations.

We appreciate your support and would welcome any feedback you may have.