<p>I work at a completely peanut-free private school. Not only can a child not bring in a PB&J sandwich or PB cookies (no matter what table he sits at), the cafeteria uses no peanuts or peanut oils in any of hits cooking. To further enforce the no-peanut/we have kids with severe food allergies rule, no home-baked goods may brought in for birthdays or parties. You want to celebrate…ask the cafeteria folks to bake something from a pre-approved list.</p>
<p>Mansfield, does the private school offer hot or cold lunches that are prepared and sold by the school’s cafeteria staff? Is refigeration available to students bringing food from home? In our public school system these services are just not available in all of the schools, so these policies are just not enforced strictly.</p>
<p>I work in the public schools. Our administrators have staunchly refused to have our schools go completely peanut-free. They feel that the peanut-free tables are enough. They just don’t think it’s possible to really enforce a totally peanut-free environment. </p>
<p>The cafeterias do sell PB&J sandwiches, but they are prepared separately and securely wrapped. That is the only thing we sell with Peanut anything - we won’t even sell snacks if they come with a warning that they may have been prepared using equipment that also processes peanuts. No peanut oil, no peanut or tree-nut ingredients in anything else.</p>
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What exactly does that leave? I’m all for food safety but I think we’re getting carried away lately. We ate baked goods, my kids ate baked goods and I hope my grandchildren get to enjoy homemade cupcakes before the nanny state completely takes over.</p>
<p>Northeastmom, the school cafeteria does offer hot/cold lunches for purchase. There is no refrigeration available to those who bring lunch from home. Come to think of it, I don’t know of any school around here that offers to refrigerate lunches for the students. There is a very strong anti-peanut coalition at this school. My boss (we don’t have any direct interaction with the students) keeps a jar of peanut butter hidden in his desk drawer and makes his own sandwiches when he gets a craving.</p>
<p>I did an email fund raiser. I just emailed 5 people on my email list to ask them to support my S’s school organization. Any amount would do. The next day, $300 was pledged! Now, we’re moving on to the next group…</p>
<p>My child attended a school that did not allow home baked foods and there were no bake sales. They had other fundraisers of candy and other things (cookie dough in tubs I think). The current school allows bake sales and I guess it is caveat emptor. I never really worried about cookies or cakes that were home made (no allergy issue), but to each his own. Last year I baked brownies for a sale, and of course D forgot to take them. I drove them to the school and told the office staff to eat them if she never picked them up. She never picked them up (and I never found out what happened to them.) I like hearing about the no event fund raisers, but these are not in vogue here.</p>
<p>Nothing home made is allowed in our charter school.
I do not know about the HS yet 
I personally prefer home made stuff for the kids - it is almost always better than commercial. But we live in the state with the highest incident rate of Hep A - so maybe that is why?
Funny thing about DS high school drink rule - only water and no-sugar drinks are sold (all the diet drink are in the machines) - apparently due to the cockroaches!!!
My kid takes home made ice tea to school every day (sweetened with sugar, but please don’t tell ) :)</p>
<p>Food doesn’t make kids fat, lack of exercise makes them fat.</p>