Review Summary: Employer Responsibility

In term two this topic was reviewed by school boards and staff. Generally, the ratings were very high for both content and implementation, with most review comments very positive. There were two recurring themes, however…

1. EEO. It’s true, schools are no longer required to publish an EEO programme each year. We have changed the topic to say this.
    
2. Many reviewers were unhappy with the wording, ”recognises the needs of ethnic and minority groups, and the requirements of women and persons with disabilities”, objecting to the “lumping in of women with minority groups and the disabled”, and wondering what women’s special employment requirements are. We decided to remove the entire bulletpoint from the topic, and put it in the draft EEO topic with wording that better reflects the spirit of the EEO policy (recognises the value of diversity in staffing (for example, ethnicity, age, gender, disability, hours of work, etc) and the employment requirements of diverse individuals/groups).

In the EEO topic is a link to the Ministry of Education’s EEO Planning Resource which (among other things) talks about the value of diversity in a school’s staff. Just to summarise, very roughly, some of the benefits of diversity are that with a bigger range of people there’s a bigger opportunity to find someone you can relate to; a greater selection of role models, the opportunity to learn new things, and new ways of doing things, and great value in learning to work with, and deal with, people whose needs might be different from our own.
Some reviewers mentioned specific concerns and, as usual, we urge schools to check their implementation feedback and address any issues raised there by members of their school community.

Dogs at School

So the issue of dogs at school rears its head again, although it's possibly issues from the other end that are the problem. What happens at your school?

A couple of schools have asked us about dogs at school policies. We have one if anyone wants it. It says "dogs are not permitted on the school grounds at any time". It seems that schools have different tolerances in this area, and probably very different experiences and problems.

What's it like at your school? Are dogs a problem? Do you have/want a policy about them?

On 24 August 2011, John said: "We have a Canine Educators programme where we have identified staff owned dogs, that have been independently assessed and passed a specific course to be certified as a SNBS Canine Educator. We have signs around the school where we state Canine Educator Dogs Only."

And Graeme Sullivan said: "We do have a dog policy.We believe dogs are part of the community and family life. Children should be given the opportunity to learn about how to approach dogs. So we have a policy that allows dogs into school under controlled conditions. Not everyone agrees with this but so far so good. The policy has been working well for five years."

The Peanut Peril

As mentioned in a (much) earlier blog entry, we hear of increasing numbers of children with potentially life-threatening allergies. How do we keep them safe at school?

There are plenty of things that children can be allergic to, but peanuts beat the others for causing anaphylactic shock, and reactions to peanuts can be triggered by such tiny amounts. In a sensitive individual, symptoms can occur after exposure to 1/800th of a peanut. You don't even have to eat it, it might be transferred by hand, on a surface, through a hug, etc. It's hard to avoid the peanut peril altogether because peanuts are used in so many things, including as thickeners, as cooking oils; and exist as traces through cross contamination with exposed items.

So, how do we protect allergic children at school? Do we educate the school community about the dangers of peanuts, and sharing food generally, and hand hygiene, etc etc. Do we ban peanuts outright? Do we avoid "shared food" at special morning teas/lunches?

What challenges have you had with allergies at your school? Have you had to use an Epipen on anyone? Does everyone at school know how to use one?

Good news: many children outgrow peanut allergies (don't test this at home!), and scientists are genetically modifying peanuts to rid them of the problem causing proteins.(And shrimp, apparently - good news for seafood allergic types!).