When a School Won't Cooperate
It happens. For whatever reason, there are schools and teachers and nurses and coaches who do not cooperate with the standard of care that the medical team and family have developed. Some base their policies on old information instead of on new technologies and treatments. Others believe that it is not in their contracts to provide the extra attention and care a child with diabetes can use during the school day.
Enlisting Help
If you do find yourself in that situation, you'll need to get help fast. Your first option is to find another family with a child with diabetes who has had a good experience. Often, one school in a district may be handling things well when another is not. Set up a meeting between principals and nurses of both schools and go over your requests. Sometimes, all it takes is another school's success to help a school come on board.
If that is not available or does not work, ask your medical team if they have anyone they can refer. An advocate is someone who understands the needs of a child with diabetes and is seen by the school as a true expert. While parents realize that they are experts as well, sometimes schools think that parents are being overprotective or are overreacting to situations with their children. An outside expert can go a long way toward providing help in that situation.
Enable Your School to Break New Ground
Diabetes care has changed so drastically in the past few years, and more changes are coming. Just a decade ago, most children were on two shots a day and were forced to eat only at set times and not at any other time. Before that time, children were on one shot a day, and it was thought that little could be done about fluctuating blood sugars. Because of this, ironically, it was easier to care for a child in school.
Fact
Younger kids in school on pumps are largely a product of the twenty-first century. Your child may, in fact, end up being the first child your school has ever had on an insulin pump. This first can be a good thing: You'll be the one setting the rules and making the procedures.
With the long-term advantages of tight control, better fast-acting insulin, and insulin pumps, there comes a bigger challenge in school. Kids who run tight blood sugars are more apt to go low; kids who are on pumps can go high and spill ketones quicker. But in the school setting, it's a plus, because kids on tighter control feel better and do better in school.
Explain this to the staff at your school; show them studies. See if you can get them to embrace the idea of making your child's school experience with diabetes the most healthful and positive of this new era. Getting school staff to feel as though they're helping you be on the cutting edge of a better educational and social experience can go a long way. Win them over to your team. In the end, your child and the school will win.
