§2205 Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Management

Summary

Creates voluntary national guidelines to help schools and early childhood programs prevent and handle food allergies and sudden allergic reactions (anaphylaxis). The Secretary of Health and Human Services, working with the Secretary of Education, must create the guidelines no later than 1 year after January 4, 2011, and make them available to local educational agencies, schools, and early childhood education programs. Key terms: “early childhood education program” means Head Start/Early Head Start, state‑licensed child care or school, or state prekindergarten serving birth through kindergarten; “school” means public kindergarten, elementary, and secondary schools; “Secretary” means the Secretary of Health and Human Services; the terms local educational agency, elementary school, secondary school, and parent use their meanings from federal education law. Individual plans that follow the guidelines are treated as education records under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. 1232g). The guidelines must cover things like what medical documentation parents must give each year, creating an individualized allergy plan for children at risk, rules about a child self‑administering medicine if allowed by State law, communication with emergency medical services, ways to reduce exposure in classrooms and cafeterias, staff and student information and training, allowing trained school staff to give and access epinephrine when the nurse is not available, recordkeeping and parent notification after epinephrine use, and other needed elements. The Secretary may give grants to local educational agencies to help put the guidelines into practice. Grants require an application, must be used to supplement other funds, can be for up to $50,000 per year and for no more than 2 years per agency, and require the agency to provide at least 25 percent non‑Federal matching funds. Agencies may use up to 2 percent of grant money for administration. Grants can buy supplies (including limited medical supplies such as epinephrine), fund training and education, and support parent outreach. Priority goes to agencies with the highest percentages of children counted under section 6333(c) of title 20. Second‑year funding may depend on a successful evaluation. The law authorizes $30,000,000 for fiscal year 2011 and such sums as needed for the four following fiscal years. The guidelines are voluntary unless a local educational agency agrees to follow them as a condition of receiving a grant.