STRATFORD, Conn. – Parents are at odds over a proposed policy to make the Stratford, Connecticut school district peanut-free in an effort to cut down on life-threatening allergic reactions.

Stratford Superintendent Janet Robinson initially emailed parents of students in all of the district’s schools informing them that the district will become peanut-free at the beginning of the year.

But backlash from parents and a request from the board of education has prompted a public hearing on the plan, the Stratford Star reports.

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Robinson said nurses in the district urged her to do something to combat allergic reactions to peanuts that have become increasingly common among students, a scary experience that can turn deadly if it’s not treated immediately.

“The severity of the response to peanuts is what worries these nurses,” Robinson said. “I haven’t personally had to experience having my kid in a hospital because of allergies. But the possibility of even one child having to experience such a traumatic event … well, it is part of my job to consider the safety of all students.”

The board of education, however, received many emails and calls from parents requesting that the district postpone the ban to discuss the issue further, Robinson said.

“Because we, meaning the staff and the Board of Education, take the safety of all our children very seriously, we want to ensure that all ramifications of any such policy are clearly understood,” Robinson wrote to parents in an email, according to the Star.

“We are postponing the implementation of the total peanut free schools until the Board of Education has the opportunity to hear concerns and weigh the decision.”

A Center for Disease Control report shows the number of students with food allergies has increased 18 percent between 1997 and 2007, and peanuts or other nut allergies are the most common. Nut allergies are also commonly lifelong, unlike other allergies that can go away as children grow up, the Star reports.

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Jeanna Right runs the Facebook page Stratford Food Allergy Families and has two children in Stratford schools. Her oldest attends Stratford Academy, which is already a nut-free school, and her younger child attends Wilcoxson Elementary, which is not. Her younger son has had more than one allergic reaction at school, she said.

“If you have never had the experience of your throat closing up it is the scariest thing,” Right said. “To not have control over what is happening to your child is really scary. My older son has no allergies and went to a nut-free preschool. I didn’t know anything about allergies at that time. I never complained.

“I feel like someone who has a kid without allergies has no idea how blessed they are,” she said. “They can go on vacation wherever, or out to dinner and not worry. It’s about keeping a child’s life safe.”

She said her son can read ingredients, but believes he’s too young to carry an EpiPen with him at all times in the event of an allergic reaction.

“A kid in elementary can’t be a total advocate for that themselves,” Right said. “In the cafeteria he has to sit at a peanut-free table. But he can have reaction by contact. If he were to have a reaction, the medication is at the nurse’s office. Could they react quickly enough?”

Currently, the district’s Food Allergy Management Policy describes peanut allergies, the potentially deadly consequences of ingesting peanuts for those who are allergic, and points out that “students with documented life-threatening food allergies are considered disabled and are covered by the Disabilities Act,” according to the Star.

Currently, the district’s policy deals with allergies on a school by school basis.

The hearing on the peanut-free district will be held at a yet to be determined date in January, the Star reports.