As a parent it is your responsibility to ensure that the school is willing and capable of helping your child manage their diabetes.  If your child is in a public school in the US, they are required to provide you with services that ensures your child can experience school like every other child.  (Learn about a 504 plan)

Here are some initial steps that we took to ensure our relationship with our school was a positive one:

1. Tell Your School:  Seems obvious, but this is the first step.  Walk into the administrative office and let them know that your child has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.  They are either going to know immediately what you need to do, or they are going to be lost.  This will help you understand how active you’ll need to be.
2. Meet with your Nurse: We then went to our district nursing office (as the nurse to our school wasn’t there).  At the office they explained all the forms we needed to get filled out so that the nursing staff would understand what their responsibilities were.
3. Meet with your Teacher: Like your administrative office, your teacher is either going to understand the situation immediately or need your help.  Regardless, you should put together a single page document that outlines what Type 1 diabetes is, what the dangers are, and how to look out for signs of trouble with your child.  It will be your teacher that is next to your child day-in and day-out.  It is absolutely necessary that you help them learn about this disease.
4. Document Requirements: Your doctor will have given you an insulin routine to follow and guidelines for insulin dosages and snack restrictions.  You’ll need to write these requirements down in an easy-to-read document that can go to your nurse(s), your teacher and any other school personnel looking after your child.  (These documents are also great to use for babysitters, parents and family, as well as close friends who spend a lot of time with your child).  It is critical to also document all the telephone numbers where you can be reached in case something should happen.
5. Be There: We spent the first few weeks with one of us meeting our son at lunch time to ensure that he ate his meal and got his insulin injection.  Because our school has a rotation of nurses, we spent time with each one and explained our son’s situation.  It took a while, but pretty soon, we became just observers and eventually handed off responsibility to the school.

We were “fortunate” in that there were a couple of other children at our school with Type 1 diabetes (even another in our son’s class!).  This made us more comfortable knowing that the school was experienced, but it also helped our son as he was not alone on his trips to the nurse’s office each day.

It was, and still is, scary handing over such a major responsibility to someone else.  But like with all of the life-aspects of diabetes, we felt it was important for all of us to lead as ‘normal’ a life as possible.  Being proactive, helping educate your school and seeing the management in action will help you eventually let go.