Sarah Howard
Sarah Howard has worked in the diabetes research field ever since she was diagnosed with T1D while in college in May 2013. Since then, she has worked for various diabetes organizations, focusing on research, advocacy, and community-building efforts for people with T1D and their loved ones. Sarah is currently the Senior Marketing Manager at T1D Exchange.
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For caregivers of children with T1D, do you have any special accommodations available from your child’s school? For adults with T1D, did you have special accommodations when you were in school? Cancel reply
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My parents sorted all that out but as far as I’m aware: I had permission to wander the halls without a pass (so I could get to and from the nurses’ office when I needed to), carry a backpack with me in middle school (everyone else had to keep theirs in their lockers, but I needed to keep snacks handy), and I was allowed to eat during standardized tests. By senior year of high school I was also allowed to make up time lost during testing due to treating high or low blood sugars. That wasn’t officially an accommodation, as far as I knew, when I was younger but a couple teachers fudged it for me because they felt bad that I’d lost time.
My diagnosis came during my junior year in college. The college dining hall menu had only a single “standard” meal for all students, but for me and other students with specific diet restrictions, the school had a diet table with a variety of choices. It worked well.
I clicked the wrong button! I did have type 1 in school, but I do not remember having accomodations.
When my son was in Elementary school in Albuquerque NM I worked with a group of parents who had children with type 1.
We arranged to have the children guaranteed the ability to carry and eat glucose tablets at their discretion as well as testing their blood sugar, injecting insulin or seeing the nurse. There were also written instructions informing substitute teachers of these rights.
My son is now thirty three so this was 20 + years ago.
With cgms and pumps it must be easier for a young type 1 to take care of themselves at schoo.
I was diagnosed as a freshman in college. Only special accommodation I can recall was for an exercise physiology class where I got an ok to stop a treadmill test early if I got low.
I don’t remember having special accommodations when I was diagnosed in the third grade, but I know I could have eaten anytime I felt that my sugar level was low.
I was diagnosed in 1973 so there was no blood testing and I didn’t even give myself a bolus injection when I ate since the “regular insulin” was still working on my blood sugar well into the early afternoon.
pretty much the same in my case (fifth grade). The teachers knew, but nothing special seemed to be needed.
I had T1D in graduate school. I had no accommodations.
I was 48 and substitute teaching when I was diagnosed. The Americans with Disabilities Act did prevent my losing an assignment monitoring exams when my pump beeped (now on MDI, not because of that).
Our son was #3 type 1 diabetic in our family unit. He was diagnosed in Jr. High and had a school nurse who helped him daily. High School was the same help with a school nurse. By college, he was on his own. His father was one of the longest living T1Ds in the country and I was diagnosed with LADA 24 years ago, not in school. CGMs are a tremendous help to me living alone.
I was diagnosed in college and didn’t request any special accommodations.
I was diagnosed as a freshman in high school and had lunch accommodations to avoid sugar and to get the required calories. At that time I counted calories and avoided sugar rather than focusing on carbs as it is now. This was almost 30 years ago. I also had permission to treat lows and check blood sugars as needed. No special accommodations in college though.
Like half of new T1 diagnoses I was diagnosed as an adult, long after school. Glad I did not have to deal with all that comes with that.
Personally, I didn’t have diabetes when I was at school, but a younger sibling, who also developed type 1 diabetes, some 20 years prior to I, was ‘shipped out’ to a ‘specialist home’ for type 1 diabetics. (This was some 50+ years ago. Schools, at that time, over here in the UK, at least, weren’t so au fait with caring for type 1 diabetics.)
I accidentally clicked “other” when I meant to choose “n/a” since I was diagnosed as an adult.
I had no accommodations for my sons while they were in school! And I was not diagnosed until I was 56 with LADA.
I was dx in the 3rd grade in 1955. The “accommodations” were punitive. I was not allowed to join classmates for birthday, Halloween and Valentine’s Day parties. The school nurse would call my mother to take me home if I was experiencing a low. Throughout my public school years it was all my responsibility.
I started school in the 1960’s. No one had thought of, or considered accommodation back then. I remember some days being low and stumbling to lunch. I was on one shot a day of U40 beef insulin injected from a glass syringe and HUGE steel needle that had to be hand sharpened. I love my pump and CGM.
Me too!
I remember those days too!
I was diagnosed when I was a freshman in high school in 1966. I was excused from gym class and kicked off of the basketball team.
Diagnosed in 1966 when I was 9, the word accommodation was not used. My schools understood and cooperated with my mother to help care for me so I could continue in school. No school nurses, I knew to ask to go to the office and my teachers knew to send me there if I was not acting right. Neighborhood schools in action.
I was diagnosed at age 14, so had T1D throughout high school & college. I do not remember any accommodations being given in classes or in sports.
However, that was in the late 1960’s, before self-monitoring meters or multiple daily injections. I saw my doctor every few months, and had a lab- drawn blood sugar prior to the appt, which I never considered representative of anything except the few hours prior to the test.
It’s amazing any of us survived!
No such thing as accommodations when I was in school… I suppose the nurse might have helped if I had asked for help, but she wasn’t tasked with doing anything for me… it was all on me.
I was diagnosed at a young age, but my caregivers are now my spouse and adult children. They were not around when I was a child! I know that my mother did make the schools I went to aware that I had diabetes, but I do not know what accommodations were in place other than that I was allowed to sit in the hallway to eat my morning snack and/or go to the nurse if I felt like my blood sugar was dropping. So, I answered N/A.
1968, so no accommodations whatsoever.
1960s and early 70s – no special accommodations other than I was allowed to keep sugar cubes wrapped in aluminum foil in my purse and a bottle of Karo syrup or maple syrup in a cloak room supply cabinet during grade school and in my locker during high school. My HS gym teacher kept OJ in a little fridge in her office – her dad was a T1D and she knew me from when she was a camp counselor at the diabetes kids camp I attended in my youth.
I was a first grader when I was diagnosed in the mid-60s. The only ‘accomodation’ in grade school was that I was allowed to go to the nurses station if my sugar dropped (no CGM those days…. so it was usually me stumbling around in the classroom!). In junior high (called middle school these days), I was allowed to go to my locker for scheduled snacks outside of our 1 timeslot to go to lockers during the day. Things are so different and I think easier these days.. Imagine being able to just eat a snack or take a bottle of Powerade to class!
My teachers kept oranger juice cans in the classroom. When needed I would tell them and I could get one. Once I got middle school they were kept in the office, and I could go get one as needed. In high school my grandma worked there so my low treatments were kept in her office in the library.