What is the age of your CWD and does your school allow them to take a cell phone to school so that you can see their BG via Share? Thanks.
I'm following your thread for suggestions/comments! My DS is 10 and is going to middle school/6th grade in September and we will have the Share by the end of July. My older son goes to the middle school and they are really strict about cell phones being kept in lockers. Do you have certain language in your 504 allowing access to the school's wifi and his cell phone? I don't think there are any other D kids w/ Dex/Share in the middle school and crossing my fingers they don't give me a hard time.
Include in 504 plan "Cell phone to be kept on child and charged at all times, including on field trips, and used for remote CGMS monitoring, texting and/or calling of guardians with glucose readings, insulin pump troubleshooting, and for dosing advice. Student in understanding that cell phone will not be used for social or entertainment purposes during class time. Cell phone may never be taken from student. Student to have access to school wifi network and outlets for charging purposes as needed."
My son has been carrying a cell phone with him since about the third grade, so when he walked home from the bus etc he would have it with him. He is now in the 8th grade and the nurse at the school had it written into his 504 plan that he can have his phone. In the 6th grade they wanted kids to keep them in their lockers, but that is changing and now they can have them on them as long as they are not using them in class. In 7th grade my T1d could have his cell when certain teachers wanted them there to do research etc...now in the 8th grade diabetic or not he kids are encouraged more and more to use technology and will use their phones to do internet searches etc at their desk. I found I had to contact the school though to make sure they let him keep it during tests so I could monitor his BG.
Great wording for the 504, I'm printing that out!!! Our schools in NJ started the new standardized testing PARCC and they turn off all access to wifi since it the test is performed on a laptop. It means 3 weeks of no wifi (one week for 6th, 7th and 8th grades). I wonder if there is anyway around that!
When we were doing CGM in the cloud during theater club after school, she would just keep everything in her kit. Everything but what was needed was turned off. But, they hated the cables for CGM in the Cloud, and since we have a nurse, it wasn't used much. We can't do share right now because their phones aren't compatible (Iphone 4), but they are getting new ones for their b'day. They won't utilize share at school, but we will for all other activities. School just allowed us to have access with the understanding it was to run the device only.
My 9 year old third grader carries an iPhone with her for her Share. She knows not to use it otherwise. We don't formally have it written into her 504 yet, but will if we need to. right now the school will not allow her wifi access and I haven't had the energy to fight it yet so she is just running off data.
Beach Bum - why doesn't the iPhone 4 work? Is it just Share or Follow that doesn't work? I have a 4 and I was able to install Follow on my phone. Its not active yet but I could install it. I'm planning on having Emma use an iPhone 5 for her Dex Share but was planning on keeping my 4 for me to run Follow. If that won't work, my plan goes out the door because I'll have to upgrade 3 lines in order to get Emma moving with this (again, because no way I can give the 10 year old an iPhone and not the 15yo).
My 14yo has permission to keep his phone on and with him but on vibrate. This was not an issue. He got in trouble for random alerts but I showed him how to fix that. He'd also get in trouble for non-D use but that hasn't happened yet. We don't have CGM so no need to access wifi.
I believe you can Follow with 4 but not Share with 4. Sharing requires BLE (new version of Bluetooth) which began with the 4S. http://www.dexcom.com/faq/what-devices-are-compatible-dexcom-share-and-follow-apps
My 10 year old DD has a phone and has always been allowed to use it during school to communicate with caregivers about diabetes related matters. We included that language in 504 plan a few years ago and I felt it covered Share. I seldom look at Share during school hours as she seems able to sense when she low.
My 11 year old son will be going to 6th grade/middle school next year and he will be permitted to have his phone with him at all times. I am definitely going to include language in the 504 to permit this. Our issue will be if we can text - for some reason there is a lot of difficulty texting from the building.
Share wouldn't all me to download, said not compatible. But, in addition, they didn't have enough memory on their phones. We'd have to toss a lot of stuff to get it running.
We got a used 4S for $100 on craigslist and activated it on Page Plus which is a Verizon reseller. Total usage comes out to about $5/month. Older kid (non-T1) got my old iPhone 5 when I upgraded my phone and has agreed to babysit monthly to earn her data plan ($15/month on Ting, a Sprint reseller). It can be done without breaking the bank.
Hana is 14 and graduating 8th. She has a cell and CGM with share. However, we do not use it at school. First, because the signal is so bad, most of the time, I just got a No data. But secondly, she is old enough that I don't have to be watching her numbers during the day. She has been responsible for correcting and bolusing on her own for several years now. Watching the share all day would just drive me crazy. we really only use it at night. We did have an incident last week though. She has it written in to her medical plan that she can have a cell phone on her at all times. Last week she was on a field trip to NYC. She would text me updates periodically throughout the day. The rule was no cell phones, however, of course ion the bus ride almost all of the kids had their phones out. For some reason, the only person the teacher decided to call out was Hana. She came up behind her and grabbed the phone out of her hand. At the time she wasn't even using the phone. It was just in her hand. Hana told the teacher that she was allowed to have the phone. She must have realized she screwed up and basically threw it back at her. I sent off a very nice (not) email to the teacher when I found out.