Frequently Asked Questions¶
Answers about our data, for school staff and anyone checking our work. For emergencies, call 911.
For families¶
I have a question about my own or my child's epilepsy, or my child's school plan.
EDAN publishes data and does not advise individual families. The Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota helps families directly. You can still look up any district's audit result in Find Your District.
For schools and staff¶
We have Policy 516 already. Is that enough?
Often not. Many districts' Policy 516 (Student Medication) covers epinephrine and asthma but never mentions seizures. Check whether yours names seizures and a seizure action plan, and whether it cites Minn. Stat. 121A.24. Drop-in language is in the free packet (PDF).
We have no school nurse. What do we do?
The law allows a trained designated individual at each site when a nurse is not available. The free training below covers what that person needs to know, and the packet gives you a ready plan template.
Where do we get free training and templates?
The Epilepsy Foundation of Minnesota offers free Seizure Smart trainings for school staff, on demand or by request. The Minnesota Department of Health has a seizure toolkit with plan templates and an implementation checklist. EDAN's free packet (PDF) has a plan template and Policy 516 language.
What is the single highest-impact thing we can do?
Post a seizure action plan template on your health-services web page so families can find and complete it, then make sure a trained person is named at each building.
About the data¶
How did you decide whether a district 'posts a plan'?
We reviewed each district's public website: the board-policy page (Policy 516), the health-services page, and the parent/student handbook, then classified into four categories. See The Audit.
Is 'no plan found' the same as 'not compliant'?
No. We measured public findability, not legal compliance. A district may have an internal plan we could not see. We never label a district non-compliant.
How accurate is this?
The first pass used AI-assisted web searches to find each district's pages, sorted into four categories by a fixed rubric. A separate, blind re-check of a random sample of 30 districts agreed 90% of the time (Cohen's kappa 0.82 across the four categories, "almost perfect" agreement, and 0.80 for plan versus no plan, "substantial"), and disagreements usually found more seizure content, so the gap is, if anything, slightly overstated.
My district's entry is wrong or out of date. Can you fix it?
Yes. Email edanmnorg@gmail.com and we will correct it and say that we did. If your district has plans and trained staff in place, that is exactly what we want to hear: tell us what your district has.