It's pretty obvious WHY. If someone with a severe allergy comes into contact with...peanuty residue (forgot the name of it, peanut protein or something), and it gets into a vulnerable part of their body (mouth or eyes), they'll have a severe reaction and they could die depending on how shit goes from there. Dying or not, nearly suffocating is a bitch of an experience regardless. It doesn't take much either, and it's not a joke that someone could touch a door handle or something, rub their eyes, and have an allergic reaction.
There's hundreds, thousands of things you could substitute instead of eating peanuts, there's really no reason to bitch about it. Schools are supposed to be a safe environment, and with so many people moving around and touching shit, you just never know. Better safe than sorry.
EDIT: and yeah schools do go a little far with it, like not eating peanuts even at home...pretty retarded. It makes sense in a way, but it's just a joke to try and enforce something like that.
The schools here, no Penut Butter at all. All the candy and snacks in vending machines are gone because they may contain nuts. Like they went full out. Even when the candy had warnings on them, they still got rid of them. I mean, the whole point of this topic is because I found out that they're trying to tell the parents "try not to let your kid have nuts at home, if they do, make sure they wash their hands for 30 seconds and arms and clothing" and all that jazz.
Actually candy and snacks were removed because parents have gone berserk against unhealthy food. Basically anything with sugar got pulled from educational environments.
At least, that's what happened to every school in my town, and I even have some Canadian friends elsewhere whose schools did the same shit.
Retarded, but not peanuts fault this time...though i'm pretty sure peanuty snacks weren't allowed just because of the general ban anyway.