A peanut-free table in the cafeteria seems like a reasonable solution. It makes it safe for the kids with allergies without putting the responsibility on the kids without them. Even suspending peanut service for one flight isn't too bad. I'm curious though...what happens if you go to a ballgame where people are eating peanuts, or candybars with peanuts in them. If the ice cream truck comes and you are next to someone who gets something that has nuts in it, what is the protocol? Do you just go sit somewhere else, or is it not that dangerous for you? Or are they not allowed to serve anything with nuts in it? I moved to the Netherlands before all the controversy in schools about banning any and all nut products from the premesis, so I missed out on the arguments about the best thing. But it just seems to me that you can not ban nuts from every public venue, so education would be a better alternative...teach kids how to handle it rather than try to pretend that it doesn't exist. But I would be interested to hear the perspective of someone with the allergy.
For me, if someone is eating peanuts near me, I'm usually okay. At baseball games, since the peanuts usually have shells, I move at least two seats away so I don't inhale the peanut dust. For airplanes, it's different. One main reason I tell them about the allergy is so I can preboard and wipe down my seating area, which basically means all three seats and tray tables in my row, since they don't always get wiped down in between. Also, airplanes are basically floating boxes circulating air on the inside, and that means that if something's in the air, it's going to stay there. Outside, probably not as big a deal since everything is constantly moving. For instance, if someone is wearing a strong perfume or cologne outside, I'll probably cough a few times, move away, and be fine. On an airplane...it's not good. I know where to seat myself on an airplane (middle of plane, near a window seat) to make sure that's less of an issue, but the point is because it's such a confined space, it means I have to ask for precautions to be taken.
It's hard to say what can be done about peanut allergies. Those with allergies are still in the minority, a very small minority, in fact. And within that small minority, you have a range of types of allergies. So there's no one-size-fits-all policy. And for those that aren't allergic, nuts are a rich source of vitamins and minerals that are quite nutritious. So it's not an easy problem by any means.
One of the best ways to help those with allergies is basically just alerting them when the allergen is present. Restaurants should post warnings about foods that contain nuts. If a restaurant is peanut or nut free, they should also post that. I'm much more likely to eat someplace that has no nuts because, although I also have other allergies, that eliminates a major allergen.
Airplanes are the one place that I think should be peanut-free. There exist enough other snacks to serve that don't have peanuts in them, and since the amount of people with peanut allergies is rising, that would be one place where I think it would be better not to serve peanuts. Before Airtran merged with Southwest, they had stopped serving people peanuts on their flights.
As far as serving peanuts in cafeterias or teachers having candy in their classrooms with nuts, I don't think they should for the simple reason that a kid might accidentally take something with peanuts in it and have a problem. Kids aren't as responsible dealing with food allergies as adults are, and for some, it can create a life-threatening issue. If the reasoning is a safety issue, then yes, the rules should be in place. If it's an issue of there will be hurt feelings, that's a different story.
, but... 
