This morning I was reading an article in the Bangor Daily about a girl in Presque Isle who just received a service dog. The service dog assists her while she is having seizures as well as alerting others during the seizure. The dog also comforts her in public and prevents her from running away (read the article, its great). Anyway, something that upset me was that the school would not allow her to bring the dog to school. I am sure the school is fine with allowing service dogs in (in fact I think they are required to by law) but they are probably more concerned with covering things on their end to prevent lawsuits and upset parents of students with allergies or fears of dogs. This got me thinking further about how schools exist to help children, but how lawsuits and some bureaucratic processes make this difficult or impossible.
When I was teaching, a group of teachers and I took students kayaking. It was a fun day and a great opportunity for students. However, not all teachers were supportive of it and had no interest in participating. I remember one teacher calling our field trip "a lawsuit waiting to happen". I think some schools and teachers have a fear of being sued and it prevents them from putting students first. A perfect case is the student in the article with the service dog.
I am not sure why I decided to blog about this. I really suggest reading the article, it is a great story. I think I just got upset when I read that the girl could not take the dog to school with her. I did a little research and found other similar stories in other areas outside of Maine.
Thanks for the interesting story, Erin. I had missed it. Other stories I've seen chronicle students who are well served by "therapy" dogs in schools or dogs to read to or...
ReplyDeleteFifteen or 20 years ago, it wasn't unusual for teachers to bring a family pet to school each day...but in our litigious society...that is no longer possible...as this story tells us.
This isn't about the service dog story (although it is very interesting) it is about the general fear of lawsuits. I have coached field hockey and softball. Our softball team plays at the town park. The students are required to walk down there as a team and then their parents can pick them up at school or at the park afterward. It is about a 15 minute walk back to school. On several occasions last year there would be only one or two girls walking back to school on their own. In reality it would be much quicker and probably safer if the other coach or I could drive the girls back with the equipment in our car. This of course is not acceptable. I also dislike students walking home when we get back from away games late at night. I know rules are in place to protect kids, but I worry that they are sometimes they are counterproductive.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering how the school can say no to the service dog although I agree it must be something to do with allergies.
ReplyDeleteThe fear of the lawsuit is so true as we are always warned to document all calls and e-mails with parents in case anything like a lawsuit ensues - we are told to cover our butts. Our school has even put an electronic version of documenting everything (actually academic and behavior interventions) on a Noteshare called a WIT log (Whatever it Takes). I actually like keeping track of all the interventions I do with a student and know that the log is available for the Unified Arts teachers as well and for the 7th and 8th grade teachers to use to see what interventions worked in the past when they get our students.
I also agree that the rules can be so frustrating sometimes as Lindsey mentioned. At the beginning of this year we had a student who had to get herself up in the morning and often overslept. She missed the bus and would then be waiting for the BAT bus to get her to school late. An ed tech mentioned that she often saw her waiting on her way to school and wanted to pick her up but knew that she couldn't. We were actually going to try to put something in place so that she could but then the girl moved. I have to agree that sometimes the rules do seem counterproductive to what is good for our students but how many battles can we fight?
I think that is such an interesting line of thought and you;re so right Erin, in our society I am sure that discussions of how the dog will affect students is just around the corner. I had a student who had a severe allergic/asthmatic reaction to the SMELL of popcorn. That's right, the smell. One of the fundraisers for the LifeSkills program is selling popcorn in the cafeteria. We had to stop that last year becasue of that student. We also had to ban popping popcorn anywhere in the building while he was there. This was an amazing kid and the last thing I want is for a kid to have an asthmatic reaction and not feel safe at school. But, where do we draw a line or where will the line get drawn. One more anecdote, like Erin, we take the kids on a fieldtrip every year. It's a lot more tame, a hike on a local "mountain", but this year, this year "Rattlesnake Mountain" as it is known turned into "Yellowjacket Mountain". We had swarms of stinging yellow jackets everywhere. About 2-30 of the 50 of us got stung. When we got back to school, I made the mistake of telling the school nurse what happened and she, appropriately of course, freaked! She had me call all of the parents of kids who got stung. I only remembered a few of the more severe stings (2 or more stings usually counted). Ironically, all of the parents thought I was crazy for calling and most were like, "Yeah, they'll be fine" or "They can tough it out", but, I understood where she was coming from. If a kid had a reaction after school, and we said nothing, would we be held liable? Most likely.
ReplyDeleteScary stuff!!
Oh for the good old days when parents and teachers were all on the same side! I think those days did exist...50 years ago. But, this thread does beg the question about the larger culture of a school and the relationships that are built with parents. I wonder if we worked a bit more on this if in the long run we wouldn't be better off, just for the types of situation you all mentioned?
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