So who should be responsible for paying in this situation?

I'm with the school district. Unless the school is already providing the child with a one on one aide, what are they supposed to do? Provide a full time employee to walk next to the child with the dog? The dog provides the child with a better quality of life, yes, but apparently the child could continue to take seizure medication and go to school without the dog. If the parents want to make this choice for their child, good for them, but the school shouldn't have to pay the expense.

I had a little girl with a full time nurse (she had a tracheotomy) and the district didn't pay. In her case the state did (Medicaid). But if a child is unable to attend school for medical reasons, I believe the district is required to send a teacher to his home... (i'm talking about my state. I am not familiar with the story that you are referring to...)

I wanted to add, I would have no problem with an aide being in my room to handle the dog.

I would assume that the expectation isn't that the teacher would handle the dog, but that the school would provide a paraprofessional to handle the dog. Perhaps this child already has a one on one para to assist him and the parents feel as though the para could handle the dog. I think providing a nurse at school covers the school since there seems to be precedence that other children have successfully attended with a nurse on the premises.

Also, any medication that the student needs wouldn't be kept right on him unless he did have a one on one aide. It would be unsafe to have medications around in case another child ingested them. I wouldn't be responsible to administer the medications as a classroom teacher. Those things are kept to a nurse.

Another issue that may be encountered is allergies. I've had students in the past and my own son who is allergic to dogs. Is this dog a hypoallergenic breed? If my son was in a classroom with a dog, he would have sneezed and wheezed all day.

With medication or the dog, an aide would not be needed for a seizure student unless their seizures are frequent, as in multiple per day.  In that case I doubt the student would be mainstreamed. 

As a teacher I am not permitted to dispense or hold any medications. I can't even keep cough drops in the room when a child brings them in.  

Last time I had a student who had seizures I assigned four students as runners.  1 called the office from our classroom phone, 1 went to the classroom to the left to alert the teacher, 1 to the classroom to the right to alert the teacher, and one to the office.  I never wanted to be in a situation where I could not contact the office due to a busy signal. All other students immediately got up and quietly walked to the classroom across the hall.




 

"Thurman pointed out that, according to the ADA guidelines, "Staff are not required to provide care or food for a service animal."

The family claims that such a statement is misleading -- and does not make clear the school isn't required to provide a handler. Michelle Sorrells described "handling" Majesty as, "simply holding her leash and using one-word commands." "

To me the family is using the word handle vs care to get their way, and the ADA needs to clarify what they meant by that statement as it is way to vague! I can't believe the family is really obtuse enough to expect the teacher to take on the dog solo. A classroom teacher is not with her students full time, there is recess, music, Pe, sometimes art classes, and lunch where the student is with other teachers. Are they all going to be trained? I am also surprised this child doesn't already have a para educator in place. We had a student at our school who had seizures and there was a trained para educator with her at all times. Besides the logistical problems (child moving from teacher to teacher and having to have all staff trained and passing of the medicine) it just seems unreasonable to add this burden to a classroom teacher. I do feel the school district should provide a para educator for the student and his service animal though.

Regarding the allergy question, it is a golden retriever, so no not a hypo allergenic dog, I imagine a student with allergies would not be placed in this child's class, but that should be handled before the start of the school year when the class lists are made.

 
Jul 12, 2014 9:44:09 GMT -5 Lexica said:
I would think that a handler could be provided for less than $125 per week.
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$125 a week is $25 a day. Our elementary school is in session for 7 hours each day. That's just over $3 an hour. I don't see how it could be any cheaper.  I would volunteer my time before I took the commitment of a $3 an hour job. 

The parent are saying that the teacher wouldn't have to feed or walk the dog; they would just have to give one word commands. I don't know anything about service animals, but I have a hard time believing that any dog could go 7 hours without food, water, or a potty break!

I don't think school districts should be required to provide anything above the minimum a child needs to obtain an education safely. (And for the record, I say this as a parent of at least one child with medical and behavioral accommodations.) It sounds like the boy can safely take the medication and attend school. While I fully, fully appreciate preferring not to medicate him 24/7, the fact remains that using the service dog is a more expensive route and isn't the only option for him. I think the school district should be required to ALLOW the dog (which doesn't sound like it's a problem), but any extra costs need to be absorbed by the family. FAPE is free, appropriate - not free no matter what you choose.

As an aside, as a parent, I would be nervous about sending my son out there in the busy school environment where the dog would alert someone to a seizure. Schools are busy places - could the dog really get a teacher/adult's attention soon enough to get the medication to the boy? My response time as a parent is one thing, but my response time as a teacher would be another. (Not by choice, just by the fact of having more people around, etc.) I am sure the parents have considered all of this, I'm just wondering.

ITA

I used to be a teacher, and I think having the dog in the classroom could not be something the teacher needs to be in charge of. If the child can't handle the dog (and I think the issue here may be more the child's disabilities rather than age, even though that's what it said in the article), then someone besides the teacher needs to do whatever handling is necessary. What kind of commands do you need to give to a seizure dog? I'm thinking that the handler is really on the family - it would be nice if the school would provide someone, but I don't think they have to. Someone else already brought up whether or not this child already has an aide. And what kind of classroom environment is this child in - mainstream or self-contained special ed? Or a mixture of the two?

I think there's a lot more to this story than the article states - and that there are alternatives that maybe the family is refusing to discuss.

The family needs to pay. It is nice that the child has the dog and doesn't have to have medication, but the school district should not have to be burdened because of this.

Like Stampinbetsy, I wonder about some things that aren't really made clear in that article.

Other children this age have service dogs and are fine handling the dogs by themselves at school, so I wonder if the child's disabilities are a factor, rather than his age? Also, what kind of classroom is he in and are there aides in that room?

As far as the parental decision to use the service dog rather than have him on meds all the time, it might be that the meds he would need to take have side effects that are undesirable. I think it's easy to say they have the option to have him on meds if they want him to attend school, but maybe those meds cause problems they want to avoid.

Cases like these aren't easy, because how do you weigh the rights of one child against the rights of others (kids who are allergic to dogs, for example)? And who pays when a student needs special help? In my district, a full-time nurse was paid for, rather than the part-time we had at the junior high, for one student who had a life-threatening condition. School board didn't even question it; they knew he could die if the nurse wasn't there to administer the meds if needed (student needed a heart transplant).

When my son was in 2nd grade, there was a child in his class that was a severe diabetic. He had a paraprofessional assigned to him and she went wherever he went. With that said, she also was a big help in general to the teacher. I don't see this as any different. Hire someone that is responsible for the dog but that is also able to help the teacher out. It's a win/win, IMO.