Aspies For Freedom

There remains no definitive answer as to whether a 5-year-old autistic boy will be allowed to have his service dog accompany him to the city’s schools.

Michelle Austin said the school district has known for several months about the family’s intentions to have Zeke, a border collie and Lab mix, go to school with her son Cole, but is just now dealing with the issue.

The district initially rejected the request, but after meeting in private with the board of education Monday night, Acting Superintendent Christopher Hottel said the district had reached an interim agreement for the dog to be allowed in the schools.

However, Hottel also said administrators would bring a proposed policy on the matter to the school board for approval July 10. It was not made clear what that policy would say or whether the district intends for the dog to be allowed in schools permanently.

It also wasn’t made clear what prompted the district to reconsider its position.

Cole is scheduled to start an extended preschool program at Dr. Crisp Elementary School on July 11. In the fall, he will go to Amherst Street Elementary School.

Whatever the district decides, Austin insisted that the dog would be going to school with her son.

“We will do whatever we need to do to get this dog in the school,” she said.

Cole has a habit of running off, and the service dog is trained to help keep Cole safe, to provide a source of constant comfort and to help him gain more social skills. A harness attached to Cole’s waist connects him to the dog.Currently, the district has no policy that covers this type of situation. According to state law, any service dogs must be allowed “into any public facility, housing accommodation, or place of public accommodation to which the general public is invited.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department said last week that the dog must be allowed in public schools.

The family raised $14,500 to buy the dog through different fundraisers, but in the beginning of June, Austin received a letter from Director of Special Education Eric Schroeder, which left no doubt that the dog would not be allowed in the schools.

“I regret to inform you that we will not allow the service dog to come to Nashua schools,” Schroeder wrote in the June 5 letter, adding that he had discussed the matter with Teresa Bolick, a school district consultant who specializes in issues involving autism, and city attorney Stephen Bennett.

Schroeder listed several reasons for the decision, among them that Bolick “expressed significant concern for the reaction of other students because of their level of distractibility, their potential allergic reactions, and their potential anxieties and phobias related to animals.”

Other reasons Schroeder listed were that there is no research “that evidences the therapeutic usefulness of such an animal within a classroom setting,” and that the district would not take responsibility for the dog.

Monday night, school board members met behind closed doors with Schroeder, other district staff and Bennett to discuss how bringing a service dog into a special needs classroom might impact the other children.

The reason for the need to meet in private was that district staff would have to share with school board members information on other special needs students that could breach their confidentiality, Bennett said.

The board used an exemption in the law that allows private meetings if the discussion “would likely affect adversely the reputation of any person, other than a member of the body or agency itself, unless such person requests an open meeting.”

Austin, the autistic boy’s mother, was not allowed in the meeting. She said she would have liked to have stayed, to know what was being told to board members that could impact whether Cole’s dog is allowed in the schools.

Prior to going into nonpublic session, Bennett made a point of saying that a service dog must be able to perform a task that a disabled person cannot.

“It’s not a companion,” he said. “It has to perform a discrete function that the disabled person cannot.”

Bennett added that the dogs are well-trained. But if the district has to spend a lot of money to deal with the issue, “that may well trigger that it is an undue hardship on the district,” he said.

Hottel started off the meeting by saying that despite what The Telegraph has reported, the district is not creating obstacles for the family.

“It’s our goal not to create obstacles, but to meet all the needs of our students,” he said.

Austin disagreed, saying the district, by first refusing to allow the dog and now shifting that position, has created a sense of confusion.

The first letter “led to a lot of sleepless nights,” said Austin. When speaking to the board, Austin said having the dog in school would benefit Cole, but she also knows there is an impact to other students.

“I know that my son is not the only one impacted,” she said.
By MICHAEL BRINDLEY, Telegraph Staff

I may have missed it in the article bit Is Cole going to be in regular classes, or specialized classes.  If he is in a regular classroom, there could be issues with children wanting to pay attention to the dog instead of the teacher, children being afraid of the dog, or children alergic to the dog.  as far as I'm concerned if there is more than one class of his age, they shoucld be able to place kids with an alergy in a difernt class.  They coud see if cole could first go in by himself, the teacher explain to the class, how to treat the dog, and that It can't be botherd, or have Cole and hte dog wait for the teacher to explain,  They could also see if Cole and/or Zeke to spend small amounts of time in the classroom, and slowly increase in order to get students used to the idea.

As the law states, the dog must be alowed in the school, however they could get around that by allowing the dog in the building, but not in hte classroom, or placeing Cole in a diferent program not atuned to his needs and abilities.  The schhool may also try to say "cole will have to learn to survive withiout having a cructh at all times".  A blind person is not looked down upon for having a servace dog in adaulthood, why would an autistic.

There could be a question about the training of the dog.  There should be some official accreditation of the dog's training.  Once that is provided alone with a medical certificate states that the child needs this dog, there should be no question in accomodating this child in a school.  Probably this is the first time such a situation has occurred.  

If someone was allergic to dogs then they would just have to have separate classrooms.  It could be worked out.  I would actually feel sorry for the dog, having to sit there all day at school.  What do people with seeing-eye dogs do with their dogs when they get to work?

I wonder if the student was blind instead of Autistic, they'd be having all this hubub. The fact is they feel they can list a whole list of excuses to not have a dog in school for an Autistic child, yet if they made this a big deal about a blind child with a seeing-eye dog everyone would be jumping to sue them.

Yeah but they could say that the blind child did not need a seeing-eye dog because someone could always lead the child around.  That is just ignorance.  People think that assisting the blind is just easy - by grabbing them and pulling them.  That is wrong.  People also need some instruction for helping the blind around and how to describe where objects are in their environment.  Also a blind child would have to learn to read braille or have recorded books.

Someone in the school could be trained to help a child with autism so they would not use the dog - but really should using a guide dog or not be a decision that should be up to the person?  I could not imagine someone being forced to leave their guide dog outside a store because some employee was trained in leading blind people.   So really it is a right for someone to choose whether they want to use their guide dog or not.

Guide dogs are expensive, I've heard.  The family had probably paid for the guide dog from their own funds.

M oh but don't you know, the laws of society don't apply to schools!

The laws could be different for guide dogs in some places.  

There are laws in my country that guide dogs have to allowed in stores, public buildings etc.  So schools would be included.  

I am not sure about churches and places of worship.

This is absolute rubbish! If the child was blind, would they be making any fuss about them taking a service dog into school with them - no. It would be against the law for them to do so.

Some peoples attitudes really need changing, and fast.

People with seeing eye dogs take them to work with them. However, most seeing eye dog places won't give a dog to a person under a certain age, that varies by school: generally that age is in the teens. So schools don't have to deal with service dogs that much. But its kind of weird that they would say that a service dog has to perform a function that the user can't.