Emotional Support Dogs

[Amy]

One of our schools wants to use a company to provide emotional support dogs on campus. They want to bring the dogs from time to time (not daily) and have the dogs available to students who may need the support. We are a high school only district, so our students are between the ages of 14-18. Has anyone done anything like this?

[Colette]

Our district does this through Alliance of Therapy Dogs. We have used them multiple times.

[LeRoy]

We have had some of our campuses in the past have ‘stress free’ events… usually leading into finals week or backed up to a minimum day at the end of a semester. ASB will have booths and areas for students to congregate with a preferred activity. Bubble wrap popping, 5 minutes in a massage chair (no hands on), noise makers, etc. Anyway, there is usually a dog petting area where you can spend a few minutes with some puppies. It is a single – scheduled event. I have not heard of any schools having a dog zone ‘on demand’. As I understand it, we are pretty clear that any dogs on campus to provide a service to a student has to be a service dog. It is specific to the service being provided – IE seeing eye dog.

[Mareesa]

Hi Amy,
Yes we do. Contracts, parent notification to exposure, and hold harmless are required.
I am happy to share our documents and practice with you if you are interested. Let me know, and I will provide my contact info.
Thanks!

[Amy]

Hi Mareesa,

Yes, I would love to learn more about what you’re doing. Feel free to email me at amy.sousa@cjuhsd.net.

Thank you!

[NANCY]

Hi Mareesa,

This came up at one of our Elementary school’s but its actually a teacher who is certified. I asked if she was willing to contract with the District through the organization or if she was wanting to come in on her own and she says she has no affiliation with an organization and would like to do it for free and as needed by the school. Many concerns, obviously! Would you share your doc’s?

Thanks,

Nancy Rodriguez
Baldwin Park USD
nirodriguez238@bpusd.net

[Sheryl]

We have been very strict with emotional support/therapy animals and even created an AR with many requirements for this. If you use a compnay, I highly suggest having an MOU in place with clear verbiage of scope of service and termination. We do not let dogs in so easily otherwise we would have an supple amount of animals all over campus. We do not want “pets” all over cmapus. i like the other ideas of stress-free environments. I hope this helps.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Sheryl]

I apologize if the AR did not come through. If you are interested, email me at ssharp@fcusd.org

[Author]

Posts