As animal lovers and owners we all know that having our special friends around can help reduce stress and make us all happier. Are school's catching on to allow the use of therapy dogs on a daily basis. This idea isn't novel to allow dogs to be daily fixtures in school in fact many private schools across the country allow Headmaster or Headmistress dogs on campus and the students love it. In fact I could only find one negative blurb on having a dog in school and that was because a student was cutting class in order to take the dog on its walk. The situation has been taken care of and a policy was put into place at that school ensuring that it could never happen again. Other accounts from news articles have quotes from parents about how their children love to go to school in the morning so they can say hello to the school dog or love to go and read to the dog or play catch.
As a whole it all seems like a positive thing to me. I say more schools should allow dogs on campus. Obviously rules need to be in place but dogs seem like a positive addition to schools.
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A proposal to bring a therapy dog into service at Riverview Middle School in Barron Kansas is on the move.
Superintendent Monti Hallberg said during Monday's policy/personnel committee meeting that the idea of having a therapy dog on school grounds has been researched by John Gevens, the principal at Riverview, and by Kristy Thompson, a guidance counselor. So far, the benefits of allowing this type of service animal in an educational setting appear to be favorable.
"It's found by research to lower anxiety, motivate participation in different programs," Hallberg said.
Animal allergies are another variable that school policy is addressing. School officials want to be sure they are aware of any students who are allergic to dogs, for example, so that they could minimize exposure while still having the animal on the premises. If the health risks were found to be too great, then the therapy dog would be removed.
The new policy covers more than just therapy dogs, though. It also affects instances when students want to bring other animals into the classroom. Rats, snakes, birds and many other varieties of creatures would need teacher and principal permission to enter a school building.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20456374&BRD=1132&PAG=461&dept_id=157660&rfi=6