It’s unlikely any local school class will adopt an animal as large as a dog or a cat for educational purposes anytime soon, but the Algoma District School Board (ADSB), like all Ontario school boards, is in the process of updating its ‘animals in the classroom’ policy.
The board formally approved the use of guide dogs, service dogs and service animals at its Nov. 26, 2019 regular board meeting.
However, the presence of animals in classrooms is currently under a regular five-year review cycle.
Tuesday evening’s ADSB Committee of the Whole meeting included an additional information item for administrators and trustees to look at, regarding the bringing of personal pets to school by staff or students in exceptional circumstances, to be discussed further and approved at a later regular board meeting.
The information item distributed Tuesday proposes “pets of staff or students shall only be brought into the school setting to support implementation of the curriculum in exceptional circumstances. In each instance, these circumstances must be approved by the principal, or in the case of a request by a principal, must be approved by the appropriate supervisory officer (a school board superintendent).”
As for the ADSB November approval of service dogs, guide dogs and service animals for use by students in schools, Brent Vallee, ADSB superintendent, told SooToday “every board has been in the process of developing a policy to outline a process families would go through if they’re seeking to have a service animal for their child in school.”
“Generally, with a service animal...in most cases we’ve seen them with students with autism spectrum disorders. We don’t currently have any guide dogs in any of our schools for students who are blind. That tends to be a little more rare in schools. We currently have two service animals in place in our schools for children with autism spectrum disorders, one in an elementary setting and one in one of our Grade 7 to 12 settings.”
All boards in the province recently received memos from the Ministry of Education to develop policies and procedures regarding the use of service animals in schools.
“Essentially our process outlines the steps families would need to go through to make sure the animal is properly trained and certifications are in place before admitting that dog to a school,” Vallee said.
Meanwhile, “some of our schools have class pets which provide lots of opportunities for kids to be involved in the care and feeding of specific animals (such as fish in aquariums, hamsters and gerbils) taking such things as allergy sensitivities into account,” Vallee said.