This is a tough one. Pretend you’re on the school board of a small, rural school district in Southern Ohio. An autistic child in your school needs to bring her service dog with her to class. In your small district, you have only a limited number of special education classroooms, and the room this child is in is taught by a woman who is allergic to dogs. What do you do?
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that you make reasonable accommodations, both for employees and for students. The school board’s decision was to move the child and her dog to another elementary school, which her mother says will be disturbing to the girl and will require a longer bus ride.
I have a bit of experience with autism, and I can tell you that autistic children really do have a hard time dealing with change. However, I also have allergies and cannot imagine trying to teach a classroom full of young children while my sinuses felt like they were going to explode. Even with medication, I have good days and bad days.
I feel for both parties here. What would you do?
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To take this one step further, what do you do if you have a student with a service dog in a classroom where the teacher is scared of dogs? I’m interested in your thoughts.
Read the whole story from FoxNews.
Until next time,
Good day, and good dog!
How about an air purifier for the classroom? That would help in removing the
allergy-causing substance in the air – in this case the dog’s dandruff which actually cause allergy.