Service Dogs in the school?

[Guest guest]

I know this group is based south of me, but any input from those in Florida will be helpful.

 

Does anyone know where to start with getting a service dog for a child who is in public school?

I have read that by law they must allow them but I've ready many stories of people who have been told no or told they have to send their child to a special school etc. when they requested the presence of a service dog for their child.

Manatee Co. doesn't have a large group of parents and professionals established as of yet to get good feedback there. But I want to find out what my first steps should be.

 

We do not have the dog yet because the service it would be providing (seizure alert) requires the dog be with her 100% of the time during training from what I've been told. I'm worried that we'll end up in some catch 22's here in that the school may say that the dog is not yet certified as a service dog and therefore can not be permitted in the school till it is... of course it won't be able to be certified untill it's actually trained which means keeping the dog with her even while at school. Then I worried what they'll say about having to have a staff member go with my daughter to allow the dog to eliminate at least once during the day, and where this would actually take place.

 

All are really minor details in the big picture, but since we can't just order a dog and pick it up fully trained, certified and ready to go, I'm looking to see if anyone has attempted this in their school district before and if so, how it turned out and what is the course of action we should be looking at?

 

Also if we were to pull her out and homeschool her till the dog was obtained, trained and certified, is there any way they can say that she is simply not allowed to have one at the school? Also she is currently choiced out of her home zoned school with the No Child Left Behind Act. Our home school is a failing school (for many years) and we wanted to keep her at the school she was going to pre-k at and just so happened to be the choice we were given for changing. Though it does say that the principal can reject or cancel the choice if the child gets in trouble or has too many absences etc. Will the principal be able to say that my daughter has to go back to her zoned school to avoid having to deal with the issue at her school? They did say that could happen if I requested a one on one aide on the bus when she was having some behavior issues on the bus last school year. They basically resolved themselves when the regular aide came back from her medical leave, and I didn't push it further because I knew the aide was giving my daugher as much if not more assistance than a one on one aide would have, the driver and aide really loved her. But it did worry me that the principal said that the IEP team would suggest she return to her zoned school before alloting money for a one on one aide on the bus because it just wasn't in the transportation budget.

 

I'd like to know as much as I can about the topic before I even bring it up to the school, we really want my daughter to have a medical alert dog, but it will only work if it's with her all the time and not waiting at home while she's off for most of the day at school.

 

Thanks in advance for any info, links, advice etc. and feel free to forward this if you know someone better equipped to help or give info.

I am on Daily Digests so it would be great if you could reply directly or at least CC: me at temans@...

 

Thanks!Theresa