Come on guys, get with it

Rockcastle girl, 7, needs Mikki's help during seizures

School that turned away girl and service dog may relent

Lexington Herald-Leader | 08/06/2004 | Service dog may soon get to enter girl's school

Service animals for people with other physical needs beyond vision issues have been around for quite awhile--whether it's a dog that can sense seizures and help a person stay safe or one that helps a person in a wheelchair retrieve needed items.

It sounds like the girl's school and parents were working things out quite well when the superintendent decided to step in--2 hours into the first school day--supposedly out of concern for liability issues and the effects a dog in school might have on the other children. I can understand a responsibility to answer those concerns, but I question why this came to a head when school actually started, rather than researching the issue in the two months that they've had to prepare. In today's world of e-mail and legal databases, I can't imagine it taking more than a week to get the needed information, and now they're willing to relent so long as a doctor's note is sent, despite all the other paperwork that has already been filed. Whatever the actual facts, in the media Mr Hammond, the Superintendent, comes off as seemingly obstructive and ignorant of service animals, the accommodations for school children with disabilities, and the role of service dogs in school--not something you want to see in the head of a school system. Certainly, I don't see how it should be revelant that Mikki is a seizure-assist rather than seeing-eye dog. The use of seizure-assist dogs is well-established. Both Mikki and Cheyenne, the child involved, have had training, and the school made efforts to educate the other children about Mikki's role. No one complained about the dog. The parents and school had gone to great lengths to plan for a variety of issues, even down to handling the dog's waste. So, from what I can tell, the issue stemmed from the Superintendent balking at the last moment.