Fight to Get Service Dogs in Schools

From our friends in Canada.

Parents of children with autism are battling school boards on an equal-rights issue that promises to heat up ahead of this month’s provincial byelections.

Braydon Drexler, 6, a child with autism
and Keats, his service dog, in Winnipeg.

Do dogs belong in classrooms? Families that have seen their easily agitated, sometimes non-verbal children blossom into calmer, more communicative kids around highly trained service animals think so. Supported by lawyers and equal-rights activists, they are fighting for the dogs to be viewed as assistive devices, no less essential than hearing aids in helping kids absorb curriculum.

'We're No Longer Prisoners of Autism'

Nicky Klein, 8 of Pearl River and her
service dog Wheat

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. --  Twelve-year-old Kaitlin Flaherty ambles through Mrs. Green’s Natural Market with her dog Leon, a black Labrador retriever, by her side.
She and her mother, Nancy Flaherty, pick out waffles and other food items, simply content they can do such an activity together.
Leon has given them that gift.
“We’re no longer prisoners of autism,” said Flaherty. “We have lives. We do things.”