Last week we were informed that our application for Lynyrd to join Alex at school was denied. Here is how it played out.
“We don’t know where Alex is.”
Those are never words that any parent wants to hear
from their child’s school. But those are
the words that I heard on October 10, 2018.
My son, Alex, who has severe autism, had left his classroom, left the
school, and gotten on an OC Transpo bus.
School staff had alerted the police, OC Transpo staff and were searching
the community for my son.
This wasn’t the first time that Alex had left his
classroom or been the subject of a massive search. Ever since he was a small child, he would
bolt away from me and any other adults if something caught his attention. His lightning quick escapes required me to
hire an aide to accompany me on any errands and even so, there were a number of
times that we didn’t know where he was and had to search. Since beginning school, I can’t count the
number of times that Alex has left the classroom and needed to be pursued by
teachers and aides. It is a part of his
educational profile.
On October 10th, the police picked Alex up
at a nearby mall as he prepared to take another bus downtown. The school let me know that Alex had been
found and asked me to come to the school right away.
As I drove to the school, my feelings were a mixture
of anxiety and anticipation. I was
obviously upset about the situation but not as much as I would have been under
other circumstances. Because at the
time, I was confident that we were on the cusp of a solution. In two weeks, a trainer from National Service
Dogs would come from Cambridge to Ottawa to be at Alex’s school, training them
to handle his service dog, Lynyrd. Once
Lynyrd would be with Alex at school, then Alex’s ability to bolt would be
greatly reduced.
Lynyrd and Alex are tethered together and if Alex
leaves without an adult, then Lynyrd can be commanded to sit down and become an
anchor, allowing the adult to regain control of Alex. Since first receiving a service dog in April
2017, our family’s ability and opportunity to go out in public had dramatically
increased. We were even able to travel
to Disneyworld and enjoy Alex’s delight, rather than constantly worrying about
his physical safety.
It was a rare sensation for me as a parent. To know that there was an issue but that the
school and I were working cooperatively to remove the risk to Alex’s safety and
give him the best opportunity for progress.
Training is cancelled.
This is why it shocked me to be notified on the day
before training that the OCDSB was cancelling the training with National
Service Dogs over unspecified “concerns.”
For the last four months, I have been asking what
those concerns are, only to be met with silence. OCDSB representatives have insisted the
situation is under “review” without telling me what the issues are. I have repeatedly offered to collaborate to
solve whatever concerns OCDSB has and meanwhile, Alex continues to escape his
classroom and school staff.
We first applied for the accommodation of having
Alex’s service dog attend school in May 2017.
We were asked to apply again in September 2018 and did so
immediately. We purchased the supplies
that OCDSB indicated should be available for the dog at school (a mat, a spare
leash and tether, a water bowl, etc.).
We worked with the staff at the school, who were eager and welcoming of
Lynyrd.
The Policy
In November 2018, as I was struggling to understand
this abrupt refusal on the part of OCDSB, I discovered a policy on service dogs
which they had created in November 2017, after we had initially applied.
The policy indicates that school staff will not be
permitted to serve as handlers for the dog, and given that union regulations also
prohibit third parties within classrooms, this effectively bars all autism
service dogs from the classroom. If this
policy is the reason behind OCDSB’s inexplicable refusal, then that is implied
discrimination and a human rights violation.
If this policy was created specifically to bar my son’s service dog from
school, then this is targeted discrimination against my family.
To my knowledge, no other school board in Ontario prohibits staff from serving as handlers to a service dog. On October 30th 2018, the Ontario government announced legislation requiring schools to have a policy for service dogs that is transparent to families wishing to apply, and that the requirements for a service dog must be equal to any other disability.
If my son was in a wheelchair, OCDSB would allow an EA
to push the chair. To refuse his service
dog is to exclude him from participating in school.
With the cuts to the autism program, children with
autism will be returning to schools across Ontario. I think parents in Ottawa should be aware of
this discriminatory policy and of how difficult it is for our children to
receive the accommodations they need. In
my case, my son had a demonstrated need for additional resources to keep him
safe. I had the cooperation of the school
and a resource that could be implemented at no cost to the taxpayers or school
board. My son had escaped and been
picked up by police. And yet we are
blocked and denied the permanent resources necessary for his physical safety.
This week I met with OCDSB officials who told me that
the school board was denying the dog but would fund an additional EA for the
remaining 4 months of the school year but would not guarantee funding for the
future as they consider the issue to be temporary and fixed. I insisted on continuing to collect
data.
The official told me that I could reapply to have
Lynyrd join Alex in the fall. They then
repeated that the OCDSB was committed to prohibiting their staff from serving
as handlers, guaranteeing that any future application would be rejected.
This is incredibly disheartening. We are trying to determine what else we can do to overturn this OCDSB policy without threatening Alex's current supports at school.
If you are interested in supporting Alex, you can contact me at LynyrdNSD@xdroop.com. You can also contact your local OCDSB trustee and tell them that you support autism service dogs in school and are opposed to any policies that would prevent them. Thank you for your support and well-wishes.
