A St. Paul family is suing after the school district decided to bar Newman, their son’s service dog, from his public school, Como Park Elementary. Newman, a Golden Retriever, is connected to 8-year-old Wally LaBerge throughout the day via a harness, yesterday’s WCCO notes. While service dogs have been more and more widely used to assist autistic children, there’s been more than a little disagreement about their presence in public places, from schools to airplanes to apartments. It’s noted that the dogs are calming and help to allay anxieties: Until it’s widely understood how much a service dog can help …read more

In the past year, there have been more and more reports about the benefits of therapy dogs for autistic children at home and at school. There’s also been at least one instance in which a therapy dog was excluded from the schoolbus and a preschool, as happened to 4-year-old Jayden Qualis in Manteca, California.
Currently, Congress is considering the ADA Restoration Act (HR 3195 and S 1881), which defines disabilities more broadly than some other recent court decisions, and therefore has higher education officials concerned. HR 3195 amends
……the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to: (1) redefine “disability” as a physical …read more