A young child with a hearing impairment attempted to bring his assistance dog to a High School in East Meadow, New York. Apparently, the school and the family have been at odds over this issue for some time. When the parent and her son refused to leave with the dog in tow, the school called the police.
The police to their credit informed the school that there was no law against assistance dogs in school, and in fact the law states that assistance dogs can not be barred from public buildings. The police to their credit left without slapping two sets of cuffs on Simba, the assistance dog.
Throughout this episode the dog remained calm and behaved impeccably; too bad the same can not be said about the adults involved [the mother admitted that she used vulgar language when she realized the school had called the police].
The lessons we learn from this episode are:
1. Assistance dogs are trained to have better manners than some people;
2. School people too often resort to calling police when something less drastic would seem reasonable;
3. Schools are slow to adapt to the need for assistance dogs despite the increasing popularity of these dogs for children with a variety of disabilities.