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Students and staff will soon welcome a new four-legged friend into the Dr. Paul C. Nettle School community.
School Principal Eileen Doherty explained the value to School Committee members last week. She said “We also have the same mental health challenges that a lot of schools have. We have students struggling with anything from anxiety and depression to poor school attendance.” The comfort dog will also be used for separate programs to teach students responsibility and empathy, as well as to reduce stress among students and faculty.
“I think if you look out there, I think there’s a lot of research that supports the idea of having a comfort animal in a school. It helps students in a variety of ways,” she said. “In addition, I think there’s an argument to be made that a comfort dog would also be comforting for staff, provide a relaxing environment and an opportunity to destress and to come down, which I hope will improve our teacher retention.”
Hannah Lawler, a sixth and seventh grade English Language Arts teacher with the school, volunteered to purchase, raise and train the dog. According to a letter from Doherty to Superintendent Margaret Marotta, Lawler will have sole ownership and responsibility of the dog.
“Throughout my master’s program, I did an observation at the Hamilton-Wenham Regional High Schoo,l and there is a teacher there that has a comfort dog in her classroom and she was one of the English teachers, a freshman English teacher. I remember sitting in her class and just the kids walking in and smiling at the dog,” Lawler said.
School Committee member Yonnie Collins was supportive, citing similar successful comfort pet programs within prisons and hospitals. She said she is concerned, however, with control of the animal.
“What if the dog has to use the bathroom in the middle of the classroom? I know in the prison system, the dogs are only allowed in certain areas and there’s strict controls around that as well because of the concerns for allergies, for those of us who are afraid of dogs, distractions and also where would the dog be assigned during the classroom day, during the summer vacation,” she said.
Doherty responded that the dog would not be roaming around the school and the school would craft a policy regulating the comfort pet.
“I would assume that our policy would include things like the dog has to stay leashed at all times, it has to be under supervision and control or another person who is similarly trained under their supervision and control,” she said. “Right now, we have five students who have a fur allergy, none of them are in the sixth grade. But our students’ health comes first, not only their mental health but also their physical health so we would never have a student in the room where the dog was.”
Committee Vice Chairman Paul A. Magliocchetti called himself a “big dog person” and noted his father’s life was saved by a dog. In his research, Magliocchetti said that the positives of having the dog in school “far outweigh the negatives.”
Committee member Jill Story said Reading Public Schools, where she works, uses Rusty, a comfort dog in training with School Resource Officer Matt Vacher.
“Reading, my school, we have Rusty. He is wonderful, one of the most chill dogs I’ve ever met and he’s with our SRO at the school and the kids love him and he’s awesome, so very in favor,” she said.
Lawler said a dog could be available as early as winter break, next spring or next summer. After she adopts the dog, it would be trained for socializing in the school at eight weeks old. At one year old, the dog would be certified by Alliance of Therapy Dogs.
Magliocchetti motioned to approve the comfort dog with the understanding that the “policy should be refined.” Member Richard J. Rosa added the district does have a therapy dog policy and that it could be expanded to include comfort dogs as soon as the Dec. 12 meeting.
Followed by a second from member Gail M. Sullivan, the committee voted unanimously to approve a comfort dog at the school with a policy to be adopted at a future meeting.