Service Animals in Schools: Legal: A Comprehensive Guide for Administrators, Teachers, Parents, and Students (Special Education Law, Policy, and Practice)

Is that dog allowed in school? Can the miniature horse ride on the bus with my son? Must the service animal leave the classroom if the teacher is allergic? Do I need to include the service animal in the IEP? These are some of the many questions that arise when a child with disability brings a service animal to school. Service Animals in Schools: Legal, Educational, Administrative and Strategic Handling Aspects (LEASH), provides a comprehensive overview of the legal, educational, and accessibility issues surrounding service animals in schools and provides practical guidelines for addressing these concerns within an academic setting. The authors explore topics such as types of assistance animals, educational planning and IEP development, classroom integration, transition planning, and more, providing practical information about service animal use from both ends of the leash.

Anne O. Papalia, Ph.D. is an assistant professor at Shippensburg University in the Department of Educational Leadership and Special Education. She teaches courses on instructional methods for students with high incidence disabilities, students with low disabilities, and collaboration. Her research interest includes service dogs in schools, the impact of therapy dogs on students with disabilities, and suicide prevention for people with disabilities. Dr. Papalia has worked as a special educator for students with high and low incidence disabilities in grades K-12, coordinated prereferral intervention teams, and served as a school counselor. She also has been involved in dog training for the past 30 years. She trains and certifies therapy dogs, has trained service dogs for individuals with physical disabilities and returning veterans with PTSD, and is a dog obedience judge. Dr. Papalia earned a Ph.D. in special education from The Pennsylvania State University. She recently authored an article entitled Service Dogs in Schools: Legal, Access, and Educational Issues, and co-authored textbook chapters entitled Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Endrew F.: What the future may hold.

Kathy B. Ewoldt, Ph.D., is a special education researcher focused on interventions and accommodations to maximize learning in inclusive settings. Her research includes teaching paragraph writing skills to students with Learning Disabilities and English learners, the integration and implementation of technology in inclusion classrooms, and service animal policy. She has seven years’ secondary classroom teaching experience with culturally-, linguistically-, and ability-diverse populations in urban environments. Dr. Ewoldt has helped train puppies for future service to assist individuals with visual impairments and has recently co-authored an article Service Animals in PreK-12 Schools: Legal & Policy Implications for School Leaders. Dr. Ewoldt is an Assistant Professor in the Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

David F. Bateman, PhD, is a Principal Researcher at the American Institutes for Research, and Professor Emeritus at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. He is a former due process hearing officer for Pennsylvania for hundreds of hearings. He uses his knowledge of litigation relating to special education to assist school districts in providing appropriate supports for students with disabilities and to prevent and to recover from due process hearings. He has been a classroom teacher of students with learning disabilities, behavior disorders, intellectual disability, and hearing impairments, and a building administrator. Dr. Bateman earned a PhD in special education from the University of Kansas. Over the past 28 years he has either been a hearing officer or consultant on over 1,005 special education lawsuits. He frequently is a keynote presenter at principal and administrator conferences. He has recently co-authored the following books: A Principal’s Guide to Special Education, A Teacher’s Guide to Special Education, Charting the Course: Special Education in Charter Schools, Special Education Leadership: Building Effective Programming in Schools, Current Trends and Legal Issues in Special Education, and A School Board Members Guide to Special Education. He has also recently worked as the neutral fact-finder in the class action lawsuit involving the Oregon Department of Education. After the 2017 Supreme Court decision in Endrew F., the U.S. Department of Education reached out to him to develop a training module for administrators on legally compliant IEPs. He is co-author of the special education legal blog:SPEDLAWBLOG.com