The School Board delivered an early Christmas present – the new service animal/therapy dog board rules passed at Thursday night’s board meeting. This is a big deal because everything – and I mean ALL visiting – was halted when school resumed in August. I was slated to start a weekly R.E.A.D. program with Sadie at an area elementary school. The agreement was signed and a kick-off meeting scheduled when they had to cancel. We’d even recruited and started training other volunteers to place at other schools that had also requested a R.E.A.D. team. What a mess! As I suspected, it was the school district’s legal department holding up the works. Hopefully, with the new policy in place, we can get things rolling in January.
My former assistant principal recently announced his retirement (another sign I made the right decision to retire when I did). On Tuesday, I attended his retirement party. It was great to see so many of my former coworkers. I was asked if I missed working. I replied that I missed the daily interactions with students and staff. If we could get the reading dog program back in the schools, my volunteer work with that and the public library would allow me to do all the things I loved best about my work as a librarian without all of the other nonsense that went along with it.
Two days later, the new service animal/therapy dog board rules passed. A glimmer of hope for 2023!
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