Consultation: Service animals in schools
This consultation is now closed. From April 4, 2019 to May 11, 2019, we invited you to share your ideas on how service animals should be managed in Ontario public schools.
We thank everyone who participated as your input will help to inform our work going forward.
About the consultation
We want to ensure students have the right support to be successful in the classroom. For some students, that can mean getting help from service animals.
In Ontario, school boards are responsible for developing and implementing the rules for bringing service animals into schools. Currently only 39 of 72 school boards across the province reported having those policies in place.
A consistent process for families
In April 2019, Ontario passed changes to the Education Act that supports students and their families when making requests to bring their service animals into schools and classrooms across the province.
Our goal through this consultation was to support these proposed changes and:
- improve the process for families when making requests for service animals to accompany their children to school
- understand what specific policies are needed to make this process more consistent and transparent
Policy/Program Memorandum
In the Spring, the Ministry of Education drafted and consulted on policy guidance — called a policy/program memorandum — that provides direction to school boards when developing their policies.
The final policy/program memorandum (PPM) was released on September 9, 2019, and can be found here:
PPM 163: School Board Policies on Service Animals
Privacy and personal information
Your privacy is important to us.
Feedback received from this survey may be used or quoted in reports, etc. to help inform an understanding of the issues; however for privacy reasons no feedback or responses will be attributed to any specific individual.
Please do not include personal information in your responses or any information that identifies yourself, a friend, family member or other person.
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