Earlier this year, the Justice Department reached a settlement with a south Jersey school district under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agreement resolves allegations that the district violated the ADA by refusing to allow a student with autism and encephalopathy to have his service dog in school or at school-related activities. The service dog alerts to the student’s seizures, provides mobility and body support and mitigates the symptoms of his autism.
The department found that the student’s mother spent six months responding to burdensome requests for information and documentation, and still the school district refused to allow the student to be accompanied by his service dog. Despite the mother’s efforts, the student was even prevented from bringing his service dog with him on the bus for his school’s end of the year field trip. Instead, his mother followed the school bus with the service dog in her car.
Title II of the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in public schools. Under the ADA, public schools must generally modify policies, practices or procedures to permit the use of a service dog by a student with a disability at school and school-related activities. Because service dogs must be under the control of a handler, students often act as the handler of their own service dog; when that is not possible, the family may provide an independent handler, as the family offered to do here.
Under the agreement, the school district will pay $10,000 to the family to compensate them for the harm they endured as a result of the school district’s actions. In addition, the school district will adopt an ADA-compliant service animal policy and provide training to designated staff on the school district’s obligations under Title II of the ADA, including requirements related to service dogs.
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