BY ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA. The Board of Education heard a pitch from a high school guidance counselor on bringing in a therapy dog.

Guidance counselor Nicole LaPage said she is still researching how it all would work. What she knows for sure is she would be the dog’s owner and would be responsible for licensing and vaccinating the animal and carrying an insurance policy for it.

“I’ve read a lot; I have no experience” “I think this will be a very large learning curve for me. I have read a ton. I’ve joined social media groups where topics are discussed,” she said.

One possibility would be to have the dog in the counseling suite to add a “friendly, homey climate that makes it feel like a deinstitutionalized kind of place.”

And she said she would be willing to figure out who in the student body has a strong aversion to dogs and go out of her way to avoid them throughout the day. She also said if any students had a too strong of an allergy to dogs, she wouldn’t bring in the therapy dog at all.

“I would never put my wants or desires or what I want to do with my professional practice ahead of a kid’s safety and well being,” she said. “There’s all kinds of grooming protocols, bathing protocols, allergy wipes ... (but) if it wasn’t safe, absolute deal breaker.”

Board President Paul Bronchetti suggested that whether or not there are deal-breaking issues among the student body, the board should still consider adding a policy governing therapy dogs.

“If we have a student that causes that deal breaker to happen, does that preclude us from creating a policy?” he said. “Should we create a policy that would allow us to launch the program if we don’t have a deal-breaking issue.”

Superintendent Pat Brady said his former employer, the Potsdam Central School District, had a therapy dog and he believes it was a good addition. And Trustee Robert Leblanc, who works at a local healthcare facility, said he’s seen good things from them.

“We have a therapy dog at the hospital where I work. There’s no issue ... there’s a lot of vulnerable people there and we have no problem,” he said.

Trustee Kevin Perretta said he wants to see a way to measure the dog’s positive or negative impact.

“What is the metric we’re going to evaluate that we didn’t have negative experience, such as a bite or fear ... what determines success or failure?” he said.

“I think a lot of things when you deal with the counseling realm, there isn’t specific data metrics,” Brady answered.

“Data is not my strength so I’m going to need help designing that measure,” LaPage said. “My goal in measuring would be getting at some of those positive outcomes ... can I point to improved attendance; can I point to their better reported health and satisfaction.”