Woodside School District

Here at Woodside School District, we love our animals.  And while many of us have our own pets at home and appreciate our furry or scaly companions, we need to leave them at home when coming on to the school’s campus. For many years, the school has prohibited dogs on the campus.  There are signs posted at the front of the school prior to entering the campus as a reminder, but with the recent nicer weather and afterschool extracurricular activities that have started up, we’ve observed an uptick in the number of pets on campus. We thought it would be helpful to understand why this rule applies to our school (and other schools), and why it’s important to uphold it:

• By enforcing this rule, we are hoping to avoid a potential accident or injury between a pet and a member of our community, especially a child.
  
  
• Not all members of the community enjoy being around animals, and some (namely our younger population) are scared of them. We want to do our part to support these community members, as they enter our campus after school hours to enjoy the grounds.
  
  
• Some individuals are allergic to animals. As stated above, we want to be sure we are providing an environment that can be enjoyed by all. 
  
  
• Unfortunately, some members of the community do not adequately clean up after their pets. We’ve had an increase in maintenance calls to address the removal or cleaning of someone’s pet’s fecal matter. Students and teachers use all parts of our school campus during the day. We are not inclined to always watch our step, and when needing to address an article of clothing that’s smeared with pet fecal matter, our teachers and staff take time out of their day to help a child clean it off, and sometimes a child doesn’t notice they stepped in fecal matter and end up tracking it through the classroom. This results in quite a disruption in our students’ learning and a pretty hefty clean-up for our maintenance staff.
  
  
• For those who are compelled to not follow this rule, it also becomes an issue of equity. We do our best to mitigate and address pets on campus for the aforementioned reasons, but we aren’t always here to manage the grounds. This means that families that are complying see families that aren’t. We do not want this issue to come in between the members of our community and cause potential rifts in relationships. Furthermore, members of our staff will need to approach those who aren’t following this rule, which can lead to uncomfortable interactions.

We love our school and we love our community, and we appreciate you helping us uphold this rule for the betterment of our students.