School

Schools struggle with food allergies. It's a fact of life. It's difficult for them to coordinate with the cafeteria ladies, the recess monitor, the teacher, and all the parents who bring in snacks for the parties, all so one child will be safe. Schools have a bad habit of implementing semi-workable policies inconsistently in the hopes of appeasing the parents, which really doesn't help anyone. It's a big part of the reason my parents decided I needed a service dog, which taught me something else about schools.
Schools struggle with service dogs.
Most schools have seperate classes for students with special needs, but it's hard to find a school that will admit that an allergy might qualify as a special need. This meant that I was still held to the same standards as the other students, despite the fact that I was now responsible for a dog. One problem was gym. Everyone was required to have at least one gym credit, which I had no idea how I was going to get. With allergies like mine I could have a reaction from playing contact sports with someone who'd popped a mouthful of M&Ms before class, not to mention that it's kinda against the law to let a service dog out of your control in public, which meant that I couldn't simply tie my dog to the bleachers during class. In light of both those things, I asked my counselor if it was possible the school could forgive my gym credit. She didn't even consider it before saying no.
Another problem was the stiarcases. Even I didn't know the stairs were going to be a problem until the first day of school, when I was halfway up a flight of steps, jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with dozens of other students and with three textbooks on my back, and someone stepped on my dogs foot. Really, there's no way I can see to make a high school staircase dog-friendly. So I went to the principal and asked if I could use the elevator, which was conveniently open to anyone with an ankle sprain or a large science project to deliver. I thought it was a reasonable request, but once again it wasn't even considered. All my limbs worked, so no. I used the staircases for another two weeks, in which two more people stepped on my dog, one person accidentially kneed him, and some poor girl caught her foot in the leash. Then my dog hurt his back trying to jump down out of my dad's truck and the vet gave me a note saying my dog shouldn't take the stairs for a week. After the week was up I quietly continued to use the elevator, expecting at any time to be called on it but willing to risk detention for a few days of not worrying about my dog being accidentially kicked down the stairs. Apparently no one cared enough to stop me because I used it for the rest of the year, several times in full view of the principal. I'm really not sure what was up with that. Maybe my mistake was in asking for permission in the first place?
What I thought was the most avoidable problem, which some of my teachers refused to avoid, was the seating arangement. When I sat in front of people they had to step over my dog to get out of the row. It was uncomfortable for everyone, dog included. But when I sat in the back of the row there was no reason for anyone to even get near my dog. So all my teachers had to do was move my seat to the back of the room and no one would have to worry about stepping on my dogs tail (which happened) or tripping over my dog (which happened) or hovering, paralyzed by a dog phobia, while begging me to get up and move my dog so they could go sharpen a pencil (which happened.) But out of my seven teachers, only three would move my seat. The other four either told me sternly that we already had a seating chart, or told me that they didn't see why I even had a dog in the first place.
The most irritating dog-related thing my school did, however, was refuse to tell the student body why my dog was even there. My parents and I went in to talk to the principal before the school year started, and asked him to say a few words explaining my dog. We laid out for him what we thought everyone should know, and he assured us that he would take care of it. Then, at the end of his welcoming speech on the first day, he finished by saying that this year there was going to be a "very special pet" in the hallways. It wasn't exactly helpful.