Who is a lover of food, sleeps through math class and has golden hair? Hint: He walks on four legs.
There’s a good chance you’ve heard of Ferris the facility dog at Upper Arlington High School. Ferris is a local celebrity with over 2,100 followers on Instagram (@uaferris).
For Kim Wilson, Ferris’ handler, the original intention of the page was to let students know when Ferris was available and as an opportunity to teach her students in the Individualized Needs Center how to use social media.
“But it has ended up becoming a community phenomenon,” Wilson says.
More importantly than on the internet, he’s become a familiar face at UAHS as he fulfills his role in the school and district community, which, more than anything, fosters connection.
Ferris, who just completed his second school year at UAHS, is not a service dog, which would help individuals with their specific needs. Instead, Ferris has been trained to address community needs as a facility dog assigned to a specific location.
Wilson, an intervention specialist, wasn’t the first person to suggest bringing a dog to the building, but she had a unique take on the purpose one could serve.
Instead of only having a dog to boost morale and give students a companion to help decompress, she set out to use a facility dog to create a connection between the special needs students in her classroom and the rest of the school population.
Wilson’s idea received the most votes in the annual Idea Hunt among staff, earning more votes than all the other ideas combined that year.
“I think that was great for her, too, because it was not just like, ‘oh, I want a dog for my classroom, period.’ But it was supported by the rest of the school,” Laura Moore says. “So it was about two years where we had to go through a process of researching, presenting, … we gave surveys to try to figure out some resistance areas and how to respond, making plans.”
Moore is the instructional leader for the research and design labs at UAHS, which helped support and formulate Wilson’s prototype through data collection and collaboration within the district.
“We wanted to make sure that we were really focused on what was innovative about it, like what are we trying to accomplish?” Moore says. “So the question we asked was like, how can this dog actually bridge people together?”
Ferris was placed with Wilson at UAHS in July 2021 through the organization Paws with a Cause and two years into his post, the 3-year-old golden retriever has more than met the goals set out for him as a part of the school community. Wilson, Moore and others including Alice Finley of the Upper Arlington Education Foundation continue to evaluate how he can best serve and be available to students and staff.
“I’m just always blown away by the collectiveness of the group that gathers around him,” Wilson says. “The original goal was my students are going to say hi to other people in the hallway through Ferris. They’re going to have conversations. But it has evolved into so many different people from so many different walks of life. Teachers that I wouldn’t have ever talked to are now friends with me and he really just brings people together.”
Sophie Miller, a 2023 UAHS graduate, was a peer collaborator for two periods a day in the Individualized Needs Center. She says attending Ferris Forum, a set time during the day Ferris is available to visit with students in a common area, brought new opportunities, like peer collaboration, to her attention.
“I definitely think Ferris has helped with the inclusive environment at our school,” Avery Golowin, another 2023 graduate and peer collaborator, says.
In the same spirit of inclusion, Wilson and Moore sent out surveys on the potential challenges and barriers to having a dog in school. Allergies and fear were the top issues encountered in the student population in small numbers.
“We work directly with people and talk through some options and we’re kind of still navigating, developing as we go,” Wilson says.
The school put on a third birthday party for Ferris in April which incorporated creativity and the joy of Ferris to the planning and execution of the event.
“The amount of connection that just happened that day during the party was like astronomical,” Wilson says. “But then the amount of connection behind the scenes – his birthday party was a good example of why he’s here and how everyone kind of rallies behind him.”
Claire Miller is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at cmiller@cityscenemediagroup.com.
