DE PERE, Wis. (WBAY) – The De Pere Unified School District is raising funds to purchase two new therapy dogs.
In 2021, the district purchased a therapy dog named Charlee. She makes her home at Dickinson Elementary School. Charlee helps students with anxiety, social and emotional issues.
The district now wants to purchase two new dogs for other elementary schools in the district.
“Here we use a program called regulation zones. It’s a four-point scale and if a child is a three or a four, that’s a scaled state. The data shows that within five to ten minutes of Charlee being involved in the situation, they return to one regulated state or another. Then we go back to classroom learning,” says Luke Herlache, principal of Dickinson Elementary School.
The district is hosting a Redbird Rally on Friday, October 7th. The goal is to raise $15,000 to purchase dogs for Heritage Elementary and Altmayer Elementary.
“Charlee is very nice. Therapy dogs are only trained to help people. If other schools had them, they could have the same kind of thing with Charlee,” said Odin Johnston, a student at Dickinson Elementary.
The Redbird Rally is at the De Pere school on Friday from 4 to 6:30 p.m
There will be bounce houses, games and food. Admission is $5.
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