Walking around a middle school one normally doesn’t see smiling faces or wagging tails.
At University Middle School, an extension of the University of Memphis, the middle school students have something to look forward to every day other than seeing their friends and learning in the classroom.
Simone is a therapy dog on the middle school’s campus, a full-blooded American pit bull terrier rescue, who is a byproduct of a Tennessee Department of Education grant called Beyond Ordinary Learning Opportunities. University Middle School is part of a pilot program to bring therapy dogs on campus to schools around the state to see the impact on student success and well-being, said Dr. Sally Gates Parish, the vice provost & director of schools.
“When we realized that we were going to be the recipients of the grant funding, (we) reached out to a local rescue agency that I’ve worked with personally in my family’s rescue mission. We’ve adopted two dogs through Tails of Hope,” Parish said. “(We) reached out really just to see if they had recommendations on next steps, and lucky for us, they had rescued a litter of dogs a few months prior, and they said, ‘we have the perfect candidate for you.'”
Simone has been at the school since mid-October and is still getting training as a therapy dog. She walks around campus with a Memphis blue vest on that proudly states she is a therapy dog in training. Her leash is also University of Memphis branded, and she even dressed up as Pouncer, the university’s tiger mascot, for Halloween.
Left for dead in a trash can, Simone is helping students love life
Simone was found with her two siblings in a crate between two City of Memphis green trashcans. The trio required extensive medical care as they were severely malnourished and had a bad case of mange.
Because they were rescued near the start of the 2024 Summer Olympics, they were aptly named after America’s best Olympians. Simone is named after 11-time Olympic medalist gymnast Simone Biles, her brother, Phelps, after world-renowned American swimmer and 28-time Olympic medalist Michael Phelps and the third puppy, Kobe, named for the late, great American basketball player Kobe Bryant.
After Simone was treated for mange, malnutrition and burns on her feet from the hot crate she was caged in, Ginger Natoli, Tails of Hope co-founder and director saw something in the dog. She was calm, had incredible manners and could make a great therapy dog.
“(Simone will) sit with the child that’s stressing out about the test…Simone would sit in your lap. She had this thing about putting one leg on each side of my neck. She loved to be held. She was very calm, she was very smart. She was very focused and attentive on everything,” Natoli said.
Kelsey Ryan, the director of student and family engagement, is Simone’s night-time and weekend caretaker. Ryan said when the school found out about the grant, they wanted to make sure they adopted a dog while also supporting the community.
“We first received the grant and they were working through the different options, there was a conversation about, ‘do we adopt a dog that has already been trained, or do we adopt a local puppy and train it?'” Ryan said. “So, with the mission of university schools, and with the mission of the university, you know, we decided we want to adopt a puppy so that we were also supporting the community.”
A day in the life of Simone
When Simone arrives at school in the morning, she is dropped off in the school pickup line by Ryan. Simone then goes for a morning walk with Kerrith Griffin, Executive Director at University Middle School, who she spends the majority of the day with.
Simone’s morning walk is typically around the school building while the students are in their homerooms and while instruction is not happening. She will go in and greet the students as she makes her rounds around the school.
“She has her favorite rooms to go into, and so if I let her lead, she’ll go to one of about three classrooms. And then sometimes I just kind of lead her around and let her go and see everyone up on the third floor and downstairs. And then once students are in their first class for the day, we go outside for a potty break,” Griffin said.
Part of Simone’s training as a therapy dog includes going to the bathroom on command. It is important that she is well-mannered and knows basic commands, but also is able to perform her duties to the fullest extent which means no accidents in the classrooms.
After her bathroom break, she takes her mid-morning nap and then she gets off-leash time in the school building. Griffin said it is important to know what Simone would do in the event she escapes.
After her free period, Simone goes and visits classrooms. During PE she joins the students, but in the interest of fairness, she has a rotating PE schedule so all the students get the chance to hang out with Simone.
The students love her, and she loves them right back. On a December afternoon during the school day, Deacon Parish, a sixth-grade student at University Middle School, plopped down on the couch and Simone immediately ran to his lap. While Simone doesn’t pick favorites, she does have her own comfort people in the school.
“Simone has really impacted us and the whole school, because when she came, everyone was so excited for her, and she always makes everyone happy,” Parish said. “I haven’t seen anyone that hasn’t smiled around her.”
Colbie James, an eighth-grade student at the school, said when Simone had to go back to training, or camp as the students called it, there was an obvious change in the school. Simone was in the school for only two weeks at that point, but per her training guidelines, had to leave and get refreshers on training.
“Everybody was really sad because they missed Simone, like, in the morning, times especially,” James said.
After the school day, Ryan said that Simone is tired from a long day of work but always springs back into action the next day at school.
Helping students, teachers
Griffin said that the students and staff go to Simone for support and love during the tough days and sometimes even the good. Simone is sometimes used as an incentive for the students to bring their grades up or for support after a hard test.
Griffin told the story of a student who was falling behind in classes, and when the student found out that they could have lunch with Simone they imminently turned anew.
“(The student is) on the autism spectrum, and he is very literal, and so he kind of got into a rut where he was falling behind in some of his classes. And I said, ‘Hey, if I see your grades start to increase by the end of the week, then you can come have lunch with Simone and me.’ And by the next day, his teachers were like, ‘he has turned in every assignment,'” Griffin said.
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Griffin often gets calls from teachers to have Simone visit class before large tests, and after tests go poorly.
“One of my teachers, my eighth-grade social studies teacher, called one morning and said, ‘Hey, my students took a test last week. They didn’t do great on it. Can you bring Simone up each class period at the start of the class?'” Griffin said.
So, Simone went to social studies every day and walked between the rows of desks. The next test, every student passed.
“Now, one might argue it was an easier test, one might argue that the kids studied harder. I’m going to say is because they were calm. They weren’t anxious about it,” Griffin said.
Brooke Muckerman covers city of Memphis, Shelby County Government, education and the unhoused for The Memphis Commercial Appeal. You can call her at 901-484-6225 or email her at brooke.muckerman@commercialappeal.com.
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