Powell pets and pet owners will have to find a new location for their daily walks and play time; Park County School District No. 1 has banned pets from school grounds.

Due to concerns to student health and the cleanliness of schools, pet owners are no longer allowed to walk their pets through the school parks and playgrounds as of Nov. 1.

“Each year we found ourselves responding to unattended pets that were curious about the playing children and would simply run over to our playground to join recess,” Westside Elementary principal Mrs. Angela Woyak said. “As you can imagine, this created some chaos as we ran in circles chasing dogs in order to leash them and call the local dog catcher.”

Westside Elementary, which sits adjacent to a public park, has seen its share of pets on the school grounds and until this year there was no barrier to prevent pets from running on to the playgrounds. With the pets came the messes left after.

“There has been the animal feces that we have to deal with when animals were left unattended on our playgrounds or had owners not willing to pick up the messes,” Mrs. Woyak said. “This presented health issues and cleanliness issues when tracked into our buildings.”

Southside Elementary also had problems with pets before the rule was in place.

“Kids had tracked dog feces into the school on more than one occasion this year,” Support Services Coordinator Mr. Rob McCray said. “Our custodian said it was almost daily that a child had stepped in some or found a pile that needed cleaned up.”

With the new regulation in place, signs have been posted to alert pet owners.

For now, Westside staff plans to simply bring the rule to people’s attention and ask them to remove their pets if there is a problem. If repeating issues occur, they intend to ask the School Resource Officer for assistance.

Powell police officers will also be on the lookout for loose pets in the school grounds.

“I think there is always an adjustment period to any new rule, procedure and policy, and the key to easing the adjustment is communication with our stakeholders,” Mrs. Woyak said. “We will need to remain vigilant to playground pet messes, but I am hopeful they will be fewer as time passes under the new rule.”

Mr. McCray is hopeful for the community’s response to the rule.

“I think everyone in our area will respect the efforts to allow our children to play in an environment free of animal waste,” he said.