One of the most routine parts of a Wiscasset School Committee meeting comes when policies are passed. They can be boiler plate and numerous, especially due to the newness of the school department, and they don’t spur a lot of talk.

But one the committee took up last Thursday night caught our ear due to the explanation Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot gave for its creation: The proposed “animals in school” policy stems from something that happened at Wiscasset Middle High School last fall, as the school coped with the worst thing any school faces, a student’s death.

The school department sought help from agencies including Tri-County Mental Health and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Wilmot told us Monday that NAMI raised the idea of bringing an animal in to spend time with students, particularly those most impacted by the loss.

“We really felt we had to respond to students’ emotional needs,” she said about taking NAMI up on the suggestion.

Wilmot shared with us that the dog who came into the school gave students and staff a sense of comfort and something to focus on as people felt overwhelmed, and it helped bring together groups of students who hadn’t interacted a lot together.

With help from Special Education Director Jess Yates and the Maine School Management Association, the new policy has since been crafted that will prepare the department for multiple potential, humane uses of animals in Wiscasset schools. It has key provisions about leashes, protecting students with allergies, and about needing the principal’s permission.

The committee and the department are doing a good thing setting up the policy; but we liked even better the fact that the dog got in last fall, pre-policy.

Red tape is nothing to discount; but, when posed with a horrible circumstance that needed immediate attention, the school department got it right.