When students at Stafford High School in Falmouth, Virginia flipped through the pages of their yearbooks last week, they were in for a special surprise. Alongside the picture of 16-year-old junior, Andrew Schalk, appeared a photo of Alpha, his service dog.

Schalk has Type 1 diabetes, he told BuzzFeed News, and Alpha is tasked with alerting him when his blood sugar gets too low or too high.

"The amazing thing about Alpha is that he knows 20 to 40 minutes before my blood sugar actually does go low or high due to his amazing sense of smell," he said. "He has saved my life multiple times already.”

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Schalk first started bringing the black labrador retriever to school with him last year, where he has been warmly welcomed by Schalk’s classmates and teachers.

"He has become a huge part of my school, coming to my classes with me, and a lot of people know about him," Schalk said.

Alpha even has his own school ID. So when it was time to take yearbook photos, Schalk knew he wanted to include the pup.

The yearbook staff were “100% behind it.”

"The only thing they changed was the camera height,” he said, laughing. “They just had to lower it a little.”

Not all schools, however, are as welcoming to service dogs as Stafford High.

In 2015, after nearly 10 months of requests, a Connecticut school district denied 12-year-old Kierra Grace Thompson from bringing her service dog to school. Thompson was born with a rare condition called tuberous sclerosis, where several non-cancerous tumors in her brain cause autistic behaviors, as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and epilepsy.

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The school ruled instead that the dog, a Labrador retriever called Peanut, could attend school only if accompanied by a private handler. The U.S. Department of Education is now investigating whether the school discriminated against the student.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, service animals must generally be allowed to “accompany people with disabilities in all areas of the facility where the public is normally allowed to go.”

Even allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons to deny access of a service animal, according to the ADA.

Many times, these service dogs are an invaluable asset to students in need of assistance.

"He has been a great companion and added a lot of happiness to my school's environment," Schalk said, "It brightens people's days seeing him in the halls or in my class and I love being able to have that effect on people."

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