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Ed Minister's 'No' to Parents, Teachers of Special Needs Kids

Keying off study, delegation asked for targeted funding.

Andrew MacLeod 28 Feb 2008TheTyee.ca

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee's Legislative Bureau chief in Victoria. You can reach him here.

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Education Minister Shirley Bond.

Parents and teachers concerned about funding and programs for students with special needs left Victoria disappointed after meeting with Education Minister Shirley Bond earlier this week.

"I was hoping the minister would say she was going to look at this issue, that there would be more money coming to special needs," said Cecelia Reekie, whose child has a "mild to moderate" mental handicap and is in Grade 11 at a Langley school. "It didn't go. It was really disappointing."

Parents and the Langley Teachers' Association have been trying to get attention to the issue since a report outlined problems with programs and services for students with special needs in the district. Observers say that though the report focussed on Langley, it reflected problems throughout the province.

"There's no accountability for how that money is being spent," said Reekie. "Nobody sits down and talks to us about what we want." Parenting a child with special needs takes a lot of work, she added. "This is our life. To say you're not willing to sit down and discuss this with us is ridiculous."

And while the board and ministry refuse to act on the report, she said, the system is doing badly. "As far as I'm concerned we're failing our kids horribly."

De-targeted funding

"There was nothing that came out of there that gave us a whole lot of hope," said Gail Chaddock-Costello, a teacher and second vice president of the LTA. "We feel they've been sidelined once again."

Minister Bond told them at the February 25 meeting there would be no new money for students with special needs, she said. "If your pat answer is there is no new money, why don't you change how you structure it?"

When the Liberals came to office, she said, the Education Ministry gave boards money that was targeted for special needs students. "Now it's just rolled into a lump sum. There's no accountability and there's no way to know what should be spent where."

The ministry could go back to targeting money, she said. "It's very easy to change. It only takes the political will and the stroke of a pen."

Decentralized decisions

There are no plans to return to telling school boards how much money to spend serving students with special needs, said Minister Bond. "Probably there's been that debate that goes on, should we target or should we not," she said. "It's not something we're contemplating at the moment."

Bond sat as a school trustee in Prince George before her election to the legislature. As a trustee, she said, it was frustrating to try setting board budgets when virtually every dollar was targeted. So when the Liberals came to power in 2001, they acted on the belief decisions should be made as close to the classroom as possible.

In Langley that laissez-faire approach is taken a step further. The board uses a decentralized decision making process that allows individual schools to decide what to spend money on.

"There are pros and cons to the model," Bond said. However, she added, it is easier for parents to develop a working relationship with a local principal than it is with the minister of education. "Government, especially the provincial government, is not in the best position to make decisions for individual students across British Columbia."

She also acknowledged the Langley report raised some important issues and said ministry staff have been paying attention to it. "I think there are some areas we can work on," she said. "We're going to take the report seriously."

Snapshot of a crisis

The report from Langley is a snapshot of the crisis in special education, said NDP education critic David Cubberley. "It's representative of what's going on across B.C.," he said. "This is not a one off. This is documented in all the reports we're seeing from school districts."

There are fewer special education assistants available to work with an increasing number of students with special needs, he said, adding the problems go back to cuts the Liberals made six years ago. "The resources are simply inadequate and spread too thin for the kind of interventions that are needed to enable these kids to meet their potentials."

It's troubling that children can't get resources the ministry's own policies say the government is obliged to make available, he said. Working without enough resources also leads to demoralized teachers, he added.

Cubberley also met with the group from Langley while they were in Victoria. It's surprising the Langley board wouldn't meet with them. "I think it's very odd for trustees to sidestep looking into how their relationship with individual schools is or isn't working," he said.

Stable spending

School board staff meet with the LTA regularly, said Craig Spence, a spokesperson for the district. Trustees and senior management have looked at the report, he said. "They're aware of what's in it."

It's not, however, appropriate to meet to talk about the report, he said. The report makes recommendations for both the district and the province, including things related to class size and composition. "That's a matter for provincial bargaining," he said. "For us to be participating in a formal committee structure environment on these issues, the board feels is contrary to the intent of the school act."

In the 2007-2008 fiscal year the ministry gave the Langley school district $7.8 million targeted to spend on special education, he said. However, the district spent $20.2 million in the area. That funding is identical to what was spent in 2002, he said.

"The district spends far and away more than what's allocated to meet the needs of those students," he said. "The district has remained very committed to special education."

Forced to be adversarial

The authors of the Langley report wrote that information "was not especially forthcoming" from the district about how money is spent by schools. "The disposition of those funds is at the discretion of the school and not necessarily trackable," they wrote. Nor does the province require that the spending be tracked.

Though the inputs were unclear, the results were obvious, the authors said. "Despite the limitations in data, evidence from those most directly impacted overwhelmingly suggests that many students with special needs . . . are not receiving the educational programs designed to meet their learning needs."

A special education assistant with 11 years experience working in Langley schools, Kelly Dussin, said it is frustrating to work in a system without enough resources. "There's a high level of stress in our jobs trying to meet the needs of our students," she said. "We want to do the best for the kids and none of us feel we're accomplishing that right now . . . It's a system that needs to be looked at. These kids deserve an education as much as any other student."

Donna Gilbert, who has a 12-year-old with autism, said he isn't getting what he needs in a Langley school. He's bright and creative, she said, but needs consistency. "He's got a lot of potential," she said.

"Because he's different he needs to have support in the school system. I'd just like the school district to support my son."

For three years, she said, she and her husband have been trying to get more help for their son. "It's very sad parents have to go to the extent we've had to to support our children," she said, adding she feels forced to be adversarial. "I've never spoken out [publicly] in three years because you feel the pressure of being intimidated . . . I'm sick and tired."

Meeting with Minister Bond did little to encourage her, she said. "I was disappointed. I don't think they want to acknowledge the bigger picture."

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