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Special Needs Education? Name Your Price

Teachers, government, and parent advocates at odds over how far funding must rise to serve special needs students.

By Katie Hyslop, 7 Oct 2011, TheTyee.ca

Special needs students

Loosen restrictions to allow more special needs support for each dollar spent, argues Moms on Move parent advocate.

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There's no doubt in Dawn Steele's mind that special needs education is underfunded in British Columbia. But the parent activist says neither the BC Teachers' Federation nor the provincial government have the numbers right when it comes to how much money we need to get kids -- and classrooms -- back on track.

Steele, a member of Moms on the Move, a provincial parent advocacy group formed in response to government's 2001 education cuts, says schools need at least $110 million annually to make up for lost resources. That's how much Steele says then-education minister Christy Clark cut in grants for students with high incidence special needs.

However, taking into account the rise of teacher salaries by 27 per cent and the increase of special needs diagnoses by five per cent in the last decade, that price tag would reach about $175 million per year.

Either way, it's way less than the $336 million per year the teachers' are seeking, and more than the $165 million over three years and $75 million annually thereafter that the government is offering.

"The teachers are looking to go back to this really rigid situation that you had in 2001, where if you have a kid with special needs your class must be two kids smaller and you must have special needs teachers," says Steele.

"I'm not saying things have not gotten a lot worse since that's been eliminated, but there were reasons why people said that was too rigid an approach."

Loosen up on flexibility: Steele

Steele doesn't see the need for such strict rules on class size and composition when the definition, and requirements, for kids with special needs varies so much.

"These kids are all so different, their needs are so different, classroom situations are so different, that rigid approaches like that are enormously costly," she told The Tyee.

Take Sir Charles Tupper Secondary in Vancouver where Steele's autistic son attends. In order to accommodate for class size and composition rules, which allows for no more than three special needs children per classroom, she says the school would need at least 13 more teachers and $1 million per year to pay for their salaries.

"The teachers feel that flexibility is an 'f-word.' It has been used against them, there's no denying that, but it's throwing out the baby with the bath water to say that you need to go back to this really costly approach," she says.

"We're never going to get $300 million to go back that way. I think it's not realistic and it's not an effective way of spending resources."

Shift in training advocated

It's not just how much money is injected into the education system, says Steele, but how.

Teacher training programs at universities in this province need to include special needs training for all would-be teachers. And teachers on the job already need that training, too.

"The basic training program for teachers includes no training in special education and inclusion strategies, and fewer teachers have gone on to do the extra specialized training that qualifies them as special education teachers,'" she says.

Her answer is to put more funding -- beyond the $110-$175 million for special needs resources -- into professional development for existing teachers, and mandatory special needs training in teacher education programs.

"In many cases teachers who are really struggling, they need help, yes, but they also need to learn basic inclusion in special education strategies that could make it easy for them to manage kids with learning challenges," she says.

Individualized services, training needed: Lambert

Susan Lambert, president of the BC Teachers' Federation, stresses that if it wasn't for Steele, funding for students with special needs might never have made it to the public consciousness.

"Dawn is a terrific advocate of children with special needs and she's worked tirelessly for a lot of years trying to get more resources into a lot of schools. I think she's been very instrumental in making this a public issue," Lambert told The Tyee.

She believes Dawn has a point in her criticisms, saying that the formula for class size and composition doesn't need to match Bill 33 of the School Act, which states no more than three special needs students per class.

"But it has to be a formula that guarantees the right of every child to the individual attention that they need," says Lambert.

"I think when you have children with exceptional needs in overcrowded classrooms, and with no supports for that class, you cannot provide that level of service."

When it comes to funding, Lambert says Steele's funding wouldn't take into account the English as a second language, gifted children, and counselling services the teachers are hoping to restore with the $336 million they are asking government for.

As for teacher training, professional development just isn't enough as far as the teachers' union is concerned. Instead the ministry should be offering in-service training, specifically addressing the needs of the individual students.

"When I was a teacher, I had a child with cerebral palsy [who] had no control of her head and neck, she had no speech, and the team that was charged with trying to give this child communicative tools was trying to fit her with a laser light on her forehead so that she could trigger computer screen speech prompts," Lambert recalls.

"So it would have been very good for me to have access to in-service, a day to be taught how to use the technology for that particular child.

"It's not something that you can prescribe for all teachers; it's not useful for all teachers. There's just too broad a range of abilities and exceptionalities and disabilities that is present in the public school system. But individual in-service, for individual children, with parents, together, that would be great."

Despite their differences, both Steele and Lambert they understand where the other party is coming from, and that they both support students with special needs. And Lambert believes this disagreement won't keep them from working together in the future.

"Steele and teachers have worked together for years to highlight the absence of services for children with special needs, and I think that was a very good collaborative partnership, and it continues to be so," she says. [Tyee]

Katie Hyslop writes about education and youth well-being for The Tyee Solutions Society.

11 Comments:

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  • G West

    33 weeks ago

    Katie

    I'm surprised Steele didn't mention Alberta's autism programs.

    I believe they pay up to $60,000 per year for diagnosed children to receive a range of services that have shown real promise in terms of addressing autism issues and resolving them.

    Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, parents frustrated with the services and funding available in their home provinces like BC, Ontario and Saskatchewan are moving to Alberta for no other reason than that their kids can get the help they need there.

    Furthermore, it might be good to mention that, if the BC Government were to change its spending priorities, some 220 million of tax dollars annually, which is currently being poured into private schools funding, could go back into supporting public services in public education in this province - where it belongs.

    Cheers.

  • G West

    33 weeks ago

    editors

    Please remove the extra postings - for some reason your post comment command on this story is buggy this morning.

  • DenisB

    33 weeks ago

    Johannes vs School District 35

    don't forget that Wendy Johannes', of H.D. Stafford, grevience against School district 35 established the class sizes that christy baby threw out.
    Vince Reddy set the limits for special ed classes at 15 and behaviour disordered classes at 10. For the 2 years until then Ms. Johannes had been teaching 68 special needs students 14 subjects over grades 8 to 12. A savings of 7 teacher salaries and benefits to the district. At the cost of a good education to those students. Ms. jJohannes' description of the situation: " It's not teaching. It's warehousing."

    the superintendant at School district 35 was Emery dosdell. Who just happened to be christy baby's deputy Minister of Education. Which menas she knew exactly what would happen to classes when she brought this law in.

    The result: H.D. Stafford currently has 110 indentified special needs children and 30 behaviour disordered children in a school population of 625. Total number of resource teachers: 3. 2 for the special Ed. kids and 1 for the behaviour kids. don't even think about trying to put only 3 identified kids per class.

    All this really does is put the burden of providing for these children onto the Federal government and off the Provincial one. If we gave them a good education they could become tax payers. Now if I only paid Provincial taxes...

  • macsasquatch

    33 weeks ago

    Let me not shirk from saying the obvious

    Lots of people in and about the ed biz say that we should teach the individual. Politicians say it, people with Masters Degrees in Teaching One Kid At A Time say it, Masters in Admin say it, Master in Itineracy For The Newest Thing say it, and even a lot of class room teachers say it,-sometimes most of them.
    But kids are not sent to class room teachers as individuals. They arrive in groups. The class room teacher and the kids work together in a block of space and time,and those blocks contribute quite a bit to the way that they work together. (Want to test your people skills? Put yourself as a teacher with 30 table officers from your local business lobby, and your local municipal council, together in a 72 square meter block for 5 hours a day, and let me know how long until you have class management issues.)
    So the teacher and kids, with all their talents and experiences to be tapped into, are ready to go, - but as a group.That group, as the days and weeks go by, develop a way of working together, a kind of community.
    Class rooom teachers teach groups; they get to individuals if they have time.
    When talk turns to some poor kid who has to go all the way to Atlin to get into a class because of numbers, and so, should therefore be squeezed into the class of 30, it is useful to keep in mind that it is not just the one extra kid who is affected by getting into the class or 30, it is every other kid in that class, and it is the group as a whole.
    The same works for special ed kids. It is incomplete to think only of the special ed kids; the rest of the kids are also affected by inclusion. So, if funding and resources for special ed are cut short, every kid in that class is affected.

  • wvdk

    32 weeks ago

    33 is a FlexiBill

    Bill 33 does not place strict, inflexible limits on the number of special needs students in a class. Teachers are free to take more if they feel it's feasible in that class setting. I currently have 8 bill 33 identified students in a grade 9/10 class. I'm OK with it. Two weeks into the year I met with my (great) school admin and agreed to go over the 3 limit not because I was pressured in any way but because I have 2 aides provided and because, as macsasquatch makes reference to, the group 'works' and the students get work done. Ironically, I have one other student who isn't '33 identified' because he has passively resisted any assessment. He isn't a room management problem either - he just exists. Getting into his head is a bigger problem.

    Of course the bigger problem is underfunding: a slow, steady drop in inflation-adjusted funding and BC teachers now the lowest paid in Canada other than Quebec. I get it, Quebec teachers aren't likely to move to another province as they're mostly francophone. And BC teachers aren't quick to chase a $12,000 pay boost in Alberta because well, you'd be living in Alberta. Still, I've personally seen a principal and 3 teachers (all good) pack up and head across the Rockies. In the end, you get what you pay for.

  • wvdk

    32 weeks ago

    33 is a FlexiBill

    Bill 33 does not place strict, inflexible limits on the number of special needs students in a class. Teachers are free to take more if they feel it's feasible in that class setting. I currently have 8 bill 33 identified students in a grade 9/10 class. I'm OK with it. Two weeks into the year I met with my (great) school admin and agreed to go over the 3 limit not because I was pressured in any way but because I have 2 aides provided and because, as macsasquatch makes reference to, the group 'works' and the students get work done. Ironically, I have one other student who isn't '33 identified' because he has passively resisted any assessment. He isn't a room management problem either - he just exists. Getting into his head is a bigger problem.

    Of course the bigger problem is underfunding: a slow, steady drop in inflation-adjusted funding and BC teachers now the lowest paid in Canada other than Quebec. I get it, Quebec teachers aren't likely to move to another province as they're mostly francophone. And BC teachers aren't quick to chase a $12,000 pay boost in Alberta because well, you'd be living in Alberta. Still, I've personally seen a principal and 3 teachers (all good) pack up and head across the Rockies. In the end, you get what you pay for.

  • skeletor

    32 weeks ago

    What exactly is the

    What exactly is the definition of "special needs"? Does the definition include ADD and dyslexia?

    Also the more I learn about education the more I feel we are significantly hampered by the history of our education systems as they have evolved. It would be very useful to zero-sum this institution. Start over from scratch using best practices from around the world. Too many vested interests and fear of change for that I'm sure though.

  • skeletor

    32 weeks ago

    What exactly is the

    What exactly is the definition of "special needs"? Does the definition include ADD and dyslexia?

    Also the more I learn about education the more I feel we are significantly hampered by the history of our education systems as they have evolved. It would be very useful to zero-sum this institution. Start over from scratch using best practices from around the world. Too many vested interests and fear of change for that I'm sure though.

  • skeletor

    32 weeks ago

    definition

    What exactly is the definition of "special needs"? Does the definition include ADD and dyslexia?

    Also the more I learn about education the more I feel we are significantly hampered by the history of our education systems as they have evolved. It would be very useful to zero-sum this institution. Start over from scratch using best practices from around the world. Too many vested interests and fear of change for that I'm sure though.

  • skeletor

    32 weeks ago

    definition

    What exactly is the definition of "special needs"? Does the definition include ADD and dyslexia?

    Also the more I learn about education the more I feel we are significantly hampered by the history of our education systems as they have evolved. It would be very useful to zero-sum this institution. Start over from scratch using best practices from around the world. Too many vested interests and fear of change for that I'm sure though.

  • skeletor

    32 weeks ago

    wvdk

    Considering I know two trained teachers that cannot find work in BC because there are no jobs I think their pay is not a major problem. Since when does someone become a teacher to make good money anyways? Although to be fair we should probably pay those who teach our children decently. Anyways the idea of having a pay scale across all of BC is insane. How can we compare living in Vancouver city to [insert small town here].

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