INFOMATION
Special needs
Cutting education assistants in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district will have ramifications that may include segregating special needs students who have been integrated into regular classrooms because of the presence of education assistants.
EAs are instrumental in helping both the classroom teacher and the special needs child. They manage students' behaviour, which allows the teacher to focus on the rest of the children in the class. They calm a student down so lessons aren't disrupted and they tutor the child.
Parents of special needs children worry that strides the district has made during the past two decades will be wiped out and, because of budget constraints, their children will be segregated into special classes.
One such Nanaimo parent is Shanon Johnstone, who fears for the future of her son, Lucas.
Lucas, 8, is in Grade 2 at Rock City Elementary School and has Down syndrome. Last week, Johnstone learned that because of forced budget cuts, Rock City will have to cut eight educational assistants next year, leaving only two.
Due to a provincial government audit, many children in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district now receiving the help of educational assistants will no longer qualify. The district is losing approximately $600,000 in funding earmarked for special needs students next year. This could mean the loss of 30 of the district's 250 EA positions next year.
Johnstone told me she's worried the progress her son has made will be lost without having an adequate number of EAs at the school.
Her son's social skills, math skills, language and sign language skills have improved. He's now able to participate with his classmates in all their endeavours at the school. Because of his Down syndrome, Johnstone said, the school district now considers her son to be a safety risk because he won't have access to an EA.
With the district's overhaul of its funding for EAs, he will not be supervised during recesses or lunch. She wondered what he was supposed to do during these times.
"When I asked about ensuring his safety during recess and lunch, I was shocked when I was informed that I should simply 'pick him up from school at every recess and lunch and then bring him back to the school,'" said Johnstone.
Ridiculous. She's supposed to put her life on hold to watch her son during recess? The family has a two-year old daughter at home and now she's supposed to run to the school five or six times a day, with daughter in tow to bring Lucas back home during the duration of these breaks.
When B.C. Premier Christy Clark was in Nanaimo last week to announce funding for the E&N Railway, I asked her how it was that special needs students and their families were about to be punished because her government isn't funding education adequately.
First, she repeated the Liberal's mantra that funding for education has increased dramatically since they were first elected in 2001.
She told me it was the local school district that "sets their priorities."
Well Ms. Premier, the provincial government should rethink its spending priorities.
Obviously, it was more important to your government to hold a two-week, billion-dollar party last February, than adequately fund education for B.C.'s most vulnerable students.
Then there's that little matter of the hundreds of millions to pay for the Sea-to-Sky Highway and if that isn't enough to demonstrate this your government's skewed priorities, there's the $6 million to put a roof on B.C. Place Stadium. Ridiculous.
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Special needs
Cutting education assistants in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district will have ramifications that may include segregating special needs students who have been integrated into regular classrooms because of the presence of education assistants.
EAs are instrumental in helping both the classroom teacher and the special needs child. They manage students' behaviour, which allows the teacher to focus on the rest of the children in the class. They calm a student down so lessons aren't disrupted and they tutor the child.
Parents of special needs children worry that strides the district has made during the past two decades will be wiped out and, because of budget constraints, their children will be segregated into special classes.
One such Nanaimo parent is Shanon Johnstone, who fears for the future of her son, Lucas.
Lucas, 8, is in Grade 2 at Rock City Elementary School and has Down syndrome. Last week, Johnstone learned that because of forced budget cuts, Rock City will have to cut eight educational assistants next year, leaving only two.
Due to a provincial government audit, many children in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district now receiving the help of educational assistants will no longer qualify. The district is losing approximately $600,000 in funding earmarked for special needs students next year. This could mean the loss of 30 of the district's 250 EA positions next year.
Johnstone told me she's worried the progress her son has made will be lost without having an adequate number of EAs at the school.
Her son's social skills, math skills, language and sign language skills have improved. He's now able to participate with his classmates in all their endeavours at the school. Because of his Down syndrome, Johnstone said, the school district now considers her son to be a safety risk because he won't have access to an EA.
With the district's overhaul of its funding for EAs, he will not be supervised during recesses or lunch. She wondered what he was supposed to do during these times.
"When I asked about ensuring his safety during recess and lunch, I was shocked when I was informed that I should simply 'pick him up from school at every recess and lunch and then bring him back to the school,'" said Johnstone.
Ridiculous. She's supposed to put her life on hold to watch her son during recess? The family has a two-year old daughter at home and now she's supposed to run to the school five or six times a day, with daughter in tow to bring Lucas back home during the duration of these breaks.
When B.C. Premier Christy Clark was in Nanaimo last week to announce funding for the E&N Railway, I asked her how it was that special needs students and their families were about to be punished because her government isn't funding education adequately.
First, she repeated the Liberal's mantra that funding for education has increased dramatically since they were first elected in 2001.
She told me it was the local school district that "sets their priorities."
Well Ms. Premier, the provincial government should rethink its spending priorities.
Obviously, it was more important to your government to hold a two-week, billion-dollar party last February, than adequately fund education for B.C.'s most vulnerable students.
Then there's that little matter of the hundreds of millions to pay for the Sea-to-Sky Highway and if that isn't enough to demonstrate this your government's skewed priorities, there's the $6 million to put a roof on B.C. Place Stadium. Ridiculous.
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special needs
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special needs
Placebo - Special Needs [Hurricane Festival 2007]
special needs
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