Special Education Election Evening - 18 September 2008
The ACT Council of P&C Associations, Advocacy for Inclusion & Autism, Asperger ACT held a ‘Special Education Election Evening’ on Thursday 18th September 2008 at Dickson College, Phillip Avenue, Dickson.
Candidates standing for the major parties at the forthcoming ACT election attended to put their views and policies on issues relating to the education of students with special needs in ACT schools, and to take questions from the floor.
Background Information: Issues for the ‘Special Education Election Evening’
A group of parents met before the meeting to discuss issues around the education of their children in a variety of ‘special education’ settings in the ACT. These settings included specific ‘special education’ schools and Learning support units within mainstream schools.
Representatives from that group attended the ‘Special Education Election Evening’ at Dickson College on Thursday the 18th of September, and were interested in hearing polices that address among other things the issues outlined below. (Note, some but not all of these issues had already been raised with the Department of Education.)
- The purpose and practices of Individual Learning Plans (ILP’s) in ‘special education’ schools and settings do not seem to achieve their aims. The current system does not support individual learning styles. Currently there is limited or no provision of alternative teaching styles for literacy and numeracy. There is currently no recording of the teaching strategies that have been tried, what works and what doesn’t for individual students. Nor is there any continuity or accountability in the ILP process. How can this be addressed to benefit the students rights to an education?
- Parents are concerned that their children that are enrolled in ‘special education’ settings are not being seen by professional therapists. It would seem quite obviously efficient that with a student body in these school settings all with special needs to attach appropriate therapists to these schools to provide therapy while at school. Parents would like to hear about strategies to address this issue.
- Within the classes students regularly have to wait their turn for attention form teachers or teachers aids and access to technology. While on the surface that sound quite reasonable, when you understand that for a number of students in ‘special education’ one-on-one attention is a prerequisite for learning, and that a turn can be as little as ten minutes out of every hour. This means that for every hour that they are at school they are sitting by, not learning, for up to 50 minutes. How might this be addressed?
- For many students in ‘special education’ social skills are as necessary apart of the curriculum as literacy and numeracy. This learning needs to place emphasis on teaching basic life skills which incorporate every aspect of life inside the school setting and outside of school. Specifically teaching and breaking down the steps on how to talk to other students, deal with bullying, making friends and building friendship groups. These sorts of programs already exist and are used in other states/territories, why are they not employed in ACT ‘special education’ programs?
- What resource planning is in place for future demand around ‘special education’?Two examples of where the planning appears to be inadequate:
- Current options for year 11 and 12 education for students requiring ‘special education’ do not appear to cover the full spectrum of need. There is currently only one school in the ACT offering a ‘special education’ specific setting going to year 12, it focuses on students with moderate to high support needs. The only alternative is learning support units in mainstream colleges. Where do students with mild to moderate support needs go if they are unable to cope with a learning support unit?
- Learning support units on the Northside of Canberra are reaching capacity and unable to provide appropriate placements for students wishing to enrol in Kindergarten. One 5 year old child with Autism, from Macgregor, had applied for a placement in an Autism specific learning support unit for kindergarten in 2008. This child was initially offered a placement for 2008 in the non-Autism specific learning support unit in Harrison. Transport support offered to the family consisted of a taxi that would be unable to get the child to school until 10:00 am. This shows a total ignorance of the child’s condition. When this was rejected by the parents the child was later granted enrolment in the Latham primary LSU as an extra student. Almost a year later has this situation been adressed?
- Currently across the ‘special education’ schools there is a significant lack of teaching and STA staff that are trained in ‘special education’. It is vital that all staff, teaching and support staff, at a ‘special education’ school have at least an understanding of the basic characteristics of the disabling conditions of the students. The students are regularly being punished for exhibiting characteristics of their condition because the teaching staff do not recognise these characteristics. What will be done to address the lack of appropriately trained staff in ‘special education’ schools?
- Parents are worried about the safety of their children while they are being transported to school by bus. Some of the issues that need to be addressed are:
- Some buses only have a driver and no carer or support staff. This is an accident waiting to happen as some children, because of their disability, have behavioural issues that could potentially be very distracting to the driver. This can be distressing and dangerous for the other students.
- There is a lack of training and understanding for carer or support staff and drivers on the specific characteristics of the disabilities of the students which is evidenced by the way some drivers speak to the children.
- Better planning of the length of time the journey takes, as some students spend up to an hour and a half, each morning and each afternoon travelling on the bus.
- The needs of the whole family also need to be considered as some students are returned home by the bus at 3:00 pm, precisely when other school age children need to be picked up from school.
How can these issues be addressed to ensure student safety and timeliness of transport arrangements?
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