Submitted. With the theme of “A Collective Responsibility”, the district’s Director of Instruction for Learning Support Services, Leigh Howard reported to the Board on successes and challenges achieved and faced over the past year.
Approximately 9% of the school district’s
19,000 student population is designated with special
needs. The department supports these students as well as
being a centre for various support functions such as
district counsellors, youth care workers, psychologists,
community access programs and others. The department
uses a variety of programs and initiatives to successfully
deliver support across the spectrum, and achieve distinct
targets. Among other highlights Ms. Howard pointed out
the six-year completion/graduation rate for students with
special needs in Abbotsford is 77%; the provincial rate is
55% (as of 2011-12). Her presentation noted how the LSS
department supports each of the six key streams that
make up the district’s Strategic Plan
Ministry of Education should allot funding “per individual student” and any remaining funds not used by a specific student, then, should go into a general pot to be used as needed for others.
The Ministry allotted a certain amount for my child to the district, due
to my child’s hearing loss.
A teacher aide was in the classroom for a student with higher needs
on a regular basis and my child had access to her, when he had trouble
in his classroom work.
My child ,fortunately needed minimal assistance in the classroom,
however, child did require speech and language therapy, which
my husband and I had to pay for at 100+.00 hour, plus travel time.,
adding up to thousands of dollars.
The 16,000.00 allotted by the Ministry of Education was not fully
accessible for my child’s education….money paid by the taxpayer to help my child to have what he needed to succeed ie. speech & language therapy, ended up in a general pot and none was allotted
for his speech therapy.
A broken system…what happens to children, when families cannot afford to pay for the help their children and the district does not ensure the funding from the Ministry goes to the specific service/s needed by the child to have “success in learning?”