Ontario shouldn’t give up on special schools

Re Parents fear end of special schools, April 15

Kathleen Wynne can certainly sound caring when she’s about to make cuts.

Yes, she says, provincial schools do great work, but they can’t possibly meet the needs of thousands of special-education students across the province. Of course, she knows that’s not what they were ever supposed to do. Demonstration schools — Trillium, Sagonaska and Amethyst — were set up to help kids with the most severe learning disabilities in the province.

These are the kids for whom school boards can’t find the right help no matter what they’ve tried — kids who might be reading at a Grade 1 level in Grade 9, despite their intelligence and strengths in other areas.

They get help for a couple of years from counsellors and teachers whose skills are the best in dealing with all aspects of learning disabilities.

Teachers from their home schools and others from all over Ontario come and visit to find out what has worked for these kids — after all, that’s what the “demonstration” part of the term means.

Educators from the demonstration schools visit communities to do assessments, teacher training and to help schools plan for the return of the kids they sent.

Yes, they do great work. Let’s not cut them. Dudley Paul, Toronto

I am extremely disappointed in the provincial Liberal government.

The cost of special-needs education is high, and many school boards do not have the ability to handle conditions such as severe learning disabilities, blindness or deafness. That is why we have the Provincial Schools Branch.

Yet the premier wants to transfer those students to the school boards, knowing full well that those schools cannot handle the needs of those children.

Minister Sandals said it was not for money reasons. That statement stung me, because if you’re not closing those schools for money reasons, then why are you forcing those children to get substandard education and forcing school boards to spend more money that they do not have to provide limited resources?

To educate a deaf child, you need to teach them sign language and you need two interpreters and eventually a notetaker so the student can follow classroom discussions. There are only 160 qualified interpreters for at least 135 deaf students and 4,000 deaf people who regularly book interpreters for Ontario.

To slap a pair of hearing aids on them and say, “They’re fine,” shows a lack of understanding of special needs and will just go toward generating another generation of people depending on welfare.

I do not know about the other disabilities, but I know children with them go to provincial and demonstration schools because they have nowhere else to go. Travis Morgan, Whitefish, Ont.