Mom fears for son having to share educational assistant
Five-year-old Caeden Gooding is fascinated by cars, and often runs to parked vehicles to touch their large wheels or shiny paint. But because Caeden has autism, and has the social development of a two-year-old, his mother holds his hand tightly while near busy roads, often reliving nightmares of him dashing toward moving cars.
This is one reason Sunhee Gooding is upset her son has not been appointed a full-time support worker when he starts kindergarten this fall at a Surrey elementary school.
She has been told Caeden, who has high anxiety and a tendency to run away, will share a support worker with another child who has been diagnosed with similar issues.
“Caeden has bolted out of our front door and almost got hit by a (delivery) truck sometime last year. He has no regard for safety,” she said.
“His school is right on the street with quite a bit of traffic. He will need constant support and redirection. The school and district seem to think it’s OK to assign one educational assistant for two kids with flight risks.”
This decision, she said, came after she met in June with her son’s kindergarten teacher, the school principal, and several other district employees who work with special-needs students. Gooding argues her son deserves an education, just like every other child, and that his safety and learning will be compromised without one-on-one support.
Surrey Schools will not discuss individual cases, but generally speaking, the allocation of educational assistants and other support is done after these types of team meetings and are based on the learning and safety needs of each student, said spokesman Doug Strachan. There is a process for parents to appeal.
“In the spring, allocations were made for the upcoming year. Some students were allocated more (educational assistant) support time and others decreased and others stayed the same,” he said.
Surrey anticipates its number of special-needs students will increase from 3,700 last fall to more than 4,000 this year.
The district has pledged an extra $3 million for more educational assistants, and is appealing to the province to also boost funding in this area.
Education Minister Rob Fleming said the NDP has hired 1,000 new educational assistants, to bring the total number in the school system to 12,000. But the demand continues to grow: there are 3,020 more K-to-12 students this year with special needs, bringing the provincial total to nearly 70,000.
CUPE, the union representing support workers and educational assistants, reached a tentative agreement with the province in July, but until it is finalized, neither side will say whether it includes hiring more of these workers. Adequate support for students with special needs has been a matter of intense debate over the last school year, with many parents arguing that these services have not been prioritized.
The court victory that forced B.C. to improve class size and composition has led to many improvements, but when the on-call lists were depleted, special-education teachers were often forced to fill in for entire classes, resulting in special-needs children losing oneon-one support or, in severe cases, being sent home.
Gooding, in the meantime, will worry about her son when she drops him off at school next week, fearful that he will become distracted in class and race outside toward the road, if the educational assistant is busy with the other student.
The Insurance Corp. of B.C. reminded drivers this week to slow down as schools open again, noting an average of 86 students are injured every year in school and playground zones and that 7,900 drivers were ticketed for speeding in these areas last year.
Gooding plans to keep asking school board officials to re-consider the educational assistant allocation for her son and said her worries were not isolated, noting she belongs to BCEdAccess, which represents about 1,400 concerned parents across the province with kids of varying disabilities.
“The Liberals just took away too much, and what (the NDP) are adding right now is not adequate,” she said. “(Parents) are going through the same thing everywhere.”