St Patrick’s Special School to appeal SNA allocation
ST PATRICK’S Special School is appealing a decision from the Department of Education to only increase their allocation of Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) by two instead of six for the coming school year.
Principal Lee Rodgers had initially sat down with a Special Needs Officer and agreed that a figure of 48 SNAs would be required at the school, based on next year’s class intake and the needs of the students involved.
‘Last year we had 42 SNAs,’ he explained. ‘ That may seem like a lot, but when you consider the medical and care needs of some of the children we have here at the school, in reality it’s not. These kids require a lot of care and attention.’
A couple of weeks later, Mr Rodgers was contacted once again and informed that instead of getting an increase of 6 SNAs for the coming year, the school would only get an additional two, bringing a total of 44.
Mr Rodgers is currently appealing the decision, but the situation gained significant attention after a post went viral on Facebook in the wake of a press release from Minister of State Paul Kehoe regarding SNAs.
In the press release, Minister Kehoe stated that County Wexford would benefit from 37.31 extra SNAs in local schools and that the extra posts would ‘ensure that every child that needs access to SNA support in Wexford can receive this support’.
While Mr Rodgers does feel that the figure of 48 SNAs is badly needed at St Patrick’s School next year, he doesn’t put too much blame on Minister Kehoe.
‘Well, I suppose what’s happened is he’s looked at the figures and seen that the allocation of SNAs for St Patrick’s has gone up by two for the year,’ he said. ‘While that may seem like a good thing, in reality we were expecting six. I’m in the process of doing up an appeal of the decision now and I will be making contact with Minister Kehoe on the matter.’
Mr Rodgers also added that a new €12million state of the art school in Drumgoold had come a step closer to becoming a reality this week too. He said that the project had just passed stage 2b and the project would soon be going to tender with a hopeful starting date of Spring 2018.