Lack of help at school causes 8-year struggle
Beth and Nick Armstrong have been through ‘‘some pretty dark times over the past eight years’’.
Wairarapa has no primary school with a special needs unit, which presented the Carterton couple with a huge challenge over the best part of the last decade.
They have two daughters, Molly, 13, and Madeleine, 10. Molly has a chromosome abnormality that makes life for her and her family challenging.
She has attended four primary schools and left for various reasons, but the Armstrongs said the main issue was that the schools were not equipped to educate a child with her needs.
The Armstrongs said of the four schools, South End School in Carterton stood out because it made a huge effort to provide for Molly despite not being adequately equipped to do so.
South End teacher Julie Jones said she met with Beth Armstrong in the leadup to Molly starting at the school and they worked through how they could best make it work for all concerned.
‘‘I know that Beth and Nick had a real struggle and we tried as well as we could to help despite the lack of funding and expertise available to us.
‘‘Molly was here for three years and we did our best to make it work.’’
The good news is that Molly has made significant progress since starting at Wairarapa College at the beginning of 2017.
The college has a dedicated supported learning unit that has transformed Molly’s education.
Looking back on the previous eight years, the Armstrongs wonder where their daughter could have been had she had access to the education she is now receiving.
The Ministry of Education’s Katrina Casey said it knew some parents in Wairarapa wanted a special needs unit within a primary school and the ministry had met with a small group of them.
Nick Armstrong said they felt lucky to have come through everything with their sanity intact.
Making phone calls for weeks only to find out the few hours of funding they had managed to get for Molly were being cut significantly was something that could quickly drive a tired and exhausted person into outrage.
Molly was the worst affected by this, he said. Stuck in the middle, she lost her confidence, and became stressed, angry and tired because of the environment around her.
She didn’t really understand what was going on, he said.
The transformation that had taken place since she had been at Wairarapa College was unbelievable.
‘‘The head teacher, Amanda Kawana, is an amazing individual who connects with kids with a range of disabilities and it’s taken a huge amount of stress off us.
‘‘We can see the potential that Molly has, she’s learning and enjoying school.
‘‘But that just leaves us where could she have been?
‘‘We fought for years just to get a level of support that was still inadequate. We had eight years of constant worry.
‘‘The schools, despite having people who wanted to help, just didn’t have the means to do so.
‘‘The improvement this year has been so drastic that it has really brought it into perspective how bad things actually were,’’ he said.
Since Molly started high school, Beth Armstrong said her daughter had been able to restart her life. She had been able to go into some study, which she found empowering after years of dealing with constant doubt and worry.
‘‘It would be wonderful to see the system improved for others, because we went through an ordeal that seemed like thinking
Nick Armstrong, Molly's dad
it would never end.’’
Casey said the ministry was looking to review the Learning Support network across the Wellington region. This year’s budget provided $63.3 million of extra operating funding to support students with additional learning needs.
‘‘We are always willing to listen to parents feeling let down by the system and it’s important to note there are formal complaints procedures parents or caregivers can use if they’re not satisfied,’’ she said.
Wairarapa-based Labour Party list MP Kieran McAnulty said there were several areas in which Wairarapa missed out because it was lumped in with the wider Wellington region and special education was one of them.
‘‘There are difficulties for families trying to access special education at primary level in Wairarapa and it is something I have been made aware of.
‘‘A distinction has to be made between Wellington and Wairarapa due to the geographical separation.’’