Mum says school’s out for complex needs son
A mother whose son has been out of school for over a year says the Ministry of Education is robbing her complex needs son of his human rights.
Natalie Barnett’s son Arapeta, 9, suffers from severe high functioning autism, dyspraxia, ADHD, anxiety, and sensory processing disorder.
He has been kicked out of two schools and turned away from dozens more. Some of his symptoms include underdeveloped speech, reading and writing struggles, and a tendency to lash out if his set routine is altered without warning.
Barnett, who lives 17km north of Tı¯rau in the South Waikato, said her son has now spent 367 days out of school due to multiple suspensions and stand downs. She blames a lack of understanding of her son’s conditions and teachers being ill equipped to work with such children.
‘‘No school within a 25km radius is willing to take him. If you get put into the too hard basket they pretty much wash their hands clean of you. It is interesting that these schools also all know the situation before you have even approached them,’’ she said.
While the Government offers an Ongoing Resourcing Scheme (ORS), which provides extra funding for students with the highest levels of additional learning needs in New Zealand so they can attend special needs schools, Arapeta has been classed as too intelligent to qualify. Currently only one per cent of the school age population is supported through the scheme with 500 of the 1500 who applied in 2017 turned away.
‘‘They can’t go to a special needs school yet they can’t fit in with mainstream education,’’ Barnett said. ‘‘My message to the Government would be to open your wallets, help our children out. You are taking their human rights away by not allowing them to have an education.’’
Arapeta has been forced to do correspondence through Te Kura, further isolating him from much needed social interaction.
‘‘I think teachers need extra training and funding for this reason and they definitely need more help in classrooms.’’
Autism New Zealand chief executive Dane Dougan said Arapeta’s situation was not uncommon.
‘‘The current government appear to be moving in the right direction in understanding the need for training for teachers – however there is more work that needs to be done in this area and ultimately we would like to see autism education included when teachers are in training.’’
Ministry of Education deputy secretary sector enablement and support Katrina Casey said change was on the way.
‘‘We have recently completed consultation on a Draft Disability and Learning Support Action Plan. One of the proposed actions is to ‘‘co-design a flexible package of support for neurodiverse and other children and young people with ongoing needs who are not eligible for ORS, including tools for neurodiverse learners’’.
‘‘Budget 18 [also] provided an extra $133.5m for ORS over four years. The additional funding will support up to an additional 995 students who are verified to meet the existing criteria from next year,’’ she said.
The Government has announced it will fund 600 ‘‘learning support co-ordinators’’ to work one-on-one with students with complex needs to take pressure off teachers and students.
‘‘Autism is the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world.’’
Autism New Zealand chief executive Dane Dougan