Parents fight for disabled program
Routine is vital, trustees told
Ottawa public school trustees are about to dive into what promises to be months of tortuous budget debate with a plea from parents who want to save a summer school for their developmentally disabled kids.
The July school for about 300 of the board’s most vulnerable students is one of the programs under scrutiny as the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board tries to make up a $14.4-million budget shortfall. The program has been running for more than two decades but is not required by the province.
Parents who want to save the program were lined up ready to make their case to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board on Tuesday night. At press deadline, parents were lined up to make their case after debate over controversial changes to French immersion and kindergarten went into overtime.
Six-year-old Nathalie has attended the summer school for the past two summers, her mom Françoise Slaunwhite, a member of the parent council at Clifford Bowey school, said in an interview.
Nathalie does not speak, but her face lights up with excitement when the van arrives to take her to school, where she has learned how to communicate using picture boards, to use cutlery, walk with better balance, and socialize with other kids, says Slaunwhite.
“These kids need repetition and routine to learn and to maintain the skills they’ve learned during the school year, so in September they aren’t starting from scratch.”
If the 17-day summer program is cut, their children will “suffer from increased anxiety levels, social isolation, (and) difficulties transitioning back to school in September,” says a brief from parents of children who attend the school. There is no other summer education program for their children, they note.
Cutting the summer school would save about $600,000 a year. It’s just one option mentioned in budget documents. Staff reductions will be needed, warn board finance staff, who have identified as many as 95 positions, from teachers to education workers and non-union staff, that could be cut through attrition. The province has told the board it must start balancing its books.