The B.C. Ministry of Education’s Manual of Policies, Procedures and Guidelines explains the responsibilities of boards of education regarding the placement of children with special needs.
“A school board must provide a student who has special needs with an educational program in a classroom where the student is integrated with other students who do not have special needs.”
What the ministry manual is not clear about is the responsibility of government to adequately fund everything that is required to make this approach work in the best interests of children with special needs and everybody else in an “inclusive” classroom.
There is an “out” included in the manual, which is more of an escape clause for government than boards of education: “unless the educational needs of the student with special needs or other students indicate that the educational program for the student with special needs should be provided otherwise.”
Whatever that means, it does not begin to recognize what happens when a superintendent of schools has to sit across the table from parents with a severely disabled child and try to explain that there is currently no place in the school system for the child and that an itinerant teacher will provide what he or she can.
The term most commonly used these days is “inclusion.” Under the inclusion model, students with special needs spend most or all of their time with non-disabled students. While implementation of this practice varies, schools most frequently seek to place disabled students with mild to severe special needs in the least restrictive environment, which is usually a typical classroom.
And here’s the rub: A classroom that includes children with a variety of specific special needs is simply reflective of the diversity of the communities in which we live.
Translating a philosophy of inclusion into classroom reality is expensive and is underfunded, according to those teachers who accommodate children with special needs in their classrooms. According to ministry figures (with which the B.C. Teachers’ Federation agrees) there are 16,163 such classrooms K-12 in 2013/14.
The list of what is needed to make inclusion work without compromising the education of anybody else is long.
It includes adequate personnel supports and services for the student to assist classroom teachers implement individualized education programs.
High on the list is extensive and targeted professional development.
As an example, teachers of students with autism spectrum disorders sometimes use very specialized techniques called antecedent procedures. These include self-management strategies, peer-mediated interventions and what are called pivotal response strategies intended to stimulate motivation and the ability to respond to multiple cues.
This is not everyday classroom stuff. It is no surprise, then, that the wherewithal needed to make the ministry philosophy of inclusion work in those 16,163 classrooms is also high on the list of items to be negotiated between government and teachers.
There will be other related items, but the “biggies” still come down to sufficient funding.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender, to his credit, does not dispute either the numbers or the existence of the needs, saying: “I think what you have to do is look at those in the context of the reality of the classrooms.”
“When people say special needs, it is such a complex and diverse issue to talk about. Special needs are not always children who are dysfunctional in the classroom or causing disruption.”
He’s right about that, but is missing the point that the provision of adequate resources is not about disruption in classrooms.
As his ministry’s own manual requires, it is about the system providing “an inclusive education system in which students with special needs are fully participating members of a community of learners. Inclusion describes the principle that all students are entitled to equitable access to learning, achievement and the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of their educational programs.”
And that is all that those parents sitting across the table from the superintendent are asking on behalf of their child.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
