EDMONTON – Education Minister Dave Hancock said Friday while the government is committed to including special needs students in regular classrooms, it is not prepared to increase funding.
Instead, he says, teachers will be expected to use more inclusive methods of teaching to more diverse classrooms. And, while nothing will change this fall, the province will eventually stop tying funding dollars to specific children diagnosed and coded with behavioural or learning problems. The funding will be dispersed instead at the school or classroom level, and the money saved on diagnosis will help build capacity in the classroom.
“We use a ton of resources diagnosing children, putting paper in their file,” said Hancock.
The minister was responding to Setting the Direction, a report developed after years of consultation with parents, teachers and other stakeholders and presented to the government last June.
For Lori Fankhanel, Hancock’s words were “bittersweet.”
“I absolutely 100 per cent support Setting the Direction,” said Fankhanel, who is the parent of special needs children. “I have incredible respect for the sincere beliefs of the minister of education, and, as a parent, I’m incredibly hopeful.”
But, she said, she doesn’t believe such a complex task can be accomplished without more funding, especially now when so many budgets are being cut.
The announcement was held at Crawford Plains School in Edmonton to showcase the success of mixing special needs, gifted and regular students in the same classroom.
Fankhanel, who is also president of Sensory Processing Disorder Canada, said the school has a classroom with only 16 students.
“If we wish for inclusion to work, the minister hasn’t talked about how he’s going to reduce class sizes,” she said. “The ministry hasn’t talked about how they are going to increase funding to support teachers and to increase educational assistance and to fund their training.”
More to come …
estolte@thejournal.canwest.com
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