Wednesday, March 7, 2012

It is NOT OK - the low down shame on school funding and funding in general.



I am probably going to get some eyerolls when people read this. I know that the one's that roll their eyes are going to probably be the one's that don't 'get it'. They probably never will, and I guess there is part of me that doesn't blame them...they don't live my life day in and day out and the lives of so many others out there.

I am ticked off. I am really cranky this week. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I really think that it has to do with the fact that I have started working, and have worked for the last three days so far and that I have had a real insite into what is going on in our school system. I tell you it really has reduced me to tears. It is SO UNFAIR and SO WRONG.

Now, the majority of our school teachers do an amazing job and my hat goes off to them, they really are underpaid to do what they do, I totally get it, but the government is missing a crucial factor that is going to cost them and us as taxpayers alot of money in the future if they don't get their finger out. It really is disgusting.

Some of you are aware of our story and how we have a daughter with some 'special needs'. She has a rare chromosome disorder and has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. We have worked hard for years to help her get to the level where she could attend a mainstream school, and for the past 12-18months she has been doing very well there. She still is, but it wasn't until I became an aide in a school myself that the *niggling annoying feeling* that surrounded her aide time funded by the government really came to light. She gets six hours  a week of aide time. 6. out of 30 hours. It is rediculous. She cannot write by herself, read or sit for long long periods of time without support. She is socially not too bad and loves her friends but it is the workload that she struggles with. The learning. She needs one on one support in the class to write and read and learn. She is way behind and that is on top of the therapy at home, the therapy we pay for and the tutoring she is in weekly. I have to struggle with the fact that she will probably never catch up to her peers. And it hurts. Bigtime.

This week as I sat with the little boy that I support in my new job I just wanted to burst into tears. My heart broke for him. He is the most delightful little thing. He reminds me so much of my Naomi, yet he cannot talk hardly at all, and when he does he has the most severe dyspraxia that you find it hard to understand. He finds it hard socially, he cannot write, or read. He CAN count and he is fixated on routines. He is not autistic.

At least that is what they say. We beg to differ. How CAN you make a diagnosis on one day? one observation? And make this assessment the be and end all of all of your funding support?

No diagnosis. 3.5 hours of funding.

A week.

On a child that cannot write, or read, or play properly or understand what is going on around him.

Disgusting.

I just feel that if we don't act, if we don't change what can be changed, kids like ours, like these, will go missing completely. The gap will become wider, the choices for them narrower and the burden on those that love them greater. The burden is already great. ENORMOUS even.

I urge anyone who reads this to share this post with those that you know, so that we can raise awareness that it is NOT OK to leave our kids behind. To let them struggle through.

To do it alone.

It is NOT OK.

1 comment:

  1. thanks so much for helping me to see this issue from all sides- as a parent & an aide - i'm glad that you're educating the rest of us that haven't been touched personally by it. can totally see why you're cranky xx

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