Easy to spend $37 million on Special Education

Jeff Green | Nov 10, 2011

Special Education is a serious business for the Limestone District Board of Education.

Alison McDonnell, Supervising Principal (Special Education), heads up the program for the board, and dozens of people work in her department at the board office, travelling from school to school, and working in specific schools.

I had occasion to call the board about Special Education after receiving a call last week from a concerned parent whose special needs child had just enrolled in an LDSB school. The child has been diagnosed with a global developmental delay and the parent was concerned that the educational assistant who had worked with his child was being removed just a few weeks into the school year.

When I called the school the next day it turned out that a meeting had already taken place and a plan for the child was in place. The school would not speak about the specific case, as is their policy, but referred me to the board for information

With their own issue resolved, the family also did not want to be identified at this time, but the question that struck me from talking to the family remained: How does a school, a board, determine what the needs are of all of the special needs children that they have the responsibility to educate and care for?

In most cases work is done in advance to identify students coming into school for the first time or moving from school to school and to develop an educational plan for the student.

“It starts in the spring time,” said Marg Akey. “We ask the school to put together a template of needs for the students who are going to require some level of support. We have an excellent transition sharing process with community partners, outside agencies such as Children’s Aid, Community Living, day cares - anyone who provides a service prior to entry to school. Everyone involved participates in a number of meetings, including, the parents.”

Inevitably, however, cases like the one that led me to call the board do come about. Those cases have a name at Limestone – they are ‘lift off lemons’ – lemon being the colour of the ‘Lift off’ form that is filled out when a request for short term supports must be made when a special needs child arrives unexpectedly at a school.

The supports are as varied as the needs, since ‘special needs’ range from the physical, such as hearing or visual impairment or mobility issues, to developmental issues ranging from autism to developmental delays of other kinds.

“Our ultimate goal is to provide the least intrusive supports we can. We must always consider inclusivity, safety and medical needs, and how well we can share supports between children. It is an involved process,” said Akey.

Included in the special needs umbrella are behavioural needs and School to Community classes. School to Community classes are in place at all of the Limestone Board’s high schools and in primary schools where the numbers warrant them.

“We make plans to design our services each year and then we make changes, because we know that needs change,” she said.

“We have no problem spending the $37 million that is allocated by the province,” said Akey. “We have to do our best with finite resources and make sure that each child receives their share of the supports we are able to provide.”