I am extremely disappointed in the Provincial Liberal government.
The costs of special needs education is high and many school boards do not have the ability to handle specific disabilities such as those with specific learning disabilities, blindness or deafness. That is why we have the provincial school board. Yet the Premier wants to transfer those students to the school boards, knowing full well that those schools cannot handle the needs of those children. Minister Sandals said it was not for money reasons.
That statement stung me because if you're not closing those schools for money reasons, then why are you forcing those children to get sub-standard education and forcing school boards to spend more money that they do not have to provide limited resources?
To educate a deaf child, you need to teach them sign language; you need two interpreters and eventually a notetaker so the student can follow the classroom discussions. There are only 160 qualified interpreters for at least 135 deaf students and 4,000 deaf people who regularly book interpreters for Ontario.
To slap a pair of hearing aids on them and say, "They're fine," shows a serious lack of understanding of special needs and will just go toward generating another generation of welfare dependents. I cannot speak for other disabilities dependent on those schools for success, but I know that many go there because there is nowhere else.
Travis Morgan
Whitefish