The Editor,
The government’s fight to underfund B.C.’s public schools, and especially its special needs students, isn’t over, even though the strike has ended.
I recently learned that special education assistant support in my son’s school has been cut by the district. While there’s been a lot of media coverage about how special education support (or lack thereof) affects the teachers, there’s been significantly less about how it impacts the students.
So, I wanted to tell B.C. about Will, to remind people that there is a human and a financial cost to chronic underfunding.
Will is my son. He is six-years-old, and a proud Grade 2 student at James McKinney elementary.
He is also autistic, and, when he was four, was diagnosed as profoundly intellectually disabled.
In short, he’s the kind of kid who, without resources, is supposed to make the entire class unteachable, except that Will attends McKinney, which is an exceptional school, full of exceptional people. The principal, Mr. Osadchy, embodies the principles of servant-leadership that so many business schools try and fail to teach.
Will’s teachers, Mrs. Cheung, Ms. Leung, and Ms. Gourlay, have taught both Will and his classmates how to be together in a community, never losing faith that this child could learn, never hesitating to give of their talents and time for him.
And his aide, Ms. Cabot, has been nothing short of a miracle to our family, working tirelessly and creatively to see Will reach his potential.
And this has all happened in an exemplary community of students and parents, who have been not just tolerant, but kind and inclusive, teaching Will to play and to belong, and never treating him as anything but a classmate and friend.
Will’s education has required resources beyond his typical classmates. But, in the short years from kindergarten to Grade 2, he’s gone from a non-verbal child to one who can read, write, and do math, who plays with friends and goes to birthday parties. His pediatrician now predicts an entirely normal life for him.
For those who see the world only in dollars and cents, the lifetime costs of supporting a severely impacted autistic individual in Canada are around $5.5 million.
Due in large part to the efforts of these exceptional educators, Will can grow up to be a contributing Canadian taxpayer, instead of requiring lifetime disability support.
But even exceptional people can do only so much without resources. The aide that Will’s school has lost is not just a budget line item — that aide is some child’s chance to overcome and succeed.
We save thousands now to potentially spend millions later; it’s the kind of short-term political thinking that can only be described as short-sighted.
B.C. deserves better; our kids deserve better, and all the Wills out there definitely deserve better.
Darra L. Hofmanj
Richmond
