'A lot of fear': These Alberta parents hope new special education standards won’t mean segregation
CBC
When Aiden O’Halloran was in Grade 6, he was getting 80s on his math tests, learning fractions, angles and double-digit addition, and keeping up with his class with targeted support.
In Grade 7, his teachers set a new goal for him: counting to 50.
“It was just a shock. It was back to preschool, kindergarten level,” said his mother, Shawna O’Halloran. “I'm not asking for him to be taught calculus, but he was excelling in Grade 6 and then that just stopped.”
Aiden has Down syndrome. The change in teaching happened when he switched from his neighbourhood school to a special education program for junior high. Now he’s no longer pushed to succeed academically, says Shawna, and she’s worried about what that means for his future.
There are kids with Down syndrome who graduate from university, start businesses and get retail jobs. Shawna follows them on Instagram.
But for Aiden?
“I'm going to have a child finishing Grade 12 not knowing basic math skills of multiplication or division.”
Shawna was one of more than a dozen parents who joined CBC Calgary, CBC Edmonton and the community-based parents’ support group Hold My Hand Alberta at an online forum recently.
This fall, the provincial government created a cabinet committee to replace the current 2003 Standards for Special Education. It’s part of its effort to address growing complexity in the classroom — kids with learning disabilities, but also those who are gifted or learning English.
We invited parents with Hold My Hand Alberta to share the concerns they have with the existing standards, and their hopes or worries for what this document may look like in the future.
The parents said they hope a new set of standards will address the major inconsistencies they find between school districts, make sure kids can focus on academics, value parents as partners and experts on their kids’ abilities, and include a way to hold schools, districts or the government to account when the standards aren’t upheld.
But they worry this might not be an exercise focused on helping their kids thrive in regular classrooms.
“It's scary. There's a lot of fear from parents that this will be segregation — that any student with special needs will be moved out into a separate school,” said Shawna.
“That we won't have inclusion anymore.”
When Aiden O’Halloran was in Grade 6, he was getting 80s on his math tests, learning fractions, angles and double-digit addition, and keeping up with his class with targeted support.
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