Nearly 80% of parents of children with special needs do not really believe that their young one will have access to all the help necessary to make up for the delay caused by the strike, according to an in-house survey carried out by a group.
“Will it really be catching up or babysitting?” asks Bianca Nugent, president of the Coalition of Parents of Children with Special Needs of Quebec.
Since last week, parents of many children have begun to receive details of plans to make up for delays caused by the month-long teachers’ strike in some areas.
At a press conference, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, specified that all young people who have an intervention plan should be entitled to tutoring or specialized help.
As of January 22, the Coalition therefore launched a flash survey within its private group of some 3,000 members. Around 285 parents responded, and the consultation is still ongoing, explains Mme Nugent.
Bianca Nugent, president of the Coalition of Parents of Children with Special Needs of Quebec, last October.
Photo Pierre-Paul Poulin
Result: barely 4% of respondents say they have “confidence or very confidence” that their child will be entitled to all the necessary catch-up time. In total, 79% of respondents said they were “somewhat, very little or not at all confident”.
Some of the parents (17%) responded that their child “did not need any remedial work”.
Left behind
On the side of the Federation of Parents’ Committees of Quebec (FCPQ), another story illustrates the flaws in the various catch-up plans developed by schools.
Parents whose child is in a specialized class began to be told that they would not be entitled to catch-up because there would already be enough support to help these groups, reports Mélanie Laviolette, president of the FCPQ.
Mélanie Laviolette, president of the Federation of Parents’ Committees of Quebec. COURTESY PHOTOBANK AGENCY, PROVIDED BY THE FCPQ
However, specialized classes often bring together students with the greatest academic difficulties. For example, some are reserved for students who have a language disorder, an autism spectrum disorder or who have fallen too far behind to follow the regular curriculum.
“We would have thought that this is where the catching up would begin,” says M.me Laviolette echoes which go against the grain of what was announced by the minister.
“There is still a lot of stigma around specialized classes,” she laments. However, many young people there are capable of progressing if we give them the means.