Page 5322 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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I think that you have no idea of the detrimental effect that your decision will have on Early Childhood services across the ACT—immediately, and into the future. These support teachers pass on knowledge, skills, wisdom and expertise, as they visit all Preschools in fulfilling their primary roles of supporting children with difficulties in their class settings.
The decision to cut five special support teachers, the only five, doesn’t represent your 1 percent “efficiency dividend”—this is 100 percent of preschool support! There is no-one else who can adequately fulfil these roles.
And here is one we received from an anxious parent:
I am writing as a concerned parent of a four year old who attends an Early Intervention Unit in Chisholm. We have recently been informed that as of next year we are going to lose our support teacher. This may not seem to be of huge effect to the EIU’s but in reality it has a massive impact on our children.
Support teachers give parents like myself a sense of ease as we know that we have the communication between EIU’s and preschools and schools that is highly beneficial and necessary for our children to learn and have the education they deserve.
I think these excerpts speak for themselves about the vital importance of supporting teachers who assist students with disabilities. This has to be a holistic approach in combination with teacher professional development and adequate teacher support. Throughout this whole process we have worked closely with the affected families in forcing this government to backflip on key decisions it had proposed.
To name a few, we were successful in bringing about an extension to the government’s consultation time frame from their initial period of only 12 days announced at the onset of school holidays, reversal of the government’s decision to discontinue two teacher positions from the hearing support team, reversal on the government’s decision to discontinue one teacher position from the vision support team, and reversal on the government’s decision to discontinue the provision of the disability support officers. According to the minister, the government has reversed its position on the early intervention unit and there will be no change to resourcing or staffing. That said, the two itinerant teacher positions will be replaced by two SLC level positions at 1.5 full-time equivalent.
The inconsistency in the previous parent’s letter and what the minister says is telling and highlights the lack of adequate communication, consultation and overall goodwill on the part of the government in its dealings with our school community. Still, there is much for us and the community to do, especially in light of the fact that there is another 1.5 per cent resource reduction in the coming two years.
What is particularly unsavoury is that much of this centres on just trying to get reliable, detailed information for concerned parents as to how support services no longer managed by central office will continue to be delivered in equal or enhanced capacity. This is insensitive on the part of the minister and cruel when we factor in vulnerable student communities.
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