Cuts to special ed in Michican and the “magic pill”
June 26, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Education has been the magic pill for Charlie. Thanks to the over-50-plus teachers and therapists who have taught Charlie for these past seven years, he has learned everything from how to talk to how to use the bathroom, from how to eat with his fork to how to write his name. It has taken long hours and hard work on the part of both Charlie and his teachers for him to be the eager-to-learn schoolboy that he is today.
I therefore feel the alarm of the Michigan parents and grandparents whose autistic children attend the Lyle Torrant Center. The students (aged 4-6) have been doing well in the five hour/day program—but the school district is planning to cut the length of their classtime down to two and a half hours in the fall “to save money and make room for more students,” according to an article in today’s Jackson Citizen-Patriot.
“Either they’re not really aware of what’s involved with kids with autism or this whole budget crunch is their sole focus,” said [Carol] Miner, president of the Jackson Autism Support Network.
It is more than unfortunate that both of Ms. Miner’s concerns—a lack of understanding of what autistic children need and a focus on dollars not education—-seem to be the case for Jackson County’s school district when it comes to educating autistic children.
I recall back a few years ago when my kids were diagnosed and enrolled in all day school programs. My sister was substitute teaching in Georgia and the kids with autism only attended school for 2 1/2 hours each day. She said how fortunate we were and understood why we stayed in Florida.
It’s sad that not every school district feels the need to help these kids.
I guess some legislator might suggest that “2 1/2 hours is better than nothing.” We can’t settle for anything less than the best for our kids.
I’ve always said that I wish the people who had the authority to make these types of decisions were required to spend a minimum numbers of hours with children with autism. It might change the way their decisions are made.
Sam is going to a full-day program in August. He’s been doing half-days (more than 3 hours a day, though) since I got him into the public school PPCD program a year and a half ago. We’ve been doing stuff with private therapists besides, but it might be time to take a break from that once he’s in the full-day program. (His younger siblings provide a certain amount of appropriate stimulation, which helps. The biggest drawback is that NONE of them are speaking at appropriate age level. All of them are way beyond age level with shape-sorters, though, so I guess it averages out.)