If some parents decide that their children will be educated at home by choosing, others will do so despite their school, they were not able to maintain these students with special needs. A situation that concerns experts who are afraid that this phenomenon will continue to deteriorate due to lack of professional staff in the school network.
“In 2023-2024, out of a total of nearly 1.3 million students for pre-school education, basic education and secondary education, 2411 students in a difficult situation experienced a break between 1er November 2023 and 1er March 2024, ”said the Ministry of Education in -mail at Obligation.
The latest overview of this phenomenon, made in winter 2022 in a shorter period, and therefore is difficult to compare, 1379 students who lived in the province between 1er February and 28th March.
Specifically, the pupil is considered to be out of service in Quebec, when he sees his time presence in a reduced school, even interrupted, because the school network is unable to meet its specific needs. These are mainly disabled students who have difficulty in adaptation or learning and children with serious behavior disorders for which the school does not have resources necessary to teach them for full time.
“If you cannot guarantee his safety or the safety of the people around her in a regular school, you cannot keep the student,” summarizes the President of the Montreal Association of School Facilities Kathleen Legault, who says he is worried about this situation.
“It’s really a problem because there asks if the child’s rights are respected.” Education is the right, ”he recalls.
Sometimes we see breaking services now from the age of kindergarten or in the first year. We refer to the child as disturbing.
School at home
Parents are therefore regularly called to pick up their children from school.
“There are even a school department that sometimes recommends parents to choose school at home. It is said: for your child would be the best school at home, ”says a professor and research worker specializing in home education at the Department of Administration and Education Foundation at the University of Montreal, Christine Brabant.
Observations shared – and concerns – Bianca Nugent, President of the Coalition of Parents of Children with Special Needs Quebec. “Sometimes we see breaking services from the age of kindergarten or in the first year.” We refer to the child as disturbing, ”it differs.
And when parents complain about the lack of services offered to their children with special needs, “schools recommend that parents to do school at home,” he adds. “They are told that it is a compulsory education service and not that it is done at school,” he continues. “For children who need the intensity of service, the school should be the first choice,” said Mr.me Nugent.
Tip of the iceberg
According to Professor of Psychosociology and Social Work “University of Quebec in Rimouski Laurence Simard-Gagnon, they would only be the top of the iceberg and available” University of Quebec in Rimouski Laurence Simard-Gagnon. He is also a founding member of the Committee on the Right of Training of the League for Rights and Freedom.
“What the Ministry considers to be a break for service is a student who is withdrawn from school at least two consecutive weeks,” he explains in an interview. Therefore, children who are often invited to leave their school to return home, for half a day or several days at a time, do not count. “However, the students we encounter in our research are experiencing repeated long -term breaking, over months or years, but it is not suitable for this definition,” he emphasizes.
It’s a vicious circle. There are no services to these children, so they are disorganized, have trouble.
It seems that these services do not seem to be in the process of solving in connection with the lack of professional staff in the educational network, which includes mainly orthopedagogues, psychoeduators and speech therapists. On the scale of the province, the latest data in the dashboard of the Ministry shows 12.8 % of vacancies, a percentage that rises to 23.1 % in Montreal.
“It’s quite dramatic in specialized schools.” We approach the disintegration, ”says Kathleen Legault, referring to the glaring needs of professional employees in these facilities, where several students with special needs are led.
“It’s a vicious circle.” There are no services that offer no services to these children, so they are disorganized, ”notes the President of the Federation of Professionals in Quebec, Jacques Landry, referring to the consequences of breaks with many provinces.
“We will not be able to reinvest in service and in our professionals if we want to reduce the number of disorders,” he begs.
He joined the -mail, the Office of the Minister of Education Bernard Drainville said that 75 % of students who are affected by the disintegration of the service are “part of the week at school”. “We are not talking about a complete selection”.
Yet, “it is certain that we do not like broken services,” he continues. “For this reason, for this reason, there have been historical amounts from our arrival to the government that help young people who have special needs,” he adds. So the cabinet reports reports on the addition of 1200 other special classes for students who have had special needs in the last five years, and efforts established “to increase the number of experts” in our schools.
“Now it is also responsible for the CSS department and school authorities to introduce measures that meet each student’s situation and adapt the services they offer, according to the needs they have,” she adds.
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