A leading advocate for people with disabilities has urged the establishment of a foundation to help desperate families struggling to have their children with special needs accepted in Catholic schools – and schools desperate for funds to help pay for staff to work in this field
By Anthony Barich
Disabilities advocate Barbara Harris has proposed the establishment of a foundation to relieve parents of the stress of finding funds to help educate their special-needs children in Catholic schools.
The proposition was made as students with disabilities have been turned away from Catholic schools due to lack of funding, while other parents think twice about telling the school their child has a disability due to what happened to their friends in similar situations, Mrs Harris said.
Equally concerning is the number of parents for whom the constant stress and anxiety about ongoing funding and support once the child is accepted and enrolled in the Catholic system, results in feeling forced to withdraw their children from the Catholic school, she said.
“This action is a significant issue for the family, for whom a Catholic education was so important to the faith development of their child, the siblings and the family unit,” Mrs Harris said.
“The stress is causing many families to feel unvalued by the Church, some to feel rejected by their church some to disintegrate as a family unit, and to leave the Church in anger or/and disappointment.”
Mrs Harris is coordinator of the Emmanuel Centre, a self-help centre run by and for people with disabilities. She also helps families deal with red tape and helps facilitate their inclusion into their local Catholic community.
WA-based National Catholic Education Commission chair Therese Temby told The Record that she doubts parents have been refused enrolment because it is illegal under the discrimination Act.
Mrs Harris and Ms Temby agreed that schools have difficulty finding the resources to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Mrs Harris said it should not be the schools’ sole responsibility. “My issue is not with Catholic Education. If we as Church say abortion is wrong, we as Church have a responsibility to human beings, as that’s what we’re talking about,” Mrs Harris said.
Ron Dullard, director of Catholic Education in WA, told The Record that “we could always do with more money (for students with disabilities) and we don’t get as much as the State schools do, but no child can be denied access to any Catholic school because of disability”. He said it comes down to the school, the local CEO and parents coming to an agreement of what the child’s needs are, but admitted that these can conflict.
“Some parents would want a fulltime aid, and we may say that a fulltime aid might not be in the child’s best interest. So it’s about expectations and what we can provdide. Our numbers of students with disabilities continue to grow and that’s a good thing,” he said.
There are 25,000 students with a disability in Australian Catholic schools out of 703,000 in the Catholic education system. Catholic Education WA has 13 “highly regarded and qualified” special education advisors that work with schools and parents to find the right arrangement.
Both Mr Dullard and Ms Temby told The Record they would prefer that the government fully fund every child to be educated – regardless of what school they go to, in accordance with their level of disability – over Mrs Harris’ proposition.
Ms Temby called the 10 May Federal Budget’s announcement of $200 million over four years for additional resources for students who have a disability a “breakthrough, because we’ve been asking for increased funding for students with disabilities for years”. Some parents will also benefit from changes to the family tax benefit for their children who complete school, while an extension to the education rebate will help some families with the cost of school uniforms.
She also welcomed the Federal Government’s 30 May pledge that no school will lose a dollar as a result of the Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling, which is expected to hand down its findings by year’s end.
However, Mrs Harris said Catholic parents should not have to rely on the government for their children to be educated.
“It’s about getting together and being creative on how we can achieve assistance for parents of children with disabilities to be educated,” Mrs Harris said. “If someone started a fund, there must be lots of other people who would like to contribute to such a fund, but we don’t even talk about it or pursue it as a commitment of the Archdiocese.
“Out of that, the Holy Spirit will work and imbue people with creative ideas regardless of whether the government increases their funding, because the community has to say ‘this is our responsibility, in the name of the truth that we hold and the faith we express’.
“Catholics should not have to bear the brunt of finding a place for their child in the Catholic community. We as a Church have to say this is too important to allow it to go on.”
There is also the agonising stress of months of negotiations that often entails acquiring funding for such students in Catholic schools, which is negotiated by the school and the local Catholic Education Office.
Such is the case for Ellenbrook couple Andrew and Cheryl Gomez, a single-income couple who have been fighting for five months to get funding for a personal aid for their son Luke, 5 (Down Syndrome), in Year 1 at St Helena’s Catholic Primary School.
Though Cheryl has taught Luke to read at home, he is behind his peers and needs a one-on-one personal aid to guide him through classes.
The couple has now agreed to an aid spending about 70 per cent of each week with Luke, but they’re not sure whether they will have to go through this again for next semester.
“The frustration is that I am a practising Catholic and I don’t believe I should have to fight for this; and now we’ve got to a stage we’re happy with, we might have to start the process again later in the year,” Mr Gomez, 46, a sales manager for a communications company, said. “My main gripe is that if we took him out and into the government school next door we’d probably have a full time aid for him there, based on conversation with friends of ours (who have children in that system). Funding there is better and easier (to obtain).
“We still don’t know if it’s term by term or year by year. Either way I don’t think it’s good enough, as it’s taken us half the year that Luke is unsettled for. It’s not like we have a tree out the back and money falls off it. We only want what’s best for Luke. I don’t want to pull him out, but if it’s a last resort I would and put him into a (government) school with full funding.”
However, he prefers to have Luke, the third of four boys, to attend St Helena’s which he intends all his four sons to attend. Mr Gomez told The Record he would back Mrs Harris’ proposal for a fund established in the Archdiocese available to parents who want to enroll their children in Catholic schools.