Boards lobby for increased special-ed funding
Published on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. Last updated on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010. KATE HAMMER, EDUCATION REPORTER
Ten of Ontario’s largest school boards have appealed to the province to change the way it funds special education by taking into account the increasing incidence of students with complex physical and mental health
needs.
The boards recently sent a letter to the Ministry of Education to make their plea: “The current funding formula for special education needs revision and a timely transparent process to address the growing demands,” it reads.
Overall enrolment at the province’s largest board, the Toronto District School Board, has declined 5.4 per cent over the past four years, while the number of students with special needs has increased by 16 per cent.
This imbalance has created a special-education budget shortfall, staff say, partly because much of the province’s funding is based on total head count.
The TDSB says it operates its special education programs at a $20-million loss, which would more than cover the $17-million projected deficit in its budget for the 2009-2010 school year.
“The province’s funding model underestimates the count of special needs students and the complexity of their needs,” said Karen Forbes, senior superintendent of special education for the TDSB.
Funding for special education at the Peel District School Board is expected to fall $16-million short of costs this year, according to Carla Kisko, associate director of operational support services.
“The services need to be in place to support these students; it’s not an option,” she said. “… But it’s really difficult because there’s always a lag” between funding models and incidence rates.
A shortfall, in terms of special education, can leave students waiting months for special needs assessments.
Rebecca Rycroft, a member of the TDSB’s special education advisory committee, said regular visits from a special needs assistant used to benefit her hearing-impaired son, Nicolas, but that the teacher support was stopped this year.
“We hear often how we can’t do the things we need to do because there isn’t any money” she said.
Patricia MacNeil, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said that funding for special education had increased by $2.5-billion since the 2002-2003 school year.
“The reality is there’s much more money in the system,” she said.
Reached late yesterday, Ms. MacNeil said she couldn’t speak about specific grants the TDSB listed as reduced.
The TDSB maintains that it will receive $20-million less in special education this year than it did in the 2005-06 school year, and serve 5,200, or 16 per cent more students.
Better diagnostics and the availability of leading health facilities in the GTA have been suggested as possible reasons, for example, that the number of TDSB students diagnosed with autism has climbed to 1,367 from 735 over the past four years.
< http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/boards-lobby-for-increased-special-ed-funding/article1472234/ >
This entry was posted on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 11:24 am and is filed under Education Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
328 Responses to “Boards lobby for increased special-ed funding”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
Spot on with this write-up, I truly believe this website requirements a lot much more consideration. I’ll probably be once more to read much much more, thanks for that info.
Great post. Just a heads up – I am running Ubuntu with the beta of Firefox and the navigation of your blog is kind of broken for me.
A friend of mine advised this site. And yes. it has some useful pieces of info and I enjoyed scaning it. Therefore i would love to drop you a quick note to express my thank. Take care
I’m impressed, I need to say. Really rarely do I encounter a blog that’s both educational and entertaining, and let me tell you, you have hit the nail on the head.
I loved your idea there, I tell you blogs are so exciting sometimes like looking into people’s private life’s and work. Every new remark wonderful in its own right.
Its just like you read my thoughts! It’s like reading about my family.
I’ve read several good stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how much effort you put to make such a magnificent informative site.
528840 666164I will proper away grasp your rss as I can not in finding your e-mail subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter service. Do youve any? Kindly permit me realize so that I could subscribe. Thanks. 796027
405765 878869In the event you have been injured as a result of a defective IVC Filter, you should contact an experienced attorney practicing in medical malpractice cases, specifically someone with experience in these lawsuits. 850503
Hello this is kinda of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be enormously appreciated!
I don’t normally comment on blogs.. But nice post! I just bookmarked your site
Hello. Great job. I did not expect this on a Wednesday. This is a great story. Thanks!
These stories are so important.
Amazing! Your site has quite a few comment posts. How did you get all of these bloggers to look at your site I’m envious! I’m still studying all about posting articles on the net. I’m going to view pages on your website to get a better understanding how to attract more people. Thank you!
Magnificent beat ! Can I be your apprentice? Just kidding!
Its wonderful as your other blog posts : D, regards for putting up.
My coder is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on numerous websites for about a year and am nervous about switching to another platform. I have heard great things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into it? Any help would be really appreciated!
Thank you for sharing this very good post. Very interesting ideas! (as always, btw)
I was suggested this website by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my difficulty. You are wonderful! Thanks!
These kind of posts are always inspiring and I prefer to read quality content so I happy to find many good point here in the post. writing is simply wonderful! thank you for the post