[FEAT BC Admin]

In this discussion area, please feel free to share your experience in implementing A.B.A. programs in the school system. We would particularly like to hear from those parents who converted their school teams to A.B.A. We’d like to hear the nightmares as well as the success stories.

Any insight that can be shared by school-based special education assistants to help parents would also be very meaningful.

Topic

[Nicole Kaler]

Looking for Preschoolers! New Preschool opening in S.Surrey!

Harmony House is a new preschool opening in September 2007!

The focus of this preschool is a developmental curriculum that allows for inclusion by supporting children with autism with their peers. Approximately 4 students will have a diagnosis of autism and another 10 will be typical peers. The 4 children with Autism will have individual aides trained in the method of Applied Behaviour Analysis. These aides will be provided and supervised by Harmony House.

The goal is to allow for observational learning for the children with autism with an emphasis on social skills, communication and play! Typical peers will be engaged in an exciting curriculum that will be accompanied by a music CD that focuses on learning about the world around them as well as developing new and amazing friendships!

If you are interested please email bohdanna@harmonyhousebc.ca
or nicole@harmonyhousebc.ca for more information as registration will fill up quickly!

The preschool will be run in South Surrey at Camp Alexandra at Crescent Beach Monday Wednesday and Friday from 9-1130. Children must be 3 years old by December 31 2007.

[Barbara Rodrigues]

Hi Deb:

We had a fund set up for Jeremy I think it was through Heritage? Not sure will ask Joe when he gets home tonight. Anyway, about 5 years ago – we decided that it was silly to put money into something that (unfortunately) Jeremy was never going to be able to do – at the time we had no other children. We had just a letter from the doctor and I wrote a letter -they returned our money within a few months. I would keep on them and if they don't respond – I would do as suggested and contact the media. It's just horrible having to admit that your child will never be attending further education and the pain of accepting and dealing with that let alone have these people screw you around. Anything I can do to help – let me know.

Barbara Rodrigues

[Jenn Ralph]

….actually, I'll just post my husband's response requesting advice from him on your issue Deb (and probably others….).
Jenn

It sounds like she is talking about the private company doing education plans but this isn't a real RESP. If its a real RESP available through banks and credit unions, one can do a "family plan" where the funds can be transferred among students without restriction.
Technically, if the plan was set up for an individual, this probably isn't retroactive but you could try.

If its the scholarship company, good luck. I never heard anything good about them and this story would be typical. The best one could do is appeal to their common sense and compasion and failing that shame them by reporting them to the media or the very least the BBB.

[Jenn Ralph]

Deb,
Email me at jennifer.r@shaw.ca
Jenn

[Shiao]

I don't know too much about RESP, but I heard that you can set up a family plan so you can use the money towards any of your child. Sorry won't be able to tell you more, but try to talk to your RESP provider to get more info on it. Good luck!!

[Debra Antifaev]

I am having some problems at the Canadian Scholarship Trust Plan that I felt I should make FEATer's aware of.
I was trying to dissolve my severely autistic son's RESP…I did not want the money back, etc, I simply wanted it transferred to my younger son's RESP. It has now been two years and the money has "disappeared". Every time I phone them to ask when it will be deposited to the younger son's RESP they ask me for another condition to be fulfilled. The last request was for an evaluation from a Registered Psychologist…which I sent. (from the extremely well respected Dr. Davies)
NOW they are saying that the evaluation I sent them (the one accepted by every other Government agency in the country, including Rev Can!) does not contain the phrase "will DEFINATELY not be attending post secondary"
It does, however, contain the sentences…"functioning at a one to two year old level"
"needs contant supervision and prompting. Often requires assistance with regular tasks"
"Is non-verbal"
"will require full-time teaching assistant"
"Will require adult supervision for the rest of his life"
The report even documents his extremely low I.Q. But all this is still not proof enough for the Canadian Scholarship Fund.
If I close the plan, I lose all the money. If I get another evaluation I am out approx. $180…..What to do…. what to do???
So this is just a little warning to people in case you were debating an RESP, they are very hard to get out of if the worst thing imaginable happens and your child will not be attended post secondary……be very careful….we have little enough money to throw around with the expenses incurred by our kids….
These people just add to our troubles….

My two cents with a warning….
Deb

[walkerc]

Hi does anybodys children attend Noel booth school in langley. We are looking for info on the school Good or bad. Or do you know of any other good school in Langley. Our neighborhood school is closing (low enrolment) and our school is supposed to be joining with Noel booth. We are trying to get as much info as we can before september as to what school might be good for our son. Our son is high functioning and in a regular classroom with an aide. You can e mail me at charsupermom @ hotmail .com (without the spaces)or post here thanks Char

[Nancy Robins]

ATTENTION ALL THERAPISTS

ATTENTION ALL SURREY PARENTS

The Surrey School District is currently recruiting ABA Support Workers for Sept 2007. Below is the current ad running in The Now & The Leader.

**Please forward this information to any therapists that may be interested.

Thanks.
____________________________________________

Surrey School District 36
APPLIED BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS ( ABA ) SUPPORT WORKER
(Employment to commence for the 07/08 school year)
The ABA Support Worker provides assistance to students with autism spectrum disorders. The ABA Support Worker assists teachers in the delivery of special education programs and services.
The District seeks ABA Support Workers who have completed 1000 hours of training (250 hours must be focused on discrete trial) in an intensive applied behavioural analysis home program. Such training must be supervised and assessed by a qualified ABA Behavioural Consultant.
Successful ABA Support Workers must commit to completing the Surrey College ABA Support Worker program.
Qualified and interested applicants should submit their resumes, supporting documents and references, clearly marked with the competition number, no later than Monday, April 20th, 4:00 p.m. to:
Competition #SEA 370:07
Human Resources Department
School District No. 36 (Surrey)
14225 – 56th Avenue, Surrey, B.C. V3X 3A3

IMPORTANT: an ABA competencies based assessment completed by a qualified ABA Behaviour Consultant is a requirement; please go to sd36.bc.ca to download the required forms.
Note: Faxed resumes will not be accepted. Successful applicants will be required to consent to a Criminal Record Search prior to employment. Only those persons selected for interviews will be contacted. To all others, thank you for your interest.

[walkerc]

Hi does anybodys children attend Noel booth school in langley. We are looking for info on the school Good or bad. Or do you know of any other good school in Langley. Our neighborhood school is closing (low enrolment) and our school is supposed to be joining with Noel booth. We are trying to get as much info as we can before september as to what school might be good for our son. Our son is high functioning and in a regular classroom with an aide. You can e mail me at charsupermom @ hotmail .com (without the spaces)or post here thanks Char

[Dave Collyer]

FYI… see below:

URGENT NOTICE: Please forward to Vancouver parents of students with special needs,
including students starting kindergarten in Sept. 07

Vancouver School Board proposes deep special ed cuts
for Sept. '07 despite rising special needs enrolment

The Vancouver School Board has just announced proposed budget cuts of almost $6 million for the 2007-08 school year, with the majority of cuts targetting frontline services for students with special needs and other vulnerable students.

The Board claims these cuts are consistent with declining enrolment in Vancouver. But when the proposed special ed cuts are compared to growing special ed enrolment figures in Vancouver, the exact opposite is true. If approved, the proposed budget would mean significant further cuts to current support levels for students with special needs, and significantly reduced service levels for new students with special needs entering Vancouver schools.

Proposed VSB cuts for 2007/08
The proposed cuts for September 2007 are:

* 3 Vice principals
* 1 systems analyst
* 34 Special Ed Assistants (SSWs)
* 133 Teachers, mostly "non-enrolling" resource teachers who support students with special needs, ESL and other vulnerable students

Compounding past cuts
A special ed staffing analysis, submitted to the VSB budget process by the Board's own Special Ed Advisory Committee (SEAC) in March, showed that caseloads of special education teachers in Vancouver have already risen by over 50% since the 2000/01 school year. The special ed student/teacher ratio rose from 9:1 in 2000 to 13:1 in 2006.

A group of UBC experts in this field pointed out in a recent Vancouver Sun Op Ed that these growing caseloads mean special ed teachers can no longer provide the direct one-on-one and small group instruction that these students require to succeed. In fact, most remaining special ed teachers are now confined to supervisory and consulting positions, where they no longer have time to deliver direct special ed instruction at all. Other factors, including a lack of training and expertise and current organizational models, have been identified as further hampering these teachers' ability to address the complex needs of at-risk students. The students suffer, and indeed all students suffer, as the burden of unsupported students then falls on regular classroom teachers who simply can't cope.

During the same period from 2000 to 2006, the total number of SSWs (special ed teaching assistants) in Vancouver also rose significantly, but Vancouver parents and stakeholders made it very clear at a series of meetings in December that current SSW support levels are still far below what's required to meet actual student needs.

Concurrently, deep BC Liberal budget cuts in 2002-04 to the Ministry for Children and Family Development mean that services such as speech and occupational therapy have become all but unavailable to K-12 students who require these services to help overcome learning challenges.

VSB special ed student numbers RISING, NOT falling
While overall enrolment in Vancouver has dropped since 2000, the total number of students with special needs in the district has grown by more than 17% [figures exclude the Gifted category, which is no longer provincially funded]. District projections for 2007-08 are for further special needs enrolment increases. In the Autism category alone, there will be 40 new students entering kindergarten, about three times the number of Grade 12 students exiting the system.

Special ed disproportionately targetted for cuts
As the above figures show, the VSB has disproportionately targetted its most vulnerable students, including students with special needs, for service reductions over the past six years. Indeed, the relative special ed teacher/student ratio has gotten worse over the past six years while the overall teacher/ student ratio has improved, according to the VSB's own figures. This disproportionality is even more evident in the cuts proposed for 2007/08.

In the recent landmark legal victory in Moore vs. North Van School District, the family argued successfully that cuts to special education were disproportionate to those made to programs and services for typically developing students and therefore discriminatory.

VSB Budget process
The VSB will be holding open hearings to hear arguments for/against these budget cuts on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 17 & 18. Unfortunately, the deadline to register to speak was April 12, a day after the proposed cuts were announced, making it all but impossible to get the word out in time for concerned parents to register. The Board will present a revised budget for final comments on Thursday, April 26. Anyone wishing to register to comment at the April 26 meeting must do so by April 24.

What can families do:
Rally: A group of concerned Vancouver parents, teachers and other partners are organizing a rally outside the VSB offices at Broadway & Fir on Thursday April 26 at 6:30 pm (prior to the Board meeting which starts at 7 pm). The theme is "Our Kids Deserve Better!" Bring your own placards or show up and make them on the spot (supplies provided). All parents, students, teachers, support staff and other "friends of public education" are welcome.

E-mails: E-mail Vancouver trustees, Education Minister Shirley Bond, Opposition Critic David Cubberly, your MLA and local media to express your thoughts on the the proposed cuts. Consider what it says about the management competence and political will of our elected officials at both the provincial and district levels, who are responsible for this deepening decade-old crisis in special education in a Province currently sitting on a fiscal surplus worth billions. The long-run costs to taxpayers and society of failing to invest in supporting vulnerable students today will be far greater than what is being saved

Copy and paste the contacts below into the TO line of an e-mail message:
shirley.bond.mla@leg.bc.ca, david.cubberley.mla@leg.bc.ca, ken.denike@vsb.bc.ca, don.lee@vsb.bc.ca, clarence.hansen@vsb.bc.ca, carol.gibson@vsb.bc.ca, al.wong@telus.net, sharon.gregson@vsb.bc.ca, allen.blakey@vsb.bc.ca, shirley.wong@vsb.bc.ca, eleanor.gregory@vsb.bc.ca

Document your child's current support levels: Act now to confirm your child's current support levels so that you will be armed to challenge individual cuts to your child's supports in September, if the proposed VSB budget is approved. Ask your school to document current support levels in writing: [e.g. a full-time aide would be a 1.0 FTE (Full time equivalent); a half-time aide would be 0.5 FTE, etc.] Keep this on file so that you can compare it to SSW time and other supports allocated for 2007/08.

Ministry of Education policy requires the District to provide adequate support levels based on your child's individual needs, as determined by a qualified professional, and as specified in the Individual Educational Plan (IEP). The school must prepare an IEP for every student with special needs and the parent must be invited to take part in preparing the IEP. (If school or district officials claim that a cut to a student's support level is consistent with the VSB's internal staffing formula, remind them that this formula has no validity under existing provincial policy. If you need advocacy assistance, please contact us and we will try to connect parents who need help advocating for their children with advocacy support.

Please pass this along to other parents of students with special needs!

Dawn Steele, Vancouver parent, MOMS
dawns@telus.net

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