Dear Oakville Chitchat Readers:
I would like to explain further the situation with the Halton District School Board. We used to have more placement options than we do now because a few years ago the HDSB closed about 20 self-contained classes believing that kids with special needs needed to be integrated with supports. These classes which were closed supported LD and Behavioural children. They were very successful classes and supported smaller numbers of children. Now we have a group of gifted children who have been put ahead of all other special needs children waiting for assessments and services for several years. The screening process to test 360 to net about 120 children is a very costly and time consuming process. To get the end result of 120 children to go into these classes about 240 screening tests which take about 6 hours per child will be discarded. So not only have we diverted precious resources to do this screening there is a huge waste factor that goes with it. Those hours should be used to do the assessments of the children who have been waiting all these years for services. The parents of the Gifted children claim that their children have suffered from long standing issues such as becoming disengaged from learning, reluctance to attend school, bullying, social isolation and mental issues like anxiety and depression. Those are all the very same problems which are coming from children with other exceptionalities. The delay for these services has actually added one more serious concern to the list of those who have been wait-listed…..SUICIDE. Yes, we have children as early as 10 years old showing signs of suicidal tendencies. Yet, the gifted children got moved ahead of everyone, and they got the new self-contained program which is rolling out, after a 2 month pilot period. How many lives will be lost before the rest of the children will receive their assessment and services?
Concerned Oakville Resident
