By Tom Mark

Special Education Differences Continue For Vernon Schools

Dec 12, 2017 | 5:13 AM

The Vernon School District is doing better than others in the province in ensuring special ed teachers aren’t having to fill in as substitutes.

BC Teachers Federation President Glen Hansman argued over the weekend that’s happening in too many areas and special needs students are being affected.

Vernon Teachers Association President Lisa LaBoucane says Vernon is doing reasonably well.

“We have a good substitute teacher list and have only had a couple of days this year where we were short at all.”

She adds there are only about one and a half specialist positions that have been difficult to fill.

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But with some specialist positions coming open in the 2nd semester, it may be difficult to fill them as teachers who might available already have jobs.

In the meantime, the Teachers Association and School District are still at odds over the definition of students with special educational needs.

Lisa Laboucane says it all relates to last year’s Supreme Court ruling restoring class size and composition language from 2002.

“The systems and documentation from the past aren’t really there, so we’re trying to find our way. The district has a bit of a different interpretation than we do on which students should count.”

And which students should be considered for additional resources.

An arbitration hearing on the matter won’t be held until next April.

“That’s the way most of the grievances are happening in the province. There’s such a massive delay that if we have issue with anything, the dispute resolution process is taking a very, very long time.”

LaBoucane says some places will be lucky to have a decision by next September.

She says the Association and School District are still talking and she’s hoping they can come to an agreement before the arbitration date.

She says they are moving closer together, noting the school district was only going to count certain students with designations last spring, bujt has moved away from that position to include other students who maybe haven’t had all of the required
assessments and diagnoses but are students who have needs.

LaBoucane says the struggle is to identify what level of behaviour or academic needs really are students with special educational needs.

She says the school district is saying there won’t be additional resources for students while the language states that there should be.

by Tom Mark