INTO condemns cuts to special needs supports

PRIMARY teachers have unanimously condemned cuts and freezes to supports for pupils with special needs but backed down from calls for industrial action on the issue.

As schools face delays and probable cuts to resource teaching hours for children with more serious learning difficulties due to an unexpected growth in numbers, a motion before the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) congress sought a campaign for industrial action to reverse this and previous cuts to special education.

However, just as they did on Tuesday in relation to calls for a similar mandate to overturn cuts in supports for Traveller and rural disadvantaged children, delegates heeded union leaders’ warnings that industrial action would breach the Croke Park agreement and risk cuts to their pay and possible compulsory redundancies.

Mary Conneely, a Drogheda branch member, said she would rather sink with the needy than float with the greedy on the issue as she backed the call to action.

“We signed away our right to do battle [in the Croke Park deal] but the time has come to draw a line in the sand. We should make clear to the Department of Education we will not sacrifice special needs children to save the greedy,” she said.

The department has ordered a pause on the allocation of resource teachers to work with primary and second level students until the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) assesses the likely requirements for the next school year.

Despite making allowances for an increase in special teaching hours, only 100 more resource teachers can be appointed before the department reaches a ceiling of 9,950 such posts put in place under the EU/IMF bailout.

Schools are expected to be told soon that existing supports will have to be shared by all pupils from next autumn and those qualifying for assistance for the first time may be given fewer resource teaching hours than recommended after psychological assessments.

But the motion unanimously passed by the INTO congress demands that such recommendations should not be diminished by the council’s special educational needs officers (SENOs).

Eilish Kerrisk from the Tallaght branch said psychological reports are the culmination of months, and often years, of effort, work, time and money that recommends the special needs assistant (SNA) or resource teaching hours needed by a child.

“It’s demoralising and degrading to finally have the report in your hands and the SENO comes looking for ways to reduce the child’s entitlement. Let’s ensure these supports aren’t watered down to satisfy some people with an economic agenda,” she said.

A cap is already in place on the number of SNAs at the 10,575 who were working in schools at the end of last year.

Joanne Doherty, who teaches junior infants at a disadvantaged Dublin school, said two of her pupils with special educational needs regularly try to run out of the classroom or the school.

“They require one-to-one adult supervision at all times during the school day to ensure their health and safety. But the school has been denied an SNA for both children so I’m expected to do the job of a teacher and two SNAs. It’s unfair for the Department of Education to place such demands on teachers,” she said.