I have been a teacher for 32 years, 22 of which have been spent working in special education.
I have worked for a decade in another province and one year in Australia, so I have some experience to compare my 20-year teaching career in British Columbia to.
Without a doubt, the last 10 years teaching in this province have been some of the most challenging and frustrating years of my career.
With an 80 per cent assignment, I have a caseload of 20 resource and 10 learning assistance students.
Prior to Christy Clark’s stripping of caseload language in 2001, I was working full-time providing intensive support for only 15 children with special needs.
I must also note that I have chosen to reduce my teaching assignment to 80 per cent to help cope with the ever-increasing stress of the job.
My students, whose special needs include autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, mild mental handicaps, severe behaviour disorders, gifted, diabetes, seizures, depression, anxiety and last but not least learning disabilities, are being warehoused in classrooms of at least 30 children.
I am currently providing support to six special needs students in a Grade 4 class, and two other classes which each have five children with special needs.
I am expected not only to support these children academically, but also to provide non-academic support such as social skills training.
Every day, I look into the faces of children who are being let down by our education system.
I know what the best practices look like, but I also know that I’m not even coming close to the mark.
I try to be optimistic and I continue to hope that things will get better for the children of this province.
But every year for the past 10 years life has become more and more challenging for my students, their parents and for those of us who work with these children.
Almost the entire school career of special needs children has been compromised by 10 years of under-funding.
This has to stop.
Children are our future and a high-quality education is the right of every child, including those with special needs.
Debbie Maloway
Surrey