A British Columbia advocacy group says the government needs to take a closer look at how school districts spend funds for children with special and complex needs.
Armstrong, British Columbia, resident Michael Reynolds’ family had to fund more than $3,000 to send the Grade 10 student on a trip to England with a support worker.
His family has already had to pay more than $5,000 for his trip, but because Michael was born with a rare condition called panhypopituitarism, he was unable to travel without assistance.
Advocates now question why the family should have raised money themselves when the government sends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to school districts for special education.
“Even though the Ministry of Education allocates funds to school districts to support inclusion, it is difficult to track,” Karla Verschoor, executive director of Inclusion BC, told Global News.
“First, whether this money is enough to meet the needs of the district, and second, how is this money used to support the inclusion of individual students? Because even though the title is attached to the student, the funding does not go directly to that student. It is returned to the school district to serve as a pool to create inclusive opportunities for students with disabilities or to support young people in their learning.
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B.C.’s Ministry of Education says it’s steadily increasing funding for special education and estimates school districts will receive more than $950 million this school year.
-with files from Sydney Morton
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