Tricky Ricky signs on for Zed's autism school

well, sheeeeit, the Libs have offered a (more than) fairly decent idea here, and I know that there will be some parents out there who will change their vote for this single issue, and if I was in their shoes, who knows, maybe I would too. I have some serious doubts about the costings thou, $1 million recurrent for 40 kids and 20 highly trained professionals is not going to be anywhere enough… and then Ricky comes along, and makes me feel like maybe I judged too soon, and I give some credit to Zed for genuinely looking at private/public partnerships. But please bear in mind, the QLD model that Zed is adopting costs about $10,000 per parent per year (from memory of the CT article today), after Govt support and private donations, and they have much more philanthropic minded types up there… Sorry Rioters, I am going to be on the costings issue a bit this election, for the first time ever the ACT will be to see the truth behind the largess and massive financial promises, we have ACT Treasury sitting there waiting to cost everything, and its time Canberra held all parties (and despite my personal voting habits, I mean ALL parties) to a higher standard and asked the hard questions. For anyone interested : http://www.treasury.act.gov.au/Electioncostings/Index.shtml

beejay76 said :

Have you looked into Harrison School? It is an inclusive school and has extensive support for special needs kids without separating them from the school. There are families from all over Canberra who travel to take advantage of the model. If you think it’s something that would work for your family it might be worth a trip to check it out.

Turner Primary is the same – specialist classes within the school, but otherwise the kids are treated as every other student. I think there are some others around.

54-11 said :

HenryBG said :

Moi said :

My own child is in a specialist school, but I would prefer them to be in a mainstream setting. For various reasons, mainly related to the lack of flexibility of others, this is not an option at the moment. In an egalitarian, communal society it would be.

By “flexibility”, you mean you expect others to allow their children’s educations to be handicapped by allowing high-needs children to suck up all the class teacher’s time and attention?

Wow, Henry, you’ve excelled at this one. Just how you are a high-needs person who manages to suck up so much time and attention on RA.

Would you send your kids here?

HenryBG said :

Moi said :

My own child is in a specialist school, but I would prefer them to be in a mainstream setting. For various reasons, mainly related to the lack of flexibility of others, this is not an option at the moment. In an egalitarian, communal society it would be.

By “flexibility”, you mean you expect others to allow their children’s educations to be handicapped by allowing high-needs children to suck up all the class teacher’s time and attention?

Wow, Henry, you’ve excelled at this one. Just how you are a high-needs person who manages to suck up so much time and attention on RA.

Moi said :

I am not sure that I welcome the perpetuation of separate, specialist schools for PwD.

Educational settings, and society more broadly should cater to a variety of people with diverse abilities. I am not sure what it says about our society if we keep separating a certain category of people, and I am concerned that this will just entrench the view of PwD as ‘other’. This in turn has implications for employment, and cross-cutting issues of resources and poverty.

My own child is in a specialist school, but I would prefer them to be in a mainstream setting. For various reasons, mainly related to the lack of flexibility of others, this is not an option at the moment. In an egalitarian, communal society it would be.

Have you looked into Harrison School? It is an inclusive school and has extensive support for special needs kids without separating them from the school. There are families from all over Canberra who travel to take advantage of the model. If you think it’s something that would work for your family it might be worth a trip to check it out.

Moi said :

My own child is in a specialist school, but I would prefer them to be in a mainstream setting. For various reasons, mainly related to the lack of flexibility of others, this is not an option at the moment. In an egalitarian, communal society it would be.

By “flexibility”, you mean you expect others to allow their children’s educations to be handicapped by allowing high-needs children to suck up all the class teacher’s time and attention?

johnboy said :

If you read the furnished materials you’d see the purpose of this school is to enable the children to enter mainstream education.

Ooops – thanks. I’ve only read the summary.

I am not sure that I welcome the perpetuation of separate, specialist schools for PwD.

Educational settings, and society more broadly should cater to a variety of people with diverse abilities. I am not sure what it says about our society if we keep separating a certain category of people, and I am concerned that this will just entrench the view of PwD as ‘other’. This in turn has implications for employment, and cross-cutting issues of resources and poverty.

My own child is in a specialist school, but I would prefer them to be in a mainstream setting. For various reasons, mainly related to the lack of flexibility of others, this is not an option at the moment. In an egalitarian, communal society it would be.