IHC's fight for disabled children's educational rights brings hope to Northland

Trish Grant, IHC New Zealand director of advocacy, has been leading a 13-year IHC legal battle for disabled children's educational rights against the government. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A pair of young Northland brothers with autism are only permitted to attend their mainstream school for an hour and 50 minutes each day.

The 11-year-old and 7-year-old brothers' educational plights were one of about 20 heard by Office of Human Rights lawyers, Director of Human Rights Proceedings Michael Timmins, and Josh Suyker, and IHC New Zealand advocates at a hui in Whangārei on Tuesday.

The meeting was the first in a national tour to hear firsthand accounts of the discrimination young disabled Kiwis have endured in conventional education as a 13-year legal battle launched by IHC finally heads to court.

The legal claim about disabled children's rights to a proper education in mainstream schools - first lodged against the government in 2008 – will now go to a full hearing in the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

Denise* said her son Carl* - who has autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), sensory processing disorder and mild intellectual disability – and his autistic brother Jack* had fallen into the educational void along with thousands of other disabled children.

"My boys are getting no education. They can't cope in mainstream education and they can't cope with him, and we can't get the funding to get into special education because they're not severe enough," she said.

Currently they only received enough funding for teacher aides to support the boys in the classroom for less than two hours a day.

"The expectation is when the teacher aides aren't there my boys aren't there," Denise said.

"I can't work or do my course because I'm at the beck and call of the school. When they tell me to pick them up, I have to go and get them."

IHC New Zealand director of advocacy Trish Grant with IHC advocates Heather Lear and Shara Turner at Tuesday's meeting with affected families. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Carl had previously attended school full-time when he had numerous resources provided by the Ministry of Education - that included intensive wraparound services, an educational psychologist, and social workers.

"But once it all started working the ministry went, that's great and off we go, leaving him unsupported," Denise said. "They just left him on his own."

And while her sons fall into the gap in education, their behaviour escalates.

A fact that came to a head last week when Carl was stood down for hurting other children and not "containing" his behaviour.

The move was not a new experience for the family; he had previously been excluded from the same school when he was seven years old.

Denise said stand downs and exclusions hugely impacted her son.

"He doesn't understand what he's done wrong. Kids are getting punished for the disability they have and that's not solving anything."

Denise said her sons' interactions with teachers ill-equipped and inexperienced in working with autistic children and their extensive bullying for "being different" had left them fearful of school.

"The ministry needs to put things in place for children, schools, their staff in order to support everyone," Denise said. "With the right supports both my boys can fully be themselves – they can get an education, learn, and live in society like me and you."

She said their disabilities meant they were always going to have behaviours and difficulties but there were more positive ways to deal with the challenges their diagnoses presented.

"When the kids don't meet expectations they become trouble kids in the eyes of schools and that's not fair, they didn't choose this."

IHC advocacy director Trish Grant, who has pursued the claim since it began in 2008, said an entire generation of children now in Year 13 or who have since left school had been let down by long legal delays.

"There has been and still is a real lack of capacity, knowledge, and skills amongst the teaching profession to be able to diversely teach all the students in front of them."

Last year the law was changed to require that every school "is inclusive of, and caters for, students with differing needs".

But for Grant the progress made needed to go further to provide every disabled student with equitable access to education.

"No child should ever be suspended for a disability related behaviour but that's what we're seeing. Then they're seen as a problem and no school wants to take them," she said. "That's just one way, from a multitude, of how our disabled children are being let down in education."

Grant said the new register of students in need was not backed by any extra funding for most schools, the dispute resolution panels would be appointed by the Government absent of any true independence, and legal changes alone were insufficient.

Māori, Pacific, and disabled children faced the most difficulties accessing education, Grant said.

"It's terrible that our system is failing those groups of students - for a place like Whangārei that is really something for people to think about."

Grant encouraged families of disabled students facing difficulties in education or anyone keen to support their work to contact IHC New Zealand either online or through their local branch.

The Advocate has approached the Ministry of Education for a response.

*The names of the Northland family in this story have been changed to protect their privacy.

IHC wants the tribunal to order the Government to act in five main areas:

• Impose a legal duty on school boards "to make all efforts to reasonably accommodate the behaviours arising out of disability".

• Collect data on "the presence, participation, progress and achievement of all students with disabilities", similar to data that is collected for ethnicities and other groups.

• Change the funding model to ensure that all students with disabilities "have the accommodation necessary to enable them to enjoy the right" to education.

• Change teacher training and registration requirements to ensure that they "know how to include students with disabilities requiring accommodations to learn".

• Create an independent tribunal to resolve disputes.