After a seven-year battle, a Prince George mother is moving her family to Nanaimo to get a better education for her son with special needs.
Julie Anthony, a local resident for 17 years, said her son Isaac has been accepted into two learning centres that offer full days of school to those with special needs. He has been receiving as little as 20 minutes of learning four days a week at College Heights elementary.
His school days were Monday to Thursday from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. and that included lunch. As a result, Anthony devoted two hours each day to home-schooling Isaac.
The school recently offered up to three hours of schooling from Monday to Thursday.
"I kept asking and asking," said Anthony. "I have to say Isaac works with some great staff at the school and everyone's hands are kind of tied and they can only work in certain boxes that they are allotted. And I asked to have something to confirm that he was coming for three hours because it seems that if his EA (educational assistant that is provided by the school) had something else to do it wouldn't happen because he works with Isaac and he works with the whole school as well and there are other students that need the assistant. My impression is that Isaac only goes based on the supports that are there for him."
Over the last year or so, Isaac, who has a neurological disorder, exhibited some great progress retaining academic learning, recognizing words by sight, understanding phonics for the first time and improving in math. Anthony describes her 12-year-old boy as funny, inquisitive and someone who has the kindest heart.
Because of his disorder, however, Isaac displays aggressive behaviours where he might scream, jump up and down, swear at times or hits his head. He has issues with transitions and has difficulty when he's really challenged in some way so his education has been mostly provided in a learning assistance room, said Anthony. Isaac has been invited into the classroom but he's not at the same academic level as his peers so that makes if difficult.
"So this year we've noticed a huge difference and I'd love to keep that momentum going as he is maturing and able to handle more things and retain more information," said Anthony. "I'd hate to see him miss out on the opportunity to advance."
The restricted opportunities don't just affect the children but their parents as well. Once a special needs child hits school age, there is no daycare available if they are not attending school, said Anthony.
"It does make it very challenging for families, especially for single parents who need to provide for their kids," said Anthony.
Anthony decided to make a public plea on a gofundme page explaining the situation about Isaac's lack of educational opportunities.
It will cost $7,000 for Isaac to attend a learning centre in Nanaimo every year, a sum that is a barrier for Anthony. On the gofundme page Anthony stated that Isaac does not get to do most of the things other children get to do at school like attend special presentations, Christmas concerts or field trips.
"As soon as I put it out there the principal called me and told me they wanted me to come in for a meeting that day and she told me she originally wanted to discuss Isaac's field trip opportunities for the end of the year and then she said they'd noticed something online they wanted to discuss and when I got there the whole focus was on the gofundme page."
That same evening Anthony received an email confirming times for Isaac's schooling and now he's included in the field trips at the end of the year, said Anthony.
"That's fantastic but the school doesn't have the funding to fully include him," said Anthony, who either has to attend with Isaac or get his community youth worker, who is from an outside source agency, to attend the school's sports day, for example.
"So it's frustrating."
There have been many issues with having an educational assistant assigned to Isaac each year and during a previous school year there have been as many as four different EAs. For the last two years it's been the same EA but now he's leaving the school, which will once again disrupt the continuity of education for those working with the EA, explained Anthony.
"It's very difficult to establish any consistency when Isaac is not getting the skilled workers that he needs," said Anthony. "The services we have are so slim here. The education centre that Isaac is going to in Nanaimo - I would love to see something like that happen here. It would benefit the community so much."
There are five learning centres in Nanaimo and there's after-school care as well so that parents arrange to get the education their children need while they can earn a living to support the family.
"It's not like that here and I do need to leave because I want what's best for Isaac," said Anthony, who is studying psychology and anthropology and whose ultimate goal is to help special needs children.
"Most families take their kids to school in the mornings, they work, their kids go to daycare if they need to and then the parents pick them up and they are able provide for their family but for families with a child with special needs in Prince George it's very difficult to make that happen."
Anthony said despite asking repeatedly she never was informed of Isaac's designation or what amount of funding to which he was entitled.
There are four other parents with a child with special needs who have come forward to The Citizen to say they are struggling to get proper supports and education provided to their child.
Marianne Walker has experienced the same struggles as Anthony to improve educational resources for her 10-year-old daughter Rome.
"This first thing I want to say is that the teachers and principals we've worked with have done everything they possibly can for my daughter," said Walker. "It's definitely a Ministry of Education problem or school district problem because at the school level they are trying to do whatever they can."
Walker acknowledges her situation is different from others. It's not like Rome has physical disabilities.
"She has mental health issues and has been known to be quite violent at school and out of school," said Walker. "She has debilitating anxiety and she gets angry very quickly which makes her volatile and unpredictable."
At first, Walker had placed Rome in the Montessori school and all was well but everything changed for Rome when Walker had her second child, Mason, who is now five years old.
"She was flipping tables and throwing chairs and if a child was in the way, she didn't really give a shit and that's what she would say - 'I don't give a shit!'" said Walker, who said Rome is a child with a very adult vocabulary and adult ideas and a heightened sense of justice, but only for herself.
"She is kind of like nothing they've ever seen before," said Walker. "Our barrier is that Rome doesn't have a typical disability so she's not dealt with in a typical way."
Rome has not attended school for full days since kindergarten and she's now 10, added Walker. A typical day would only be about an hour to 90 minutes a day.
"What I'm finding as a barrier for myself is they kind of hold their cards close to their heart it seems with the Ministry of Education, the school district and the schools, whereas I know that Rome has a designation but I don't know what it is and I don't know what it means. So as far as what funding might cover, I don't really know that and I'm not sure if it's because then I get to hold them accountable for that or if they just think I don't have anything to do with that because I'm not a school official or something so I find I'm kind of left in the dark."
Walker said Rome is in and out of the care of the Ministry of Children and Families under a voluntary care agreement because she is violent toward her sibling and parents. One of the foster parents, who happens to be a retired school teacher, advocated at the school district level for Rome and got as much in place to help her as possible, said Walker. Rome was placed in Fraser Residence, a trauma informed sanctuary group home for children in Prince George, which is usually for youth and teens but because staff saw potential in Rome they accepted the child into their care.
As Rome aged, she went from Montessori to Quinson elementary to Westwood elementary where she attended an elementary support program for three months and then again for three months because she was not ready to re-enter regular school programming
Rome attended a togetherness camp located at the John McInnis Centre that offered a bit of extra help and support for children that was supposed to help with behaviour management before school started.
"The staff said 'she's lovely but she's completely out of control and we have no idea what to do with her' because she's a conundrum," said Walker. "She is super intelligent, very sweet, really kind and caring and she is absolutely insane crazy and wants to kill her family, wants to kill herself, and wants to hurt people sometimes."
Through a long process, it was discovered Rome did have empathy.
"She's really struggling with a lot of mental health stuff and I think that's a barrier," said Walker. "She doesn't have autism, she doesn't have ADHD, she doesn't have a physical disability. She has mental health issues and that scares people and people don't want their kids going to school with a crazy kid. She doesn't have a proper diagnosis that fits her into a category that has funding. So if she had Tourette's or autism or ADHD or FASD or something that was tangible they could hang on to then there would be some sort of funding for it or some sort of plan could be put in place."
Rome has been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and oppositional defiant disorder but those don't fit into any kind of fundable category for children with disabilities, Walker said.
At seven years old, Rome was assessed to have an IQ of 135, which puts her into the gifted student category, her cognitive ability at a Grade 10 level, and reading and comprehension at a Grade 10 level.
"So we're dealing with this little body who has a huge brain," said Walker. "And there's no way to stop it and she's anxious like crazy and so no wonder she doesn't want to listen. She just wants everything her own way, more so than a typical child."
Right now, Rome goes to school every day. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays her day is done at 12:05 and Wednesdays and Fridays she goes from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and she made it through the whole day when Walker spoke to the Citizen. But that's not always the case.
Rome is currently so heavily medicated she doesn't do much at school.
"Rome is on adult anti-psychotics and she's not even my daughter anymore, really," said Walker. "She is unrecognizable, she's gained so much weight she can't even do any activities. And I don't want to blame it on the school but it seems like in order for her to fit into society in their acceptable way she has to be so medicated that's she's not even a child anymore. She's just a medicated person with mental illness."
Rome's keen intelligence has suffered under the medication.
"My girl is falling behind in her studies because the school system isn't equipped for her," said Walker. Rome, who is Metis, now attends Harwin elementary, which is designated as a Tier 1 school, which means it's a school that gets more funding because it's an inner city school and there are a lot of children that fall into that disability category, added Walker.
"They do have more EAs than other schools, more programming than other schools, they have an aboriginal education department and we don't access those," said Walker.
In order to be an advocate for Rome, Walker said she dedicated herself to it like a full time job. Walker was on income assistance because she was not able to work as the demands were so high because of her child with special needs.
"So we're stuck," said Walker. "It's really hard to navigate the system, and have a job and have a relationship with your spouse and have a relationship with your other child and have any kind of social life. We're at the point right now that we'll do anything to make it successful for her but we're running out of options because we've exhausted them all."
