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SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS DESERVE THE BEST

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August 6, 2003 - Ancaster News
After reading about Jim Murray's "Good News Budget" (July 9) and his new list of initiatives, I'm left wondering if The News attended the same School Board meeting I did, where Board Supervisor Jim Murray called for a Special Education service delivery review.
With a budget of $41 million and a compliment of 430 Educational Assistants earning $20 per hour - you do the math. This leaves about $27 million unaccounted for by the board's Special Education Program and its Special Education Advisory Committee, whose members advocate for special-needs children. Many are paid executives of lobby groups whose members have children in public school. Where did all the money go if not in the classroom, where it belongs?
According to the Board's web site, "Special Education Services are defined in the Education Act as the facilities and resources, including support personnel and equipment, necessary for developing and implementing a Special Education program."
These services are supplied by an army of staff, comprised of "classroom teachers, educational assistants, itinerant teachers for both blind and deaf students, learning resource teachers, principals/vice principals, principal of special education services, psycho educational consultants, psychologists, social workers, special class teachers, special education consultants, speech and language pathologists, superintendents, and trained volunteers." No wonder a line-by-line accounting of special-education services delivered by the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board is long overdue -- because each and every special-education student deserves to learn the best they can in class, right along side their peers.

-- Mark-Alan Whittle, Hamilton.