Education Minister Dominic Cardy says there are a number of private programs in the province, who would like to have subsidies for its parents, but that just isn’t feasible.
This comes after the announcement this week, that a day program at Riverbend School for kids with learning disabilities will be cancelled in the fall.
Cardy says under New Brunswick’s legislation there is no provision for private schools to provide the province’s curriculum or give diplomas, “It’s just not something that fits in under the education act in the province. My options at this point are to either dedicate departmental resources and efforts to make a legislative change, or to open up the public system to meet the needs.”
He says “We don’t want to go back to the ways of the past, when kids with special needs were separated from the rest of the school population. Because we can’t let kids be left behind. I don’t want to be in a position of telling parents, they should wait while I mess around with legislation while in the meantime, their kids aren’t getting the education they need. I want to make sure there is as seamless transition as possible between the private and public system and make sure that the needs of the children are met.”
He says it’s important to make sure that the school system works for every child, whether they are a high achiever or if they have special needs.
Riverbend Community School announced this week that after six years, it will have to stop offering its full time day school program.
Founder Rebecca Halliday says a lot of children have learning disabilities and can’t function in a public school system. She has been rallying for a subsidy program for parents to help them pay for tuition, “The entire six years I have been doing this, it has always been an issue for families to pay full tuition. I have been trying to get the government to help like they do in Nova Scotia and other provinces. I have had letters of support and parent testimonials, and it just hasn’t happened.”
Halliday adds the kids who have come to Riverbend, gain the confidence they need, “There are a lot of learning disabled kids that are falling through the cracks. When they came to Riverbend, they did just what I had intended them to do, most of them. They re-mediated their skills, and they went back to public school confident and able to compete as a student. Without that intervention though, they would not have been able to do so.”