The day school program at Riverbend School in Moncton will not be offered in September.
The program offers schooling to kids with learning disabilities and ADHD.
Rebecca Halliday says she has been struggling to make the government realise how important a program like this is to LD kids, and how they are falling through the cracks without it.
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.”
She also questions, if a subsidy isn’t available, why there can’t be a publicly funded initiative for learning disabled kids under the umbrella of the public school?
Halliday says 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.”
She says the program is ending, but she isn’t giving up her fight…to convince the government how important a program like this really is.
“These students are average or above average intelligence and they are full of potential. My school goes away, and there’s no longer an option for students with an LD to learn in the environment and the approach that they need,” Halliday says.
In the meantime, she plans to continue her tutoring and hybrid programs. For more information, visit the Riverbend Community School website.
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