Bright Wings

Special needs funding to be maintained

The Herald reports that funding for special needs children with physical disabilities is to be maintained for those children who currently in the funding scheme. Minister of Education, Anne Tolley, has restored funding following representations from parents, schools and sector representatives. No new children will be added to the present scheme.

This is a victory for Dalefield School principal, Kevin Jephson, who has been campaigning on behalf of Wiki Tamihana (see my earlier post).  Wiki's high health needs funding - which paid for a teacher aide so she could attend school -  had been withdrawn.

Dalefield School challenges John Key

Tanya Katterns reports Dalefield School, near Carterton, challenged Prime Minister John Key to spend a day teaching disabled Wiki Tamihana after he justified axing funding for her teacher aide.

Dalefield School principal Kevin Jephson threw down the gauntlet this week and accused the Government of "playing chess with children's lives and their right to education".

The issue came to a head after The Dominion Post highlighted the plight of Wiki Tamihana, 10, whose High Health Needs funding has been severed after a review of her case. The funding of $13,000 a year paid for a teacher aide, who has now lost her job.

Mr Jephson said the move could jeopardise the little girl's right to ongoing education.

John Key declined the invitation.

In a recent interview on National Radio Kevin Jephson talked about how difficult it is for schools to fight their way through the Education bureaucracy to organise funding for students with special needs.

John Key doesn't want to have a go at teacher aiding Wiki. Maybe he could do something about streamlining the funding approval system for special needs students.  From listening to Kevin Jephson it sounds as if applying for funding for these students is a fulltime job in itself.

Disabled child loses teacher aid

Wiki Tamihana, 10, with mother Sharlene Morunga and brother Piripi Tamihana, 2

A 10 year old disabled child attending Dalefield School, near Carterton, may have to stop attending school because funding for her teacher aide has been withdrawn (along with 70 other children) at a time when the Government is pledging more money for special education

Dompost reporter Tanya Katterns reports

For the past five years, Wiki Tamihana, 10 who has a tendency to wander and suffers severe epileptic seizures because of a brain injury from meningitis, has been able to mix with her peers at Dalefield School in rural Carterton through High Health Needs funding.

The funding is for school-age children who need constant care and supervision, and who would be excluded from mainstream schools without a teacher aide.

The fund of $6.1 million a year provides teacher aide support for up to 550 pupils. The Government recently announced an extra $51m over three years for special education.

But within weeks of that pledge, the ministry has ruled that Wiki is ineligible for funding because younger children with higher health needs have been identified.

The $13,368 a year for 20 hours a week in school support she received has gone, and teacher aide Ali Rankin, who has supported Wiki throughout, will lose her job today.

School principal, Kevin Jepson says

the only choice left was for Dalefield to rally its community and budget to keep Wiki there.

"For us this has been soul-destroying," he said. "There are just 60 pupils and 10 staff and we are one big family. As we have invested so much time and energy and emotion into Wiki, we are keeping her here but it is going to be tough."

An intensive programme to safeguard Wiki will involve four teachers and a buddy system with pupils.

The alternative is home-schooling, which means Wiki misses out on interacting with other children.