Gatekeeping Support Services In Public Education
If you’re not qualified to diagnose, then you’re not qualified to rule out either
Fellow parents, did you know?
School staff are not supposed to gate-keep access to support services in schools.
I’ve spoken with many parents who have expressed concerns about their child to the student’s classroom teacher, only to have those concerns dismissed, invalidated, or brushed aside.
This is NOT okay.
Teachers are not qualified to assess for, diagnose, or rule out any disabilities, divergent neurotypes, or diagnoses.
They can certainly provide their observations and opinion from an educator’s perspective.
Collaboration and communication between home and school is important, and teachers can offer valuable insight, and that’s where we should start.
If after discussions and attempts to work with your child’s teacher, you feel there is reason to pursue further assessments or supports, you can specifically request that your child receive assessments and services from your division’s clinicians.
Schools seem to really try to ration these limited resources because waitlists for school psychologists and other clinicians are already extremely long.
That’s not your problem, and it’s certainly not your child’s problem.
We’ve already foot the bill
Our tax dollars pay for these services, and every student needing supports has the legal and ethical right to access them.
If schools were to stop gate-keeping and would add every student who actually needs an assessment or access to supports to the wait list, then we’d have a much more accurate picture of how under-resourced our public education system really is.
Further, many schools have been pushing families to seek private assessment if they can afford it (here in Manitoba, these cost upwards of $3,000-$4,000).
We already pay for these services through our taxes, and should not be forced to pay out-of-pocket for services our children are entitled to at school.
Many schools won’t even take into account assessments and recommendations made by outside clinicians, however they are required to follow recommendations made by their own clinicians.
It’s a much bigger issue
Once again, I want to make perfectly clear that I am not blaming teachers.
Teacher’s options are heavily restricted by their administration and senior administration, oftentimes they are unable to offer more, even if they want to.
The accountability lies with our provincial government, our minister of education, and senior administrators.
The province determines how much money each division gets, and the senior administration team determines how those funds are distributed.
That said, if a teacher dismisses, invalidates, or brushes off your concerns about your child, you may wish to try the following:
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