“It’s outrageous” – School condemned after paying compensation for place child with Down Syndrome outside the classroom – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views

“It’s outrageous” – School condemned after paying compensation for place child with Down Syndrome outside the classroom




A primary school was ordered to pay 12,000 euros in compensation to a girl with Down syndrome who had to spend most of her school day in a hallway outside the classroom, away from her classmates.

At the Worker Relations Commission (WRC), Judge Thomas O’Driscoll said the school’s “unprecedented actions” of the school “reinforced the idea to the other children, and alarmingly for her sister that it might be normal to exclude children with special needs”, according to RTE.

“This should never have been the case,” he said, reports RTE.

Mr. O’Driscoll found that the school discriminated against the girl on the basis of disability under the Equal Status Act.

He said that he was satisfied that the compensation had to be at the higher end of the spectrum and that the school had treated the girl less favorably by failing to offer her reasonable accommodation under the Equal Status Act.

The girl started in early childhood in September 2016 and her parents took her out of school in April 2019 when she was in first grade.

He said he was satisfied with the evidence that the parents’ decision to remove her daughter from school was due to the girl’s exclusion from full social and academic activity.

Mr O’Driscoll said it was unacceptable that the school had not consulted with the girl’s mother about spending most of the day in a “learning space” in the school lobby.

The girl’s mother told the WRC there was no communication from the school that her daughter spent most of the school day out of the classroom with her Special Needs Assistant (SNA).

The mother said that she became concerned when the other daughter, who was in class, told her that her sister was not in class.

When she was asked why she initiated the discrimination procedure on behalf of her daughter, the mother said that it was the last resort and that it was very upsetting for the family that her daughter was not included in the classroom.

A Down Syndrome Education Officer from Ireland (DSI) said this was the first time a school had turned down an offer of support from DSI.

She said that she had never encountered a situation where a workstation for a child was located outside the classroom and that the time she spent in the classroom was insignificant to the girl.

In his conclusions, Mr. O’Driscoll said that it was quite concerning to him that the girl was scheduled to be out of the classroom for most of her learning day and that learning, in essence, had become the primary responsibility of the SNA instead of the class teacher.

Mr. O’Driscoll said the reality was that the girl had very little time available to learn and no access to her teacher or peer role models.

He said that without a doubt the girl’s behavior was a challenge for the staff, that’s how they described it, but instead of seeing the “challenge” as the best way to attend and meet the educational needs of all their managers, they attributed the problem to she.

Mr O’Driscoll added: “Their solution was to remove her from the situation. This defensiveness was manifested further in the refusal to accept a more than reasonable offer of specialised support from Down Syndrome Ireland”, reports RTE.

He said he was pleased that the girl could have been reasonably accommodated from a workstation in the classroom and only picked up when she was tired or noticeably upset.

According to RTE, he said: “This measure would have been cost neutral.”

In addition to finding that the school discriminated against the girl on the basis of disability, Mr. O’Driscoll also found that the school violated its obligations to her by reducing her opportunity to access and fully participate in education.

The school claimed to provide the best educational service available to the girl in light of the resources available to her.

The school’s principal, who has since retired, told the hearing that the “learning space” cannot be described as a corridor because the nearby door is no longer in use and he has attended math classes in the area and described it as VERY BRIGHT AND VERY COMFORTABLE.

The principal said he accepted that the “learning space” idea was implemented without consulting the girl’s parents and accepted that no student other than the girl had a schedule to be there.

He did not receive external advice from DSI because he felt that he and the teaching staff were professionally competent to address the girl’s needs.

When the principal was told that the girl should not be taught by the SNA, he said that the primary purpose of the SNA was to meet a student’s care needs, but that the ANS actually goes far beyond what was written in their job specification.

He accepted that the classroom teacher has the primary role of teaching.

When the principal was asked to explain the evidence that the girl was spending only 45 minutes in class and two hours and 45 minutes with the ANS, he reiterated that they were the professionals on the ground.

He said that he believed that the allocation of time was resolved according to the needs of the girl as they saw her.

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