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More than Getting Through the Gate

The involvement of parents with a disability in their children’s school education in NSW, 2001
Sally Robinson, Fay Hickson and Robert Strike - For the Disability Council of NSW
Webpage Summary | PDF (540kb) | MS WORD (192kb)

This is a report about parents who have a disability. It is about what happens when their kids go to school – about how they get involved in their kid ’s schools.

The Disability Council of NSW has asked us to do this project. They wanted to look at this issue because nobody else in Australia has looked at what happens for parents who have a disability at their kid’s schools.

We talked to 83 parents who have a disability. These parents told us a lot about what has happened to them when they have been involved in their kids schools.

A lot of parents who were part of the project were not treated very well by their kids schools. They did not get help with things like getting into their kid’s classrooms, reading the notes that come home, or being part of the P&C committee.

There were a few parents who have been treated well by their kids schools. They felt that: the school liked them being involved, and they were given help to do things at the school.

There are five main areas that this report talks about. They are:

1.What people think about Parents who have a disability

When people treat people who have a disability differently, it makes it really hard for parents who have a disability to be involved in their kid’s school.

Some parents were treated badly by parents of other kids at the school.

Some parents did not want anyone at the school to know about their disability. This is because they have been discriminated against before.

2. Dealing with Teachers and School Principals

Teachers

Some teachers were very helpful,and made sure that parents got information about their children in a way that was easy to understand.

Other teachers didn’t do this,and it made it hard for some parents to know what was going on in their kids class.

It was hard for some parents to ask for help – they felt like the teacher didn’t really want to help them out.

It was hard for some parents who have a physical disability to get into parent teacher interviews,because rooms weren’t accessible.

Some parents felt like the teachers didn’t tell them if their kids were not doing well in class.

Principals

Some principals had bad attitudes about people with disabilities, and some principals helped to make sure that parents who have a disability were included in the school.

Support

A few parents talked about how annoying it is to have to explain again and again about their disability to lots of different people at the school. One idea that parents had was to have a support teacher, like the school counsellor, who could make sure that parents who have a disability got information about their kids, and that they could be involved in the school if they wanted to be.

3.Access and Information

It was very hard for some parents who have a physical disability to get into their kids schools and their classrooms.

For some other parents, it was hard because they could not remember their way around the school,and there were no signs.

Getting information in a way that they can understand was really hard for parents who have an intellectual disability, and some parents who have an acquired brain injury.

Almost all the information that comes home from school is written in small print in newsletters and notes. If parents weren’t able to read those, they missed out on lots of information that they needed to know.

When parents asked schools to make changes, some schools were happy to help, and other schools were not. It really depended on the school.

There aren’t any rules or policies that say that schools have to think about how they include parents who have a disability. There is no information about how to work with parents who have a disability.

4. Taking part in School Activities

The P&C

Being on the Parents and Citizen’s committee (the P&C) was one way that parents got involved, but some parents did not feel very welcome on the P&C, and some parents could not go to meetings because they couldn’t get into the room.

Day to day activities

Parents who have a disability were involved in the school in lots of different ways, like doing reading groups or going on excursions.

Some parents had been involved in the school tuck shop. They said it was hard, because they weren’t really included by other parents who were working there too.

However, it was hard for parents to be involved sometimes because there weren’t systems to help them.

Lots of parents said that they were worried that the school thought they weren’t interested, even though they were keen to be involved.

Whole school activities

Going to speech nights,school concerts and fundraising nights was something that a lot of parents did.

Some parents were not able to really be included in these things. For example,parents who are deaf missed out on a lot of information when the school did not provide an interpreter.

5. How the School can make people who have a disability feel welcome

Schools really need to think about how they make the whole school a better place for everyone,including people who have a disability. One of the ways that this can happen is through education. Teachers, principals and school staff need to learn more about working with people who have a disability.

Kids at the school also need to find out more about people with disabilities.

Parents and other volunteers at the school need to know more too.

There could be talks by people who have a disability about what disability is like and how to include people. Another idea was that schools can have days or weeks where they focus on particular issues about disability.

They could do projects or talk with people who have a disability, and understand that people with disabilities should be included as ordinary members of the community.

Recommendations

There are 20 recommendations in the report.

The recommendations are ideas about how things can be better for parents who have a disability.They are about things like:

• Making sure that teachers and principals get some training about working with parents who have a disability
• Having a system to support parents who want some help
• Making sure that parents can get into the school and get around it easily
• Making sure that parents can get information in a way that is easy for them to understand