by Carl BR Johnson
May 9, 2013
Photo by stock photo
Comments Peace River North incumbent Pat Pimm made about children with special needs have been causing a furor, but he has found some unexpected support locally.
At an all-candidates forum in Fort Nelson on April 23, Pimm said that children with special needs are “causing the teachers extra time and trouble.”
“All I was doing was expressing some opinions that I had heard in the past from parents in my riding,” said Pimm.
“I am 100 per cent supportive of B.C.’s integrated system of special needs children and non-special needs children.”
The comments made headlines when Mark Hancock, president of education for C.U.P.E. (Canadian Union of Public Employees) for B.C. said that they were “mean-spirited and out of touch.” The union represents the more than 12,000 education assistants who work with specials needs children across the province in public schools.
Pimm said that parents in his riding and other ridings in B.C. have lifted their children out of the public system and into independent schools, which has caused a drop of approximately 66,000 students since 2001.
The comments of “causing the teachers extra time and trouble” and “have caused public school enrollment to decline” were in response to that unprecedented drop, he said.
“The question that many parents have asked me was ‘why has the public system lost so many students,’ ” he said.
However, David Sloan, superintendent School District 60 said the reaction was unnecessary.
“The comments Pat Pimm made about special needs children were given to him by the parents in the riding,” he said. “Parents, of special needs kids especially, are excellent advocates for their children.”
Pimm said that the province’s Learning Improvement Fund has increased B.C.’s education budget by 60 per cent since 2001 to help with special needs children in the classrooms.
“Our government has done more for special needs children than any other government in B.C. history,” said Pimm.
Sloan said that the school district does not see the inclusion of special needs children with non-special needs children as a detriment to one another.
“Good practice is good practice,” he said.
“We get the children that are sent to us and we do the best that we can for all of them.”
“We haven’t seen any decline in the number of children attending the public school system in our region,” said Sloan on the reported decline of 66,000 children in the B.C. public system since 2001.
“In Peace River North we’ve had to add classroom space, not take any away.”
The Fort St. John Child Development Centre declined comment.
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