'His own community didn't want him': Autistic children rejected by local schools

Teddy has autism, but the law guarantees that he is entitled to an education, the same as every other child. 

Yet his parents couldn’t get a place for Teddy in a local school. It was as if children with autism weren’t born in that part of the city.

So they tried further afield, right across the greater Dublin area. Eventually, he was offered a place in Knockmore Junior School in Killinarden, in the Tallaght area of west Dublin. 

Killinarden is one of the most socially disadvantaged areas in the State. The principal came from the school and met Teddy. She said they’d see what they could do.

“She was lovely,” Edwina O’Reilly said. 

“Teddy got a place and he transferred there." 

I was so mindful that he could be taking the place of a child in that community because his own community didn’t want him." 

Every day for three years, Teddy got a taxi out to Tallaght. The ride there and back is paid for by the State. 

Every day, the State pays €63,000 to transport children to and from schools in taxis and buses across the southside of Dublin.

Most of this cost is accrued to take children out of their communities and plant them in another. These are the children with additional needs for whom places can’t be found in their own communities.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan referenced this phenomenon in a speech in the Dáil in May 2019.

Mr Ryan said he was the father of a child with autism and some communities were very deficient in providing for children.

“Dublin 6 is the worst in the country,” he said. 

We’re too posh. We’re so high up in the league tables we couldn’t afford to have an autism school."

He went on to make the point that kids without additional needs in those schools are missing out on a proper education because they wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow up with kids who have some disabilities.

“That needs to change,” he said. “We need every school, posh ones included.” 

Deis schools

According to figures compiled by Dublin-based advocacy group Involve Autism and educationalists in Cork, the provision of special classes in Deis (Delivering equality of opportunity in schools) schools is proportionately far greater than in non-Deis schools. 

Deis schools are earmarked for extra resources on the basis of social disadvantage. 

About 700 of the State’s 3,100 primary schools have Deis status. 

At secondary level, there are 198 schools with the status, out of 730 schools.

Take the figures for Cork. There are 8,005 children in Deis schools at primary level in the county. 

These schools accommodate 31 ASD (autism spectrum disorder) classes. Yet, for the 34,888 children in non-Deis schools, there are just 39 ASD classes. 

That works out at more than three times as many classes in Deis schools for a condition that knows no socio-economic boundaries.

At secondary level in Cork, the problem is even worse. 

In the city, just nine out of 26 secondary schools have ASD classes. Of these nine, eight are Deis schools. There is just one ASD class in a non-Deis school in the city.

The song remains the same in Dublin. 

Involve Autism has gathered data that shows, of the 130 post-primary schools inside the M50, only 23 have ASD classes – of those 130 schools, only two are non-Deis. 

There are no special classes in fee-paying schools.

Socio-economic divide

Graham Manning, a secondary school teacher in Cork who organises ASD classes, points out that, even though new ASD classes are being opened, many are in schools that already have such classes.

That shows that the schools that are refusing to educate in their community continue to do so, and this continues the need for students to travel out of their local community in order to get an education."

He said there was simply no way to ignore that class plays a huge role in this.

“Generally speaking, given the preponderance of classes in Deis schools, that speaks to a [socio-economic] class issue, so nobody can argue that point,” he said.

One element that feeds into the divide at secondary level is the position of fee-paying schools. The Department of Education does not provide funding or allow fee-paying schools to open ASD classes.

“I know of one fee-paying school where they did everything possible to open an ASD class, but it was no-go as far as the department was concerned,” Mr Manning said. 

“Now, for most of them, the situation as is probably suits. They can see themselves as concentrating on academic attainment.

“There is also the other thing of some principals thinking that their school might come to be known as the school to send your child specifically to because they provide an appropriate education. But if enough schools were willing to open classes, as should be the case, that simply wouldn’t arise.” 

A spokesperson for the department confirmed that it “currently does not have a policy supporting the establishment of special classes in fee-paying schools".

To date, the experience has been that schools in the free education scheme have sufficient capacity to meet the need for additional special classes." 

The failure to provide the appropriate education for children in their own communities has other knock-on effects. 

Transport costs

Every day, hundreds of children in Cork City are transported far from their homes before arriving at a school that provides the proper education.

More often than not, this will involve taking a taxi, accompanied by a guardian who must travel to and from the school.

“They have to travel ridiculous distances, passing other secondary schools along the way that also refuse to provide them with an appropriate education,” Mr Manning said.

Apart from the difficulty inherent in the transport itself, not to mind the cost to the State, it also means that friendships, which are so precious at that stage, are almost impossible to maintain."

“They make friends in primary school and have great difficulty maintaining that because they are spending their days in secondary far away and the friendships they make at the secondary school are difficult because they are living anything up to 50km away from their school mates.” 

The problem of transporting children far from their communities to school is particularly acute in south Dublin.

Involve Autism obtained documents under a Freedom of Information request that showed there are 1,974 individuals all over south Dublin being transported at a daily cost of €63,579.26. This accounts for €11.6m in a school year.

Involve Autism chair Miriam Kenny said parents in Dublin 6 and 6W, in the south of the city, continue to be faced with a difficult choice. 

“They have to either opt for inappropriate placement in a mainstream local school or to transport their children well outside the local community to secure an appropriate place, travelling long journeys each day past many great local schools that serve their peers and siblings.

It is the very children who will be most adversely affected by having to travel long distances to school, who the department chooses to make travel to school."

The organisation of special classes is overseen by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). A spokesperson for the NCSE said the issue of whether or not a school has a Deis status is not a consideration when the body is planning special classes in schools.

“Generally, schools respond well to an approach from the NCSE. For instance, 197 special classes were established for the current 2020/21 school year and over 200 will be sanctioned for the coming school year.

“However, in some areas, there are insufficient places to meet demand and schools, for a variety of reasons, have indicated they are not in a position to open additional special classes.” 

Parents and educationalists who have spoken to the  Irish Examiner have repeatedly stated that one persistent problem is that the NCSE does not do detailed planning to identify where places and classes are needed.

The NCSE rejects this. 

“The NCSE engages in continual short- and long-term planning for special education provision,” the spokesperson said. 

He pointed out that planning is organised through local special education needs organisers, parents, schools and the HSE.

“This information is incorporated into a long-term forecast of demand in each area,” he said.

Parents have noted that they have never been given access to any form of a long-term planning document that shows where extra classes will be required.

Back to another search

Meanwhile, Teddy O’Reilly’s fulfilling time being schooled in a community far from his own is coming to an end. 

The special class in Knockmore Junior School only provided for junior infants to second class. A small allocation is available for the remainder of the primary cycle, but Teddy didn’t get a place there.

“We have to start looking all over again,” his mother Edwina said. 

“He’s nine and he’s out on the doorstep again in June. What’s so upsetting is his behaviour has done so well since he was in Knockmore.

“They talk about classes opening in school, but very often there is no indication of whether the classes run right through to sixth class or whether, as this and many others, they simply stop after second.

"I don’t want any other parent to have to go through this. Our whole life is taken up with it. My other fellow is four and starting school this year. Every school we applied to accepted him no problem. There’s the difference.”

‘They must know how many kids are coming up’

A recurring message from parents seeking an education for any child with additional needs is that there appears to be little assistance from the State.

Duncan Stocks was in that position this school year, as he looked to get a place in an ASD class for his daughter who was entering second level.

His daughter was attending Saleen National School in East Cork.

“The school was great but they advised me that she would need an ASD class in secondary,” he said.

Mr Stocks contacted all the schools in the area and some as far away as Cork City.

He got seven rejection letters. Then he got lucky through coming into contact with Graham Manning, who knows his way around the system.

“We spoke to Graham, who gave us advice and we spoke to the special education needs organiser and it’s taken a lot of work and pushing out on our behalf and finally got a place in St Colman’s in Midleton.

“We are indebted to those who helped us. They filled in the gaps, but there should be some guidance for people who need an education for their children.

They must know how many kids are coming up. It’s a small proportion but it’s a lot of stress and worry for us.

“The idea that my daughter was going into secondary school with no provision was terrifying.”

Legally, there should be no problem with all children being educated in their own community. According to The Education [Schools Admission] Act 2018.

Section 37(a) says the minister can serve notice on a school that it must provide, for instance, an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) class in order to meet demand.

So far, despite major deficiencies in provision of special education in various parts of the country, the minister has only invoked the clause twice, both occasions for primary schools. Secondary schools have not been the subject of the order yet.

The first time was in April 2019 in Dublin 15, the Castleknock area of the city.

The second time was in October 2019 after the National Council for Special Education identified that 82 children in south Dublin required school places in special classes that year and a further 68 would do so in 2020/21.

“That was due to the relentless campaigning of Involve Autism and other parental advocacy groups,” Miriam Kenny of Involve Autism says.

“The question needs to be asked as to why it took parents raising their voice to instigate change. There has been no planning and no centralised data held by the National Council for Special Education.”

The council has said it does plan for the future, but the results of this planning have never been made public.

The outcome of the section 37a process in south Dublin is still ongoing and there is no guarantee that special classes will result from it.

Mr Manning has questions about the use of Section 37a.

“Why has it only been in Dublin?” he asks.

“Why has it only been in primary schools? There is a continuing need for children to access appropriate education and it’s not being met.”