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January 28, 2016

How schools avoid enrolling children with disabilities

Children with severe social, emotional or behavioural disorders are the least welcome in schools, writes Dr Roselyn Dixon.

Children with disabilities are frequently discriminated against in Australian schools. It鈥檚 an issue that has been ongoing for years, with showing that little has improved since 2002.

Exclusion practices 鈥� dubbed as 鈥済atekeeping鈥� - include advising parents to send their child to another school that could better support them; only allowing a child to attend a school on the days that funding is available; and asking parents to pay extra money so the school can employ support staff or purchase equipment.

Although this happens across all school types, it tends to be more prominent in, and easier for, non-government or private schools. As these schools compete for enrolments and top exam results, there is a disincentive for them to take any risk that might dilute those results.

Unlike public schools, private schools are not required to run open enrolment processes. Their charter is to provide schooling of 鈥渃hoice鈥�, not to provide for everyone. Because of this, the exact size of the gatekeeping problem is unknown.

While government schools receive some extra funding from the state to support children with learning difficulties and disabilities, private schools . This has led to the over-representation of students with a disability in government schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas where parents have fewer options.

Over time this leads to a significant burden within some schools, adding to teacher stress and negatively affecting their wellbeing.

The concentration of students with additional support needs also impacts other students. The , the less opportunity there is for students to learn from one another. This is the case for alike.

Which children are most affected?

Parents with a child who has learning difficulties or a disability find to enrol their child in a suitable school.

that children with severe social/ emotional/ behavioural disorders are the least welcome of any student disability group. This is usually due to a lack of resources, impact on other students and parental disapproval. They are also over-represented in government schools.

Some schools are more open to enrolling extremely high-functioning students with Autism Spectrum Disorders . However, their difficulties in social communication are often ignored. This increases their exposure to punitive responses such as expulsion.

How do schools get away with 鈥済atekeeping鈥�?

Australian discrimination law 鈥� which includes the (DDA) and the 鈥� is designed to ensure that children can鈥檛 be denied enrolment in any public or private school on the basis of their disability.

While all schools must adhere to these standards, due to a lack of knowledge about their responsibilities under the legislation, some schools have developed ways to get around this.

As part of their enrolment application process, some private schools request copies of prospective students' NAPLAN (literacy and numeracy) results. The reason given is often innocuous, such as using the results to determine class placements and support availability, but there is also a high likelihood that a child with a poor NAPLAN record will not be offered a place.

Since there is no transparency or oversight of private school admission processes, parents have little recourse. This is unconscionable given that parents are required to pay considerable application fees and may have done so at a number of schools.

Private schools may also employ a student interview process and some require children to sit academic entrance tests. In the government school sector, catchment boundaries are used (sometimes selectively) to deny enrolment to children with additional support needs.

These are all formal processes, advertised on websites and school prospectuses. But there are many more informal practices designed to present barriers to the enrolment of particular students.

The practices used

These informal practices are more insidious and involve that their children would be better supported and happier in another school.

Another common practice is , either through partial enrolment (only allowing the child to attend school on the days that funding is available) or informal suspension (regularly calling the parents to pick up the child during the day).

Other practices include to accept a place in a separate support class or special school, or requesting parents to to enable the school to employ support staff or purchase equipment.

What can be done?

The ongoing plight of many disabled students highlights the need for more support for classroom teachers and better resourcing of the school sector more broadly.

This is what the disability funding, , was designed to achieve.

Allocating government funding to both private and public schools to support students with a disability will help to address gatekeeping, so these students receive a fair go regardless of which school they attend.

An overhaul of the disability discrimination complaints process to protect children鈥檚 and parent鈥檚 rights is also well overdue.

Gatekeeping can only occur in a system where schools and systems are relatively confident that they will get away with it.

Despite multiple inquiries, all saying the same thing, gatekeeping against students with additional support needs continues unabated, which suggests that current protections are inadequate.

鈥� This piece is part of a three-part series on

, Principal Research Fellow in Education, ; , Associate professor, , and , Senior lecturer in Special Education ,

This article was originally published on . Read the .

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