'Broken system - not broken children' - Déise parents plan protests for educational equality
Parents Connor Coady and Denise Powergathered in Waterford City to plan the next steps.
Parents across Waterford are organising multiple plans of action in their fight to secure educational equality for their children.
Over the past few months, the plight of parents in Waterford has made national headlines, with children diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) being put into educational limbo.
In schools across the Déise, parents are being left in the dark over where their child will attend this September or if their class will have the appropriate supports.
Earlier this month came an announcement over new special classes being added to different schools across the county. However, parents say that reality tells a different story. One parent said that one school they called stated that they were 'not aware' of such classes being added.
As the gap between what is being promised and what is being provided remains punishingly wide, parents are planning a major protest in Waterford City centre.
On Saturday, April 5, there will be a protest held on John Roberts Square at 2pm, with all invited to come and stand up for the children affected not only in Waterford but Ireland as a whole.
On Friday, March 21, parents met in Waterford City to plan out the next steps in their fight to get the right supports for their children.
Local Councillors Mary Roche (Social Democrats), Jim Griffin and Joeanne Bailey (Sinn Féin) attended the meeting to lend their support and offer advice on the protests and on raising awareness.
Parents gathered spoke about the multi-faceted issues within the battle for education equality. Among the network of parents, there are families with children who are waiting on a school space, children without a space, children without an appropriate school space who have had to accept a space in a mainstream school. There are also families who are expecting a space but are living far away from the school location. Some families are still waiting on an official diagnosis for their child so are not able to apply in the first place for an appropriate school space. One parent expressed that her daughter is now at school-going age but is still waiting on an assessment. Many parents fall into at least two categories.
Dad Connor Coady said: "A lot of things here fall under the umbrella and we're all here for different reasons but we're all looking for the same thing. We all have individual stories that people outside this circle wouldn't believe."
This state of impasse goes well beyond Waterford.
Mother Denise Threadgold spoke about trying to find a space for her child on the Carlow-Kilkenny border: "The Headmistress said that they were supposed to get a classroom extension, got through planning and all that and then the funding was pulled by the Department of Education."
Many of the parents gathered have had their stories told and shared in newspapers, radio studios and Dáil Éireann. Today they want the Government, Department of Education and the people of Ireland to know that their unifying issue is in tacking education discrimination on the basis of additional needs. Their message is that they have a 'broken system, not broken children.'
The parents are planning a second sleep-out at the Department of Education on Wednesday, April 2. On Mother's Day March 30, parents are meet at Railway Cottage in Dungarvan and will walk 5km Walton Park.
The Mother's Day walk will begin at 11am. The walk is to support parent's urgent call to expand capacity at St John's Special School in Dungarvan.
A petition for signatures is being shared on change.org to urge Minister McEntee 'to implement the constitutional and statutory rights to education for children with additional needs.'
