Sydney woman blames poorly funded classrooms for son's failure in public school

A Sydney, N.S., woman who pulled her 11-year-old son with high-functioning attention deficit disorder out of public school says he was failed by an underfunded education system ill-equipped to teach students like him.

Ioanna Poulakis said this school year she decided to spend $480 a month to send Dimitri, who also has social and academic challenges, to a private school where he's now thriving.

He "no longer calls himself stupid and he no longer doesn't know how to construct a sentence properly," Poulakis said. "He knows how to cursive write and he knows how to spell, all the basic things that children should know how to do when they graduate."

Inclusive education

Her frustrations with the public system come as the provincial government reviews the inclusive education model in Nova Scotia, with a report expected in March.

Premier Stephen McNeil said this week there will be changes related to inclusive education and the upcoming provincial budget will "reflect our commitment to that program."

For Poulakis, the blame resides with the provincial government. She said there isn't enough money for schools to provide one-on-one instruction to students who need it, and she said teachers feel to some extent unsupported in training and resources.

"How is my son going to learn when there's 28 students, half of which need academic help?" she said. "How are you going to teach those children?"

She also said her son was being bullied: "One day he just looked at me with a lot of fear and he was scared to go to school, and I couldn't do it anymore."

'Falling through the cracks'

Dimitri completed Grade 5 in public school, but when Poulakis enrolled him in the private Munro Academy, outside Sydney, he was assessed at a Grade 3 level. Teachers asked Poulakis's permission to put him back. She said she agreed.

"The public school system seems to be pushing the children ahead," Poulakis said, "and they're falling through the cracks."

Social policy dictates that schools are no longer allowed to hold back students, even if they haven't grasped important concepts, according to Carla DiGiorgio, an assistant professor of education at Cape Breton University's School of Professional Studies.

But as a former public school teacher herself, she agrees the inclusion model of teaching students of varying abilities in the same classroom can be problematic if it's not properly funded.

"I think maybe where we need to work is on the how and where to put our resources," she said, "and how to devise a system that works consistently across the province."

The province's Commission on Inclusive Education has set as its first goal the development of a consolidated provincial policy for inclusive education to replace existing provincial and school board policies for special education.

"I will require classroom teachers to help me implement that report," McNeil said. "That is ultimately where I am focused on today and beyond this session of the legislature.

"Ultimately I believe that's what classroom teachers want and I believe it is what will have the greatest impact on our system."

The expected changes to public education may have come too late for Poulakis and her son. But she said sending her son to private school was "worth every penny."

"Can you really put a price on your child's happiness?" she asked. "To watch my son coming home every day and there is a smile on his face and he's happy, and when he does something now, academically, he understands it. And he feels safe and he feels loved."