Sask. mother elated that son with autism, ADHD and ODD to be allowed back to school full-time after 5 years

A Saskatchewan mother says she is delighted and relieved that her son will be able to attend school full-time after five years of fighting for inclusion.

"I'm going to happy cry," Chelsea Vansickle said. "This is the biggest weight that I think I've ever felt lifted off my shoulders."

Vansickle's 13-year-old son Aaiden, who has autism, ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attends Eston Composite School in the Sun West School Division, about 180 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon.

Chelsea said the school decided in 2019 that his disabilities made it too difficult to include him in activities. Since then, he has had a mix of homeschooling, half-days and distance learning, Chelsea said. When he is allowed to attend in person, he is often excluded from physical education, recess and field trips.

CBC asked the Sun West School Division for comment on Aaiden's situation this week. It did not respond. Instead, Chelsea says, the vice principal contacted her Tuesday to let her know Aaiden will be allowed back at school full-time starting on Jan. 6.

CBC reached out again for comment after Chelsea received the notice, but has not received a response.

Chelsea said she was in a state of shock and couldn't believe it was finally happening.

"I know that Aaiden is very excited to go forward and get back to full days of school and being a normal 13-year-old boy," she said Tuesday afternoon.

She said it has been a long process.

"I'm just glad that we stuck with it and we didn't give up and kind of let the school dictate my son's life," she said.

"It's frustrating, but at the end of the day, if you're not going to fight for your kids, who's going to?"

Years of isolation and exclusion

Chelsea said Aaiden has always been smart, a quick learner and often reading at a higher grade level, but had behavioural problems.

"He was always one of those crazy boys that had a very short attention span unless it was something he really wanted to be interacting with," she said.

The school required a psychiatric evaluation before allowing Aaiden to attend full-time, Chelsea said, but lengthy wait-lists and COVID-19 delays meant the evaluation process took more than three years. Despite eventually receiving medical clearance to attend full days, Aaiden's access to school remained limited, she said. He was required to go home at 2:30 p.m. CST every day this year, she said.

"[The school] don't feel they have the resources if something were to happen," she said. "I think they feel like he gets too excited and won't be able to regulate himself. So before he even gets a chance we have to remove him."

Chelsea said she had to quit her job to support Aaiden. She now runs a business with her husband. However, she often has to put work on hold to pick Aaiden up early or respond to the school's calls.

Even Aaiden's sister has felt the impact.

"There's a lot of times where my daughter will hold back from wanting to go spend time with her friends because she understands I've already had to make a couple of trips into town that day," she said.

Hoping for awareness and change

Christina Martens-Funk, CEO of Inclusion Saskatchewan, said many families of neurodivergent children across the province face similar barriers.

"We have been getting a lot of calls from students and their families who have intellectual disabilities and neurodiversity saying that they are being asked to not come to school either full-time or not at all," Martens-Funk said.

She said the Saskatchewan Student Bill of Rights dictates that every student in the province has the right to attend school and have any disability reasonably accommodated.

Martens-Funk said studies show that when there is enough support in the classroom for kids with learning disabilities and they learn along with other students, everybody's learning improves.

"The reading scores and the math scores of students, both disabled students and non-disabled students, increase,' she said.

Martens-Funk acknowledged that teachers and schools are doing their best and that Saskatchewan has been falling behind in funding classrooms compared to the rest of Canada.

"We would like to see the government invest in those in classroom supports as much as possible, because we know it benefits every student," she said.

Chelsea said she would like to see schools and educators learn and become more aware of neurodiversity and how best to interact with kids on the spectrum.

"The easiest thing for them was to just say 'he needs to go home for a couple of days.' And that's been five years of 'he needs to go home for a couple of days,'" Chelsea said.