Family desperately seeking school place for teenage son

The father of a 13-year-old child on the Autism Spectrum says he and his wife should have the option of choosing where their son goes to school, and not be dictated to by the Department of Education, who he claims have threatened him with a S25 of the Education of Child Welfare Act because his son is not currently in school.

Damien Rooney says that is because, despite having applied to two mainstream schools in Mullingar last September, his son wasn’t accepted into either.

“My child finished sixth class in June last year. We had applied for schools in the Mullingar area and we picked two schools which we thought would suit him. We wanted him to attend a mainstream school because he is very bright, and he wants to study languages,” said Damien, whose son who was diagnosed as being on the spectrum only two years ago.

“As regards his abilities, he is very academic, we call him ‘the young Sheldon’, and that will give you an idea of his abilities. History is his thing. As for his needs, he is quite vulnerable, very shy, and his social skills wouldn’t be the best. He would stand out as a vulnerable child.

“With his assessment, we went looking for schools that would suit him, we did our research and spoke to teachers, and we picked two schools and applied for them,” said Damien. “We were on the waiting lists for both schools, but unfortunately we didn’t succeed in getting a place.”

In late September, Damien says Tusla provided a tutor for his son, a short term measure while the Dept of Education sought to secure a school place for the boy.

“Tusla came up with schools that we felt weren’t the right fit for our child, ones where he would have been put in a special ASD unit, but we feel he doesn’t need a unit, he needs a mainstream school with supports,” said Damien.

“At a point during the year, we were informed of a place at a mainstream school 18km away from where we live and we were given the understanding that transport would be provided. We checked the school out and it was brilliant, we felt that our son would thrive there. We spoke to the department and they assured us that there would be no problem, that our child would be provided with transport,” said Damien. “But after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we were informed that he is not, in fact, entitled to transport.

“We only ever entertained the idea of a school so far away because transport was on the table,” said Damien who works full-time in Clondalkin.

Damien said that the home tutor was then withdrawn.

“We were informed by the Dept of Education that our son is no longer entitled to a tutor because we didn’t take up the school place 18km away. But there’s no bus, and because we’re not entitled to transport, they’re basically asking us to travel a round trip of 360km a week.

“Now Tusla have threatened me with S25 of the Education of Child Welfare Act because my child isn’t in school. But my child isn’t in school because he hasn’t got a school place, and we’re holding out for the right school because we want to get this right first time.

“We dealing with a child that if you give him something to eat and he doesn’t like it, he won’t eat for three days. So we’ve only got one chance at this and if we place him in a school that’s the wrong fit for him, it will be us that will have to carry the can.

“We’re very much of the opinion that we should have a choice in which school our child goes to, if we don’t want to send our child to a certain school, we should have the right not to because of his needs. We have again applied for a place for him for this coming September, to the same two schools that we tried last year, but we would hope that because he was on the waiting list last year, that he might have a better chance of getting in this year. But as it stands at the moment, we have no school place for our son in September. We’re still on the waiting list.”

Damien said that while there are young people coming from Killucan, Castlepollard and Delvin into Mullingar to attend school, there are also children travelling from Mullingar to schools in country locations, and transport should be provided.

“We need to start preparing him for school, and because he is on the spectrum, that will take time. We’ll need to drive by the school and point it out and talk about it, to help him transition and prepare going into secondary school. My son has been out of school for 12 months now at this stage, he will be turning 14 in September, he needs a school place.”

We sought comment from the Dept of Education and from Tusla on this story, but by the time of printing had not received a response.