Toulouse: parents of students with disabilities ask for accompanying persons at Lakanal kindergarten
Parents of students from Lakanal kindergarten in Toulouse are mobilizing to obtain accompanying persons (AESH) for their disabled child. When inclusion doesn’t work.
Martin, a little boy barely three years old, diagnosed with autism by doctors, can only stay in his small section class in the morning.
A decision taken in consultation with her mother, Mina Minkova, and the Lakanal nursery school, located in the heart of Toulouse, rue du Prieuré, which welcomes more than a hundred children.
In theory, for him to be present all week like his comrades, Martin needs an accompanying person for a disabled student (AESH). The situation has been going on since the start of the school year.
Martin’s mother is moving heaven and earth so that the national education services – which has placed disability and educational inclusion among its priorities – do what is necessary. Five families at Lakanal school have been in this situation for a month, including a child with a double handicap (including a motor).
“No AESH present since the start of the school year”
“Procedures with the MDPH [Maison départementale des personnes handicapées, service du conseil départemental, NDLR] were made very early, in March 2021, and the AESH support was notified to us by the MDPH at the end of May 2021, explains Mina Minkova. Last year, we had a meeting with the school’s teaching team and the MDPH referent in order to prepare my son for the start of the school year and so that AESH could be recruited at school on time. Today it has been three weeks since the start of the school year and, of the five AESH notified to support five children with disabilities, no AESH is present at the school ”.
Each year, this is a recurring problem, widely denounced by the teachers’ unions and the FCPE: the difficulty for the academic inspectorate to recruit enough AESH for about 15,000 families (half in the department) that the child needs. to be accompanied in class. A role that cannot be played by a teacher who has to teach nearly thirty students.
Permanent recruitment
The rectorate makes no secret of it, which organizes dating jobs all year round to hire support staff whose status is low-paid, according to a different index grid depending on the academies. Parents of students at Lakanal Kindergarten are aware of this, but the damage is done.
“The important role of the nursery school in the French education system, in order to prevent and act on inequalities from an early age, has led the government to make the education of children compulsory from the age of three, recalls the mother of little Martin. Or, to date, without any support (notified and not recruited) by the State and despite the efforts of the teaching team, some of these children are in the process of being partially out of school because they cannot be accommodated in good conditions. “.