A SECONDARY school has asked the High Court to overturn an order from the Department of Education requiring it enrol a 14- year-old child with autism.
The board of management of Coláiste Chiarán community school, Leixlip, Co Kildare, claims the school is unsuitable for the boy and cannot cater for his needs.
The board is challenging a decision by an appeals committee of the department, made under section 29 of the 1998 Education Act, overturning the school’s refusal to enrol the boy.
The child’s mother, represented by John Hanlon, had sought his enrolment and is a notice party to the proceedings. The department denies the school is entitled to the orders sought and contends the appeals committee acted properly.
Fechin McDonagh SC, for the board of management, said yesterday that the school established an autistic spectrum disorder unit in 2007 and since then operated a policy under which a child with significant intellectual impairment would not be enrolled.
In September 2008, an application was made on behalf of the child to be enrolled but the school decided in October not to accept him. That refusal was appealed by the boy’s mother and an appeals committee decided the school had the capacity to accommodate the boy in its special unit for children with autism.
It was argued that the committee reached that decision despite having reports on the boy which established he did not satisfy the criteria of the school’s admission policy. The school also claims the boy’s family did not provide it with a report from the National Educational Psychological Service relating to him.
In an affidavit, the boy’s mother denied he has significant intellectual impairment and said she gave the educational psychological service report to the school in October 2008, shortly before it decided not to accept him.
The boy had been at national school until he was aged 12, and had been placed in the borderline intellectual impairment range by an educational psychologist employed by the service, his mother said. While his reading and writing levels were progressing and he was good at sports, he needed schooling in a mainstream setting to progress, she said.
The department has denied the school is unsuitable for the boy. It also denies the boy did not meet the school’s admissions policy criteria and argues it was apparent to the appeals committee that the school never assessed or interviewed the boy. The school could not determine the meaning of “significant intellectual impairment” in relation to the boy in an objective or fair manner, it added.
The department said the granting of the orders sought, given the delay and conduct of this State-funded school in refusing or omitting to assess the boy, would be unjust and in disregard of his rights under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights. The hearing continues.
