“I just want my son to go to school, it’s the wish of all parents,” breathes Sophie*. But when you are the mother of a child with a disability, you fight every day. But this fight does not have to be, it is a right! » Since the start of the school year in September, her 9-year-old boy has only been in school 50% of the time. The reason ? An absent teacher, “a lack of anticipation from National Education” and students not supported because they are “disabled”. “We live to the rhythm of SMS messages from the director, but the situation is not changing,” she denounces.
After two years on the waiting list, his son had just obtained a place – out of the eight available for the entire elementary cycle – in the localized unit for educational inclusion (Ulis) Mouton, in Saint-Genis-Laval, in the metropolis of Lyon. She thought she was “liberated”. “In reality, it was just the beginning of a nightmare,” she slips. The Friday before classes start, Sophie learns that the specialist teacher, transferred in mid-July, has not been replaced. ” How do we do then ? Well, parents have to manage, she continues. We work in the health field. In this emergency situation, we had to take sick leave to take care of our son, deprived of national education. »
Another teacher was finally recruited after three weeks. “Three days later, she took sick leave. And, since then, no solution has been found, Sophie gets annoyed. Autistic people need a schedule, stability. With this way of doing things, the academy is destroying our kids! She ruins all the efforts made every day. It’s a double punishment for the children. »
Children with disabilities without AESH left to their own devices
Beyond this “unacceptable” situation, this mother recalls that National Education is “illegal” because it is “forcing the withdrawal” of her son, who has been “without learning” and “without inclusion” for three months. . She adds: “It is a right for everyone to go to school and a duty to welcome students. But we don’t care because, for the disabled, we allow ourselves to do what we would never do with others! However, we have already seen that the State knows how to find answers, even in exceptional situations. » She calls for “someone responsible, involved in their job” and who “is concerned about the fate of these children”.
A few kilometers away, Pascal* is also the victim of “a lack of consideration on the part of the academy”. His son, as well as a dozen of his classmates, attending the René Beauverie nursery school in Vaulx-en-Velin, are suffering from the “dysfunction of National Education” and the shortage of AESH. For three months, his child, notified of twelve hours of support, has only seven. “The rest of the time, he is left to his own devices,” he says. No one seems to realize what such upheaval represents for an autistic child. We must be respected and ensure that disabled children can have as normal an education as possible. It’s incredible. »
Requested by 20 minutesthe rectorate assured “to study the situations every week in order to allow, within the framework of the allocated resources, to carry out the necessary regulations and rebalancing to best respond to the support needs of the notified students”.
709 students waiting to be enrolled in school
But the observation is general. Last week, more than 200 teachers, AESH, hospital nurses, administrative staff gathered in Lyon to raise awareness about this problem of educational inclusion. “There are 709 students in the department who are deprived of their right to be educated in a social or medico-social establishment due to the lack of places,” explains Frédéric Volle, for the Force Ouvrière unions of National Education staff, culture and research. And this then has repercussions on the places in Ulis and so on. » He adds: “This is not new, but the situation is getting worse every year. Since the start of the school year, we have received phone calls every day. Not a school is spared. »
“Students with disabilities have the right to learning conditions adapted to their difficulties, whatever the cost,” write the teachers. They demand, among other things, “the immediate creation of the necessary places in social and medico-social establishments”, more “positions of specialized teachers and medico-social staff commensurate with needs”, “a status and a real salary for AESH”. A call for a national strike has been launched for January 25, 2024. A demonstration is also planned in Paris to “bring [ces] demands to the Ministry of National Education.
* First names have been changed at the request of those interviewed.