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fromPeter Hanack
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Claudia Kabel
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For many children with disabilities, the hygiene rules are a major hurdle for starting school.
Ina H. (name changed) was pleased: via a letter to her parents, she found out that classes would start again for elementary school students on June 2 – including her eight-year-old son with Down syndrome, who is attending a primary school in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district. But then the shock came: “In one sentence: Children who have an intellectual disability and are unable to abide by the hygiene rules are unfortunately excluded,” says the mother.
When she asked at the school, she was confirmed that her son was not allowed to go to school as long as the 1.5-meter rule applied. “He was too lively, ran around, couldn’t keep his distance,” she says. But she doesn’t give up. This is followed by discussions with the school and the authorities, because the regulation also affects the boy’s school attendant. H. can get her son to go to school for three hours a week as a test. But then he had to sit alone in a room with his I-power. “I don’t know if it will work,” she says. An alternative is to have the I-force come home. But that is still uncertain. One can ask how much all this has to do with inclusion.
All in all, schooling children with disabilities in Hesse is not going badly, says Dorothea Terpitz, Chair of “Living Together Hesse”. However, this required a lot of persuasion and some pressure from the parents. For example, the districts and independent cities as cost bearers had handled the participation assistance, the I helper, very differently. “Some said that these helpers could only be used at school, there is no performance agreement for use in families at home,” reports Terpitz. In the meantime, however, everyone had accepted that the I-helpers were also allowed to work in the families, since their work was related to the respective children and not the location. However, not all parents wanted the support at home, so Terpitz cannot say how many children can currently rely on the help of the participation assistants.
When using the I helpers in the schools themselves, the situation is also very different, says Terpitz. In several cases, school administrators had argued that the prescribed distance for protection against infection could not be maintained if I helpers were in the class. “Only a letter from the Ministry of Social Affairs, which we had pushed for, brought clarity,” says the chairwoman of the association. Schools would have to include the participation assistants and, where necessary, reduce the number of students per group.
The situation at many special schools is unsatisfactory. Children and adolescents were sometimes received very cautiously there, even though the classes were small anyway and often there should have been hygiene concepts before Corona.
Take the Christoph Graupner School in Darmstadt, for example: from 140 pupils, 16 pupils from the higher classes will start teaching this week. Rector Stefanie Wenzel says that younger students will be added from June 2nd. How many do not know yet. The prerequisite is that they can comply with the hygiene rules and are not dependent on help. Every child is assessed by educators according to a checklist. “We have to stick to the rules,” says Wenzel. Things are different at the Wichernschule in Mühltal (Darmstadt-Dieburg district). “We were irritated and found it to be discriminatory” that children should be excluded because they do not adhere to the rules on distance, says headmaster Falk Schüll. Therefore, the regulation was readjusted together with the school office. Now the students who need it get a training day to learn hygiene rules.
Outside are the children who belong to a risk group. They would not have to go to school anyway, explains Alexandra Cremer of Living Together Frankfurt. All you need is a certificate from the pediatrician. It could be difficult if I-helpers were sent on short-time work and were now not available. “Training a new helper is complex,” says Cremer. It appeals to everyone involved to keep a “clear head” and to find solutions together.
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