Two dozen parents gathered today at the Vale do Tamel School Group in Barcelos to protest against the decision of the director not to allow the re-enrollment of two autistic students in the 12th grade.
The students, aged 18 and 19, have been left with no social support in the region and will have to stay at home. Consequently, one of the parents will have to quit work to care for them.
“It is regrettable the enormous lack of sensitivity of the director of the school group, who is also a teacher of Religion and Moral,” said Sofia Cruz, the mother of the 19-year-old student.
Sofia Cruz stated that her son has been registered for five years for a place in a center for activities and inclusion empowerment (CACI).
“I expected the school to let my son stay for another year, but the director told me there is no chance, that the school is not the solution for these situations and does not want to set a precedent. But the truth is, there was already a precedent,” she mentioned.
The spokesperson for the Parents in Struggle movement, Jorge Castro, emphasized that the director’s decision is “discriminatory,” as students in similar situations in a neighboring Esposende school have been allowed to renew their 12th-grade enrollment for the fourth consecutive time.
“Our children are not ‘precedents’, they are human beings with special needs, and resources appear when necessity dictates,” he pointed out.
On June 12, parents of children and young people protested in front of the Social Security office in Braga against the lack of vacancies in CACI in the region.
Jorge Castro even went on a hunger strike, a protest that ended later that night after the Social Security Institute guaranteed the creation of 60 vacancies in Esposende within “a short period, between six months to a year.”
“For one year, if there were the slightest sensitivity, couldn’t the Vale do Tamel School Group accommodate two more students?” he criticized, highlighting it as “regrettable” that the state “pushes working parents into unemployment to care for their children with special needs.”
The parents present at the protest held signs with phrases like “Dignity for our children”, “We are parents, we want to work”, “Disability does not hide”, and “Respect for the citizen with a disability”.
School director Alípio Barbosa was unavailable to speak to the journalists.
