While enrolment numbers at Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows schools continue to decline, one segment of the student population continues to grow.

According to School District No. 42, the number of Ministry of Education-identified special needs students in secondary schools has jumped to 703 for the 2009/10 school year from 626 in 2008/09 – a 14 per cent increase.

“It’s one of the most significant challenges facing our teachers,” says Maple Ridge Teachers’ Association president Drusilla Wilson.

The catch-all coding by the ministry identifies students with a variety of health, social, or developmental issues, ranging from autism to severe asthma to dyslexia.

“Many will be able to function in some areas and not others,” said Wilson. “But some may be disruptive and require significantly more teacher time, and that can be challenging.

“But all of these youngsters are unique.”

There are likely a number of reasons for the higher numbers of special needs students, added Wilson.

For starters, kids are less physically active then they were 20 years ago, thanks to computers, television, and video games.

“Fear is also a part of it,” she said. “Parents don’t send their kids out to play in the street with their friends anymore.

As a result, children today don’t develop the same kind of focus and concentration, and generally have shorter attention spans.

Diagnosis methods for learning disabilities have also improved, while there are also environmental factors that have led to higher rates of asthma and severe allergies.

The end result is that teachers can be overwhelmed in the classroom, and students may not get the attention they need.

“First and foremost, it’s a funding issue,” said Wilson.

The provincial government does not provide local school districts with the resources necessary to staff special education assistants (SEAs) as they are needed.

“We need those extra hands in the classroom,” said Wilson. “We don’t have enough [SEAs], and I think everyone in the system recognizes that.”

Under the provincial Ministry of Education’s Bill 33 legislation, a maximum of three Ministry-identified special needs students can be in any secondary class, unless teachers and administrators agree to an exemption, and each student must be given an Individualized Education Plan (IEP).

This year, the district had 342 classes that exceeded the ministry’s standards, up from 255 in 2008/09. That means 18 per cent of all secondary classes had more than three special needs students.

“We’re working together in the best interest of parents and students and teachers to try to make this work,” Stewart Sonne, the district’s Director of Instruction for Secondary and Adult Education, said when he presented the district’s enrolment figures to the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Board of Education last Wednesday.

Part of the problem is that because the Ministry caps class sizes at 30 students for secondary school, it effectively limits the total percentage of special needs students to 10 per cent. However, with more than 6,600 secondary students across the district, the 703 special needs students account for 10.5 per cent of all students in Grades 8 to 12, making it impossible to reach the ministry’s goal.

However, of the 342 classes with three or more special needs students, all but a handful have received the approval of the teacher and school principal needed to comply with Bill 33 legislation, said Sonne.

Classes with more than three ministry-identified students will generally have a smaller class size, or an SEA assigned to the class, he said.