The report found families were often desperate for the respite the residential schools provided. Photo: 123RF
Residential schools for disabled students are welcoming but worsen the students' dislocation from their home communities.
A long-delayed report on the three schools published this week said the education system had repeatedly failed the children who applied to the schools and their families were often desperate for the respite the residential schools provided.
It also said the schools had limited expectations for their students and "deficit theorising" was evident.
The Residential Specialist Schools Pathway Evaluation Report was completed by Auckland University researchers in June last year but was then reviewed by the Education Ministry because "concerns were raised about some aspects of the evaluation methodology".
The future of the three schools - Westbridge in Auckland, Halswell in Christchurch, and Salisbury in Nelson - has been in doubt for years.
The schools' enrolments fell after the ministry introduced in 2013 a system to provide more support in students' communities.
As a result the schools were funded for more students than they actually had, driving the spend on a per-student basis as high as $890,000 per year.
In 2022 the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommended the government shut the schools and direct their funding to community-based support.
Last year the schools reported rising enrolments though they still had fewer students than they were funded for.
The Auckland University report said "repeated unmet educational needs" fell overwhelmingly on families, who were constantly searching and advocating for better support for their children.
It also identified a problem of "broken connections".
"Simply removing the problem, making it somebody else's responsibility, is a very tempting solution. The time the student is in the RSS may be felt as a much-needed reprieve for families from the continuing stress of managing and navigating an unwelcoming education system.
"The dislocation of students from their schools, from their families, and from their communities is often in process well before the decision to apply for enrolment in an RSS. The dislocation is compounded by the time spent in RSS."
The report said enrolment processes for the schools were inconsistent and families often did not understand the reasons for enrolment decisions.
It said it was not clear from documentation supplied to the reviewers how the schools met the needs of ākonga Māori and whānau Māori within cultural frameworks.
"Evidence in documentation points to a monocultural enrolment approach," the report said.
It was also critical of a lack of documentation about goals for student learning and for students' transitions back to their homes and communities.
It said families often felt isolated.
The report said students felt welcomed by the schools, which provided activities they had not been allowed to participate in while in regular schools.
It said some regular schools refused to arrange enrolment for students prior to their departure from a residential school arguing that the student did not currently live in their enrolment area.
The report was based on interviews with several families and former students, referral data for 155 young people, and ministry data about 15 former students.
The ministry's review of the research said the conclusions on transition planning should be viewed with caution because they were based on ministry-supplied information and had not included documents from the schools themselves.
It said the schools' views would be captured in future work.
Salisbury School rejected the report's findings and said it would commission its own peer review of the way the study was conducted.
The school said the researchers did not contact the schools for documentation and its findings were seriously compromised.
"It also feels like what was meant to be an evaluation of the enrolment pathway into RSS back in 2021/22, has become a discussion on whether RSS should even exist, which is completely inappropriate," it said.
The University of Auckland research team said the study was conducted in consultation and agreement with the Education Ministry, a ministry advisory group and the project team's "supervisory whānau of interest".
"The process of the evaluation was guided by the need to maintain the anonymity and confidentiality of the interview participants, and the administrative data held by the ministry. We did not contact the schools about the information they held on any former students. Any concerns of the schools regarding information 'not shared' with the ministry (e.g., gaps in reporting) is a matter to discuss between the schools and the ministry and their own processes for knowledge/information transfer," it said.
The researchers said they relied on four sources of information that individually and collectively led to the findings of the report.