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Shortly before the start of the summer holidays, the dispute escalated in Hamburg over cuts in school support for children with disabilities and needs. The authority justifies the approach with developments in recent years. Expenditure on school support had increased many times over from 6.8 million to 44 million euros.
The same basic question is now being debated in several states and municipalities: Why are the number of cases and the costs of school support increasing so sharply, and can help be bundled more closely without missing the individual support needs of children? In the following text, a teacher describes what she feels is neglected in the discussion. She is a special education teacher at a district school in an average residential area of Hamburg and is responsible for applications for school supervision. She would like to remain anonymous. Read the original sound here.
I love my job
The probability of slipping into burnout as a teacher is very high in this profession. Nevertheless, I love my job. Because I know: Most students actually really enjoy coming to our school. Very few people would say that. But I can see it: They don't skip work, they don't get sick, they come here because they meet their friends and people who mean well for them. I say this because for an alarming number of children, school is a kind of surrogate family. But that is another topic.
It is right that the city ensures that the funds for school support are used where they are needed and that they do not get out of control. However, we completely fail to recognize the realities we are dealing with. For example, my roster calls for a working time of 46 hours each, which is good with a net salary of 3,900 euros. But since I work an average of 55 hours a week, I would earn more money with my work in the private sector and would also have a much healthier work-life balance and better opportunities for advancement. The workload I do is tough.
But I know that when I leave things behind, it affects children who were less lucky in both the genetic and social class lottery.
I accept my overtime in order to prepare my lessons well and to be open to the problems of my colleagues. And often without achieving a satisfactory result. I feel the same way as other employees: Nothing demotivates you more than when the store doesn't run despite good work. In my case, this is measured by the students' learning progress. If things don't progress, it stresses me out more than if I prepare good lessons in my free time. Good means preparing the material in such a way that it reaches students at at least three different learning levels.
It is not enough to give about half of the children a bunch of black and white copies to differentiate them, regardless of whether they are particularly weak or strong. But many do that. I'll explain why later.
“Take off your clothes.”
It's not that they're getting dumber, but early and unsupervised smartphone and social media consumption is causing their attention span to decrease. There are also more students who are psychologically stressed. I'm not sure if they existed in large numbers before and it's the increased awareness that makes them visible today. But what is clear is that schools today have to absorb a lot more of what doesn't happen at home. Let's take a sixth-grade class for example: 17 of 23 children have a migration background, two are refugees. One's parents are professors, the other's are illiterate.
Two children have special needs, one has an early childhood form of autism. It needs someone to watch that it doesn't get too close to others, but also that it doesn't do what others tell it to do. “Go over to him and ask him why he’s so fat” or “Take off your clothes” – if someone said that to him, that would do it. Another child has multiple disabilities, sits in a wheelchair and needs help to be in the right room at the right time and to have his materials ready. There is an official diagnosis for these two children, which means there is an additional special education teacher on site to support them.
It sounds like there is always a colleague there for these students. In fact, these children are assigned individual lessons.
However, I also have children in my class who also need support, but without a diagnosis from the school authorities. Sometimes there is only one medical. This means that the school cannot claim any funding needs. Furthermore, there are those who have neither one nor the other. We call these children “submarines”: They also need support, and they get it, but they have to be provided for in regular lessons without additional resources.
The reason: Support status can only be diagnosed during primary school. If the primary school or the parents missed this, this child has to cope without support - and we have to cope without additional human resources. As a secondary school, we can also make a diagnosis for children with behavioral problems. Since we are not granted any additional resources for the child either way, this makes no sense for the schools, just more administrative work.
I think this “see how you get it done” attitude from politicians is the real problem. As a result, the willingness among colleagues to harp even more is reduced to zero.
I suspect that this is why teachers are quick to call for any form of support, even in unjustified cases. You just take all the help you can get.
In addition to these clear candidates for funding, there are roughly the same number of children who have a social-emotional developmental disorder. In a class in which I teach a lot, there are two who are dangerous to themselves and others. Two others have an impulse control disorder, which means they feel easily triggered by something and quickly clash with others. It helps enormously to offer these students to go out, shoot a few baskets in the schoolyard and come back when they have calmed down. That helps a lot! And that just takes time. Often these are school companions. You can go with the student as I have to supervise the class. If I'm alone in the classroom, it's exactly situations like this that disrupt the lesson. All students suffer from this.
If a class forms a well-coordinated team with a teacher, a special education teacher and, let's say, a school support person, we can do good teaching with this very challenging group of students. This works. And that is an enormous achievement! Because we enable all these children, no matter how difficult they are, to participate. They grow up with other, more educated children, make friends and therefore have a much greater chance of making something of their lives. Students who are close to education are not automatically more social than those who are less educated; that is also a fallacy. It becomes difficult when one person falls away from this interaction or does not feel responsible.
As soon as things become difficult, school support should be provided
Good teaching is automatically inclusive teaching. There are older colleagues who have not completed any further training and have been doing inclusive teaching since before there was a name for it. As in any other company, there are colleagues who teach less well. A lot could be done better here if there were better inspection of the school's internal concepts and their practical implementation. For example, ready-made teaching materials with different learning levels that colleagues could easily access. Some come to me and say: “Student so-and-so urgently needs a companion.” I look to see whether colleagues structure their lessons in a differentiated manner, whether there are learning opportunities for everyone that enable them to participate, and I realize: Something is missing.
In addition, there is a kind of habituation effect: As soon as things get difficult and teachers find themselves in challenging situations, someone immediately shouts: “We need school support here!” That can't be. As a teacher, I have to be willing to get involved with difficult personalities. I suspect that the massive increase in applications is also related to another point. Word seems to have gotten around about what needs to be included in such an application so that it has a better chance of success.
If I were a school senator and wanted to put a stop to escalating costs, I would ensure that there are clear criteria as to when school accompaniment is justified. They exist, but the truth is that no one really knows when they are fulfilled and when they are not. Currently it says: Requirements not met because there is no money. It's not written like that in black and white anywhere, but that's how everyone interprets it. Although there is someone sitting there who very well meets the requirements. However, it must not be the case that individual teachers describe students as absolute exceptional cases because they are overwhelmed, but the criteria are not met.
Because school companions do not replace teachers, they assist them. But the fact is: it is often precisely this support that ensures that the teacher can do normal lessons at all.
School accompaniments relieve the extremely limited human resources in the school system. Now this piece of the puzzle has been removed with the cuts in school support, and from this school year onwards teachers will have to work an hour more per week. This is how we, teachers, get worn out.
The lessons must be manageable. If he isn't, people give up. The result is: poor teaching and a drop in student performance. We do so many things right in Hamburg! It is not without reason that we are in third place in the nationwide ranking.
A single parent with two children and two jobs does not object
The authorities say that the funds for school support should be used more effectively. Since the cut, the opposite has now been the case: If parents lodged an objection to the cut made in the summer, this was upheld in most cases. The current application procedure has become more complex and you have to provide even more evidence. Parents need to be fully informed. Once you have the crucial data, anyone with a smartphone can formulate an objection for their child using ChatGPT or Google Translate. Currently, those children whose parents are able to do so receive accompaniment.
A single mother of two children with two jobs who has also had bad experiences with the authorities is not in a position to do this if in doubt.
The result: If parents complain, it's a good thing because children continue to receive support. However, in urgent proceedings the court asks for information from the school, or the authorities ask questions. Then the teachers have to drop everything and do it. This is fatal: because more time is wasted. Time that we already lack when working with the children.
