Offenbacher: Parents of autistic children feel left alone by the city

• fromEast Tinç

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An Offenbach family is fighting to have their autistic son taken to school. The city has rejected the application for individual transport and refers to the social welfare office. The inclusion association IGEL-OF considers this to be illegal.

Every morning that Ms. Ender and her two children can walk to kindergarten and school without major incidents is a good morning for her. Ms. Ender’s name is actually different. But she doesn’t want her name or that of her children to appear in the papers. Her youngest son, three years old, goes to kindergarten. Her six-year-old son, Murat (name changed), has severe early childhood autism and has been attending the Froebel School with a special focus on intellectual development (GE) since the summer.

Murat often has seizures on the way to school. “He jumps, stomps, pushes me or his brother. Sometimes he also kicks strangers. Or he’s trying to run away. He can freak out at any time, ”says Ender, who has tears in his eyes. Since he is quite tall and heavy even for his age, it is difficult for her to calm him down immediately every time. Especially since she also has to take care of the three-year-old whose kindergarten is 1.5 kilometers from the school. Since Ender’s husband has to go to work very early, he cannot help her.

Even before school started, the family had submitted an application for Murat to the city of Offenbach for individual transport. However, this was rejected because the “simple walk between home and school applies under the two-kilometer rule that applies to primary school students”. The way to school is around 600 meters. This reason annoys Dorothea Terpitz, she also considers it unlawful. She is chairwoman of IGEL-OF, a non-profit association for the inclusion of children and young people in the education system for the city and the district of Offenbach. “The reference to the distance between the school and the child’s place of residence, which regularly appears in the notices of the city of Offenbach, is inadmissible for children with disabilities,” she says, referring to the Hessian School Act (HSchG). It says: “Regardless of the distance, transportation can be recognized as necessary if the way to school poses a particular risk to the safety and health of the schoolchildren or if a schoolchildren cannot use it without public or private use due to a disability Means of transport. ”In Murat’s case, the way to school would be life-threatening because he cannot orient himself or speak. “I never leave him anywhere alone,” says Ender. She also doesn’t want her son to take a bus ride because the stimuli would overwhelm him.

The city education authority refers to the evaluation of the subsidy diagnostic statement of the school. For individual transport, the handicap must be so severe “that the way to school cannot be covered without using public or private transport”. This was not the case in the present case, writes Thomas Löhr, head of the municipal education department, when asked by FR. Dorothea Terpitz, on the other hand, says that early childhood autism in severe forms was sufficiently explained to the parents by the school.

Löhr explains further: “If the parents cannot accompany their child to school, they may be entitled to support, through social law.” in order to submit the applications for a participation assistance for the lessons. “One part is regulated by the school law, the other by the social law,” said Löhr. The school law, explains Terpitz, regulates the way to school, which is the responsibility of the school authorities and not the parents. The social law regulates participation in education. “Mr. Löhr just shifts his responsibility and makes sure that the parents are caught between all stools”, criticizes Terpitz.

From their point of view, the problem has existed since 2017. At that time, the city of Offenbach decided to relocate the rules for getting to and from school at the city education authority, analogous to the School Act. Previously, the social welfare office had not only covered the costs for the participation assistance (THA), but also for the individual transport of schoolchildren. “According to current case law, the integration aid can be safely pinned to providing the participation assistance,” says Terpitz. However, this would then have to be designed in one-to-one support throughout everyday school life, including the way to school. “That would be really expensive for the city of Offenbach, and it would intervene in the concept of the school, which as a special needs school only has a pool from THA,” says Terpitz. For this reason, it is customary throughout Hesse to take the pupils of the special schools for intellectual development (GE) to school and home by bus and individual transport.

Ms. Ender is exhausted from the back and forth. If only the way to and from school could be relieved of her life, that would make her life a lot easier. “You mustn’t put us in the position of having to fight for it,” says Ender.

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