Parents angry on special needs kindergarten move

Kfar Saba is planning to move the children to the other side of town so their buildings can be used as regular kindergartens.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Parents of children at two special education kindergartens in Kfar Saba are furious that the city is planning to move their children to different premises on the other side of town so that their buildings can be used as regular kindergartens, reports the Hebrew weekly Yediot Hasharon. The parents say it is unfair that their children should suffer because the city finds it more profitable to run a regular kindergarten for 30 children than a special needs kindergarten for a small number of children. According to the report, Kfar Saba runs 13 special education kindergartens, but when the coming school year opens this September it plans to move two of them out of the center of the city to the Yoseftal neighborhood on the other side of town. "Because we are in a minority, it is easier to move us," one parent of a special needs child complained. "For the city it pays better to have a regular long-day kindergarten with 30 children instead of our kindergarten, with a limited number of children." The parents said the extra distance they would need to travel would cause them and their children a great deal of hardship, and even more importantly, would deter the current "excellent" kindergarten teacher from moving with the children. A municipal spokesman responded that the number of children in need of kindergartens in the center of the city had been rising in recent years, and because special education children were entitled to subsidized transport it was more logical to move them to other premises further away, and to use their buildings for the benefit of regular children.