The family of a 12-year-old girl with Down syndrome, who has attended a mainstream public school in Barcelona until now, has received a recommendation from specialists at the Education Consortium's educational and pedagogical guidance team (EAP) to attend a special education center next academic year. The assigned place is six kilometers from their home, which would drastically alter her daily routine, requiring complex public transport for travel.
The girl's father, Antoni, has expressed concern about the loss of autonomy this change would entail, as the child would take a long time to learn to manage the two metro lines and a bus needed for the round trip. The family had proposed three options near their home, but their preferred choice was outside the zoned area where the girl is registered. This situation has led them to demand an urgent change from the Consortium, alleging potential discrimination against students with special needs.
While acknowledging the necessity of zoning to ensure access to these centers, the family argues that the zone boundaries should benefit, not disadvantage, those without nearby schools. Furthermore, they deem it important for the new center to have a sufficient number of children with the same intellectual disability, as pediatricians recommend interaction with other children with Down syndrome for the girl to gain awareness of her situation.
“"With other children with Down syndrome, she could become aware that she is not so different."
The Education Consortium, for its part, has maintained that the placement process followed objective and public criteria applied to all applications, and that other requests scored higher, thus avoiding the violation of other students' rights. A similar situation affects a classmate, Hailey, who has been assigned a school seven kilometers away due to autism. Her mother, Vanessa, has declined the offered placement and requested to remain at her current school, citing her daughter's inability to manage three daily bus journeys.
