A Christian school has been forced to apologise for hosting a charity event where they requested students “dress up” as someone with a disability in order to teach them “about the miracles of Jesus”.
Flinders Christian Community College has come under fire for its “Walk in their Shoes” fundraiser in which year 8 students were told to find sponsors and collect donations for a Walkathon event where they would “dress up as blind, lame, injured etc”.
Students participated in the event at the Tyabb campus last week using props including slings, sunglasses and canes.
A canteen voucher was awarded for the “best costume”.
The incident comes as anger continues to grow over state government changes to disability inclusion funding, which threatens to cut tens of millions of dollars from school budgets.
The changes would see support for about 23,000 students reduced by at least $3400 per student a year along with an overall 2.5 per cent cut.
Disability advocate Julie Phillips said the event was “offensive” as people with disabilities should not be portrayed as needing to be “fixed by Jesus or anyone else”.
“It’s not respectful to people with disabilities to urge kids to pretend to be them,” she said.
“Embracing difference is a better philosophy than, ‘We’ve got to heal them’. It’s offensive.”
Ms Phillips said she was working with four families who are pursuing legal action against the school for alleged discrimination against their disabled children.
A former parent of the school said it was akin to asking students to dress up as Hitler for a history event.
“It’s degrading to people who have a disability,” she said.
The school, which has about 1700 students and charges up to $11,960 per year, has a specialist autism centre and three campuses across Melbourne’s southeast.
Online commenters have slammed the college, describing the event as “othering”, “unjustifiable”, and “wrong on so many levels”.
Others have defended the school as remaining true to its Christian values by basing the event on “the people Jesus encountered and healed”.
In a statement issued on Friday to the Herald Sun and the school community, Flinders Christian Community College said while the event was well intended, aspects “fell short of the dignity, respect and inclusion” expected.
“We unreservedly apologise to people with disability, their families, and everyone in our community who has been hurt.”
The school is now reviewing the planning of the event and how disability inclusion was considered and said it would “act on what we learn”.
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