Answered Prayer: Free SPED in Makati SPED Center

Gods from all universes must have had a terrible Thursday with all of you making escalations on our behalf. Because --- In 2014, we submitted TLO's enrollment requirements to the Makati SPED Center. They called yesterday. After two years, our little girl is no longer wait listed. She is going to school for zero pesos.

What will happen to the donations we received? Therapy sessions. :)

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Heneral Pio Del Pillar Elementary School - Makati Special Education Center was a project of the Makati local government. In 2010, the center was turned over to the Department of Education-Makati. The center accepts special needs children at zero cost for the parents. Based on a news article from 2010, these are the center's facilities and service offerings:

• "five-storey building with a jacuzzi and therapy room located at the ground floor and 10 classrooms, which include a computer room, multi-purpose hall, clinic and canteen"
• "Salvacion Calabucal, officer-in-charge of SPED Center, said currently, the Center has 112 enrollees who belong to seven disability groups, which include children with autism, mental retardation (MR), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), hearing impaired and visually impaired."
• "The therapy sessions and classes for children with behavioral problems are being handled by an experienced therapist who applies behavior analysis."
• "Therapy sessions aim to decrease and, if possible, eliminate undesirable behavior for a special child to become more socially acceptable."

I can understand why we were on a wait list for TWO years. SPED is never affordable in the Philippines. In 2014, TLO went to a big private SPED school in Makati. Her tuition fee for one year was P140,000. After this, she also attended a small SPED school (still in Makati) and monthly fee was P14,000. Aside from funds constraints, we did not see any progress in TLO when she attended these schools so we discontinued her SPED in these private schools. Definitely not worth the expensive tuition fees. Earlier this week, I called another big school in Makati to inquire about their SPED program. I was told that max. annual feel is P150,000. Hence the fundraising campaign.

I was extremely thankful and overwhelmed after I talked to Teacher Lou of Makati SPED Center. Only 17 slots were available for TLO's condition and we got accepted! Our little girl is lucky SPED student #17. On the phone and when I dropped by to submit an updated assessment document, I cried buckets of happy tears. With no tuition fee to worry about, we can allocate all our TLO funds (and your donations) to transportation and therapy expenses.

If you are a Makati resident and someone in your family needs SPED, please reach out to the public SPED centers below. Your eligibility depends on your address so please call/visit first to check if you are qualified for enrollment, be patient (keep the "willing to wait" attitude) and continue to pray for continuous reasonable funding for public schools, teachers and therapists. 

Gen. Pio del Pilar Elementary School (SPED Center)

Address: Santuico St., Brgy. Pio Del Pilar, Makati Phone Number: (02) 659 8963

Nemesio I. Yabut Elementary School

Address: Escuela Street, Guadalupe Nuevo, Makati City

Phone Number: (02)882 2058

For more public and private SPED school options, please click here.