(BOLD) have hit back at Education Minister Jerome Dill's claim that they wanted the public to foot the bill for overseas education for their children.

Mr. Dill, responding to a full-page advertisement placed in last Wednesday's paper by BOLD, said: "I've spoken to many people in that group that want public funds to send their children away.'' "I was horrified to hear what he said on television,'' said frustrated parent Cherie Henderson. "It contradicts everything he has said to us in the meetings and letters.'' BOLD has called for a delay of the proposed new Education Act and has suggested that the Ministry ensure that the following changes take place: Efficient educational facilities and programmes are available each year for students with or without disability; Appropriate public education is available to students with or without disabilities between the ages of three and 18 years; Parents or guardians of special children have the ability to examine all "relevant records with respect to the identification, evaluation, and placement of the child and to obtain an independent evaluation of the child''; and Parents or guardians have the opportunity for an "impartial due process hearing'' by the Board of Education, not by someone involved in an agency or school which has care of the child.

But Mrs. Henderson stressed that BOLD was not a group of parents trying to get public funds to send their children away.

"That is not what we are all about,'' she said. "He's telling us one thing and telling everyone else something different. I am fed up with it.'' Both Mrs. Henderson and BOLD member Ann Dunstan said they were unhappy with the way Mr. Dill had presented BOLD to the public.

"Mr. Dill is completely missing the point,'' Mrs. Dunstan said. "We want what is right for all children. All children have special needs.

"Mr. Dill said that $26,000 is spent on each special need's child. That is untrue. They spend that on some, definitely not all.'' There is believed to be 700 special needs children in the Island's local schools. Of the 243 with moderate to severe special needs, the Education Ministry finances 23 children at full cost.

Mrs. Dunstan also noted that Mr. Dill focused the controversial issue of the cost of educating special children and overlooked everything else BOLD had mentioned.

"It was an inappropriate response to what we are trying to let the public know,'' she said. "It was unfair for him to say something like that.

"He used information for his own agenda. There may be truth in what he said, but definitely not the whole truth. Mr. Dill does not play fair, he's a politician that knows what catches people's attention. He wants to pass the Education Act right now. We want it done right.'' While admitting that education was improving, Mrs. Dunstan said equal rights in education still did not exist.

"Our prison is filled with people who were not diagnosed properly when they were young,'' she noted. "These people did not fit the square that the Board of Education has set, and look where they have ended up.

"This is a vicious circle that costs our society, we must educate now and meet our children's needs or we will all pay later.'' Both women expressed their concerns about the Board of Education's choice to drop education grants to The Reading Clinic and The Learning Centre.

With the grant, Mrs. Dunstan said, The Reading Clinic was able to use the funds to help 14 children from the public school system.

"We won't let these children down now that the funding is gone, but this makes things much more difficult for us.'' When contacted, Mr. Dill told The Royal Gazette he was sorry to hear that BOLD was angry. But he stood by his earlier comments.