What do parents do when they see that their children are being harmed by a system that is supposed to help?

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

Why are we living in a first world country where parents must aggressively seek support from all sectors of the education and health care communities to obtain, often at their own expense, the documentation required to prove that their children meet the criteria for special education programs and services.

What happens when an educational system is telling you, “We are doing the best we can,” but you are watching your child regress. They are not learning, they are isolating. You are literally watching your child lose themselves. You spend every night researching, fighting insurance, begging for help. You are exhausted, and then you go to the system that is supposed to be helping you, and you are told your child is just… a number. A burden.

“It’s not personal,” they tell you. Not personal? This is everything personal. This is your child’s future. This is their right to learn, to thrive. They are telling you that’s not their responsibility. Your child deserves better. All of our children deserve better.

“Your child deserves better. All of our children deserve better.”

Recommendations made to assist our students with disabilities have been largely ignored

Special education is not new. It has existed in Ontario for more than 100 years. There are lessons to learn from this history.

Over its century of existence, special education in the province has changed dramatically in response to activism, advocacy, and shifting school culture. Special education began as a school reform in the early 20^th century, was absorbed into the school system in the pre- and post-war eras, was expanded and challenged in the 1970s, and has more recently become a hybrid of inclusive education and a continuum of services. These changes affected teachers’ work and have shaped and been shaped by special education funding.

In 2002, ETFO released “Fulfilling the Promise: Ensuring Success for Students with Special Needs,” a position paper that summarized issues in special education caused by the policy and funding changes made by the Mike Harris Conservative government. Informed by input from classroom education workers, the paper included recommendations for the Ontario Ministry of Education that would have supported the success of children with disabilities.

These recommendations were largely ignored.

Human rights codes are not protecting our children

Decades of research tell us that access to special education is not equal across Ontario. Among social identities such as: gender, race, socioeconomic status, type of disability, and geography, among other social identities, can all impact whether a student with special needs is able to access the services and programs that will not just set them up for future success, but also create educational experiences that are joyful, meaningful, and respectful of who they are.

The Ontario Human Rights Code came into effect in 1962. The Code affirmed the right to equal access to services, including education, and was the first comprehensive human rights code in Canada. However, it took 20 years to amend the Code and prohibit discrimination based on disability. It is unfortunate that to this day implemented human rights codes are still not protecting our children

In fall 2024, ETFO commissioned Stratcom to conduct focus groups with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) members to better understand the impacts of more than two decades of harmful policy and funding decisions on the everyday realities of special education in Ontario classrooms. Members from across the province, including special education teachers, special education resource/itinerant teachers, and mainstream classroom teachers whose classes include students with disabilities, participated in the sessions.

Their feedback confirmed that the challenges ETFO identified more than 20 years ago persist. In fact, many have worsened. Key findings included:

• Chronic underfunding over decades is making it increasingly difficult to attain positive learning outcomes for students with special education needs.
• Support services and resources for students with special education needs are severely lacking in Ontario’s public schools.
• Special education services and supports have dwindled over the years as the number of students with exceptionalities and the complexity of students’ needs have increased.
• Special education teachers and teachers in mainstream classrooms feel overwhelmed, deflated, discouraged, and personally blamed for an education system that is failing students with exceptionalities.
• As boards move towards a full-inclusion model and continue to close self-contained and small-group special education programs, services to support students with special education needs have been withdrawn from regular classrooms, leading to a sense of abandonment.
• Teachers in mainstream classrooms and special education resource teachers feel at a loss to effectively meet the academic needs of students with complex and multiple exceptionalities in their classrooms.
• Teachers are experiencing high rates of burnout, declining mental health, and are witnessing student frustrations manifest physically in their behaviours and violent outbursts in the classroom.

While the Ontario government ignores their own legislation and the AODA recommendations, statistics and news reports continue to highlight the escalating challenges faced by Canadians with disabilities:

• poorer educational outcomes
• increased unemployment
• lower income
• increased housing insecurity
• increased food insecurity
• higher rates of incarceration

These realities reveal critical gaps in support, funding, and access to essential services.

What does ETFO fight for?

As an organization that promotes equity and social justice within the education system and broader society, ETFO supports moving discussions about disability beyond whether children have access to accommodations and modifications, and towards acknowledging disability identity, incorporating disability culture, teaching disability history, and challenging all forms of ableism within classroom practices.

ETFO is not alone in recognizing this change must happen. Throughout their new report, they have drawn on research and reporting by organizations and individuals, including: People for Education, the Ontario Autism Coalition, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, district school boards, experts in education, journalists, academics, and government bodies, which speak to the challenges in special education and in many cases advocate for the same actions and shifts in approach they have expressed in their 27 recommendations.

For parents out there who have children with disabilities, I would strongly advise that you take a look at this report. Special education is failing our children. It is failing the economic and social health of our province. ETFO is urging the Ontario Ministry of Education to adopt their 27 recommendations so that children with disabilities can thrive.

As a community newspaper, we are urging that the Ontario Ministry of Education start making some serious changes and start listening to the needs of our students. All of them.