THUNDER BAY — A new report by the Ontario Autism Coalition shows that families of students being taught in Ontario’s special education classes are raising a number of concerns with how the system is functioning.
The special education survey was released on Thursday, which collected 429 responses from parents with children across 60 school boards. Among the findings were that half of families who were canvassed felt students weren’t getting a meaningful education, that over a third of families were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the development of their child’s individual education plan (IEP), and over half of families said that only some or none of the students’ IEP accommodations were followed consistently.
“The data paints a sobering picture of a system in crisis,” the report stated. “While educators and school staff are working hard to support students, they are doing so within a framework of chronic underfunding and systemic neglect.”
“School boards are left struggling to meet the complex needs of special education students without the resources to hire adequate staff, provide appropriate training or implement necessary support.”
For Alina Cameron, who lives just outside of Thunder Bay and is the current president of the Ontario Autism Coalition, the results were both “shocking” but “not surprising.”
“We hear these things every day,” she said. “But to see it all coalesced in one place, it kind of takes you back because … you realize how pervasive this issue is.”
The report also highlighted families’ concerns around student placement, attendance and modified schedules, academic and personal support, student safety, and affected students being excluded from classes or activities.
“To be clear, there are six per cent of children who should be attending school in an Ontario school, and they are not because of a lack of resources,” Cameron said.
While the survey was done by the Ontario Autism Coalition, Cameron said that the respondents were families whose children are in special education classes for any reason, and their survey included families from 60 of Ontario’s 72 publicly-funded school boards, including across Northwestern Ontario.
“When you realize that it's all of us going through this collectively, that's what's shocking,” she said. “That these things are common, that no school board is immune … that it is systemic.”
“It's a huge mess and how do we work our way out of this?”
The report, Cameron said, is a start to that process.
The coalition intends to conduct the survey annually, she added, so it can track if and how outcomes change over time. And with a provincial election on the horizon and a new government incoming, she said having this data in-hand when advocating for more funding and resources for special education will be valuable.
“We have to start looking at things in a different way,” she said. “We're really hoping that whichever government comes out of the next election in February is able to sit down and have a serious conversation with all of us.”
