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Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
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More Proof Things Get Worse for Vulnerable Students with Disabilities When Education Minister Calandra Takes Over and Runs a School Board, as Revealed in a Wrenching Toronto Today Report
March 14, 2026
SUMMARY
Here is ample clear proof of the harm to students with disabilities under provincial supervision. That provincial supervision is traced directly to the Minister of Education Paul Calandra, who took over the Toronto District School Board. It is a very disturbing March 10, 2026 article appearing in the Toronto Today publication, which you can read below.
AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky raised this issue in his remarks at a March 11, 2026 Queen’s Park news conference organized by the Ontario Public School Boards Association.
Last spring, Toronto District School Board senior staff proposed that TDSB should increase the maximum size of two categories of special education classes. One of those categories is called Diagnostic Kindergarten.
At its May 12, 2025 meeting and its June 9, 2025 meeting, TDSB’s Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) strongly objected. They argued that this would lead to less support for students with disabilities in those classes. TDSB senior staff disagreed. They said this was not a cost-saving measure, and that staffing supports would remain sufficient to meet the needs of students in those classes.
TDSB needed to get a vote of the TDSB’s trustees to approve this measure. The issue came up at the June 18, 2025 meeting of the TDSB’s elected trustees. TDSB SEAC Chair David Lepofsky (who is also Chair of the AODA Alliance) argued that the trustees should not approve this increase in the maximum permissible class size of these special education classes. TDSB senior staff tried to convince the trustees to give their approval, arguing in opposition to the TDSB’s SEAC.
A majority of the trustees voted against the increase to the size of these classes. They rejected the TDSB senior staff’s arguments. This was the first time the trustees ever overruled the TDSB senior staff at the request of TDSB’s Special Education Advisory Committee at least in the past decade.
However, this victory was painfully short-lived. It was just days later that the Education Minister Paul Calandra seized control of TDSB and several other boards, alleging financial issues. He appointed a provincial supervisor, Rohit Gupta, to replace the trustees and run TDSB. Mr. Gupta reports directly to and serves the Minister, and clearly operates to implement the Minister’s wishes.
Shortly after taking on this role, Mr. Gupta overturned the trustees’ decision on this class size issue. He authorized TDSB staff to increase the maximum size of classes in these two categories of special education classes. No doubt, he did so at the request of TDSB senior staff.
The TDSB Supervisor did not consult TDSB’s SEAC before making this decision, or give that SEAC an opportunity to be heard. Under mandatory provincial regulations, a school board’s trustees must give their SEAC a chance to be heard before reaching a decision on a SEAC recommendation. It was very public that TDSB’s SEAC had been opposed to this hike in class size. TDSB senior staff knew it. The May 12, 2025 SEAC meeting where it was discussed and the June 18, 2025 trustees’ meeting were held in public, livestreamed and archived on YouTube.
The March 10, 2026 Toronto Today news report shows in vivid detail that TDSB’s increase in the maximum size of Diagnostic Kindergarten classes has been harmful for the young and vulnerable students with disabilities in those classes. Yet parents of students with disabilities/special education needs and the TDSB’s SEAC cannot take this issue to the trustees at a public meeting, and try to get some relief for these kids. This is because Education Minister Paul Calandra has ousted them and taken control of running the TDSB.
From his remarks at a March 11, 2026 news event that the Government staged, Minister Calandra made it clear that he is in no hurry to restore the trustees. It could be up to ten years, he mused, vis a vis all school boards under provincial supervision.
How You Can Help
- Watch the March 11, 2026 Queen’s park news conference of leaders from school boards, teachers’ unions, students, and parents of students with disabilities. See why it is so important for the Education Minister to halt his creeping takeover of the Ontario school system, now at over one third of that system. Learn why the Government needs to hold a robust public consultation on how school boards should be governed. Urge others to watch the news conference.
- Contact your member of the Ontario Legislature. Tell them they must save local democracy at school boards. The provincial government is ill-equipped to competently run one third of Ontario’s schools, much less all of them. The March 12, 2026 Toronto Today article illustrates this in painful detail.
- Read more about the AODA Alliance’s advocacy for a barrier-free school system for students with disabilities by visiting the AODA Alliance website’s education page.
MORE DETAILS
Toronto Today March 10, 2026
Originally posted at https://www.torontotoday.ca/local/education/special-ed-class-size-tdsb-supervisor-decision-absolute-chaos-teachers-11984580
TDSB supervisor’s decision to enlarge some special ed classes causing ‘absolute chaos,’ teachers say
A TDSB superintendent has said having larger diagnostic kindergarten classes increases access for students, but some teachers say it’s making classrooms less safe
Gabe Oatley
Teachers of specialized kindergarten classes for students with disabilities at the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) say a decision to permit larger class sizes this year is leading to more injuries and less learning for some of the system’s most vulnerable students.
Diagnostic kindergarten is a specialized, intensive TDSB support program that uses lower student-teacher ratios to support kids three to five years old who have complex learning, developmental or medical needs.
However, instead of working one-on-one with students to help them learn to say their first words or take off their own snowsuit, some diagnostic kindergarten teachers say they are increasingly focused only on trying to keep students safe amid larger class sizes.
Last July, shortly after being appointed supervisor of the TDSB, Rohit Gupta approved an increase to the number of students permitted in diagnostic kindergarten classrooms — pivoting from a maximum of eight to 10 students.
The decision, among Gupta’s first at the board, overturned a prior directive from TDSB trustees, which had rejected the proposed class size increase after an outcry from educators and parents.
In March, seven months into the school year, TorontoToday spoke with four current diagnostic kindergarten educators who said Gupta’s decision has resulted in exactly what they warned of: less learning and more students harming themselves, peers and teachers. (TorontoToday is not naming these educators over their fear of workplace reprisals.)
One current TDSB diagnostic kindergarten teacher said the new classroom conditions are “absolute chaos.”
“All I do is remove children from climbing the furniture, and then I go help someone who’s upset … and then I go stop someone from smearing poop all over the floor,” she said.
“It feels like we’ve become a daycare,” said another. “I never feel good about my day.”
Boy bitten after class increased to 10 students
TDSB parent Jennifer Loaiza said her family has seen the impact of the larger diagnostic kindergarten class sizes firsthand.
This fall, Loaiza enroled her four-year-old son, who has autism and down syndrome, in a diagnostic kindergarten program at Fairbank Memorial Community School, near their home.
At first, Loaiza said she was thrilled with the program and the progress her son was making. In the fall, the class had just six students, which Loaiza said gave her son’s teacher and educational assistant enough time to help him start learning how to communicate his needs.
“He started to use his finger to point at the things that he wants,” said Loaiza, with pride. “[Now], when he wants me to sing to him, he points to my mouth.”
However, as in other diagnostic kindergarten classrooms boardwide, more students were added to her son’s class throughout the school year, bringing the student count to 10.
Loaiza said the change has been noticeable in the time teachers have to educate her son and to ensure he remains safe.
One day last week, Loaiza said her son, who she said is normally quiet and calm, was crying when she picked him up from school.
An educator told Loaiza her son had been bitten on the head by another student. When Loaiza went home, she noticed blood on his scalp and in his hair.
Loaiza said this was the worst injury her child has experienced at school so far, and said the shift in his class circumstances is upsetting. “Ten students is too many,” she said.
Workplace violence reports up 45 per cent: union
All four diagnostic kindergarten educators who spoke with TorontoToday said since their classes have grown to beyond eight students, they have seen more instances of aggression, such as kicking, biting, punching, hitting and pushing, in their classrooms.
As the number of students has increased, so has the noise level in the classroom, educators said, causing students with auditory sensitivities to become more frequently dysregulated.
Educators also said more students means more conflicts over shared toys.
One teacher, whose classroom now has 10 students, said that last week, a student threw a metal cookie sheet (typically used by kids for arranging magnetic letters) at another child’s face.
“I don’t think his intention was to throw a cookie sheet at another child,” she said. “I think he was frustrated that the alphabet letters weren’t available.”
In an emailed statement, Helen Victoros, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said the number of violent incidents reported by elementary teachers boardwide has increased 45 per cent as of February, when compared to the same period last year.
“Many of the incidents we’re hearing about are from classrooms like these where the province has cut the supports that are so critical for our youngest learners who need supports the most,” said Victoros.
The union president noted that the diagnostic kindergarten program formerly had a cap of six students, before it was increased to eight, and subsequently 10, all without any corresponding staff increase.
One teacher who spoke with TorontoToday said she needed to take time off this year because of an injury suffered at the hands of a student. Another educator said a peer was recently head-butted by a student, causing a nose bleed.
TorontoToday asked the TDSB if the board has seen more student and teacher injuries in diagnostic kindergarten classrooms this year compared to last, but did not receive a response prior to publication.
Last year, in defending the proposed increase to diagnostic kindergarten class sizes, TDSB special education system superintendent Debbie Donsky said the change would help the board “align” with the province’s existing class caps, and increase “access” to the specialized program by allowing students to get off existing waitlists faster.
In an interview with TorontoToday, one diagnostic kindergarten teacher said she was disgusted by the rationale.
“It’s just bulls—t,” she said. “It was just a way that they thought they could [increase] quantity over quality.”
In an emailed statement, Leo Lagnado, a member of the board’s special education advisory committee, said more spaces for students in diagnostic kindergarten classrooms is only a win if the “integrity of the program is maintained.”
“If children are admitted to larger classes that cannot meet their needs, the result could be soft exclusion,” Lagnado said, such as behavioural crises, or parents choosing to no longer send their children to school.
TorontoToday recently reported that some local private schools are seeing an increase in interest for admission next fall. Among them is a North York independent school that offers support to children with disabilities and class sizes as low as six students.
Teachers fear for students’ long-term futures
Diagnostic kindergarten educators who spoke with TorontoToday said they are fearful about how a loss of quality one-on-one learning time will impact students long-term.
In diagnostic kindergarten classrooms, teachers are expected to follow the typical kindergarten curriculum. While that was always a tall task, one teacher now said it’s a “joke.”
The educator said in order to support her students making meaningful literacy strides — for example, learning to trace out the letters of their name or sound out a letter of the alphabet — she needs to be working with a child one-on-one, while other kids are playing independently.
However, with more students in her class, the teacher said there is simply less time for individualized instruction. Now, students who are getting personalized attention are also more easily distracted by their more numerous peers playing nearby, she said.
Still, the teacher said it’s fear of her students moving to yet-larger classes next year that causes the most stress.
Next year, some senior diagnostic kindergarten students will be in larger Grade 1 classes for students with mild intellectual disabilities, which have a class cap of 12 students.
“Is the teacher going to be able to meet their needs? Probably not,” she said. “And then what happens from there — are they ever going to do any substantial learning or life skills? It’s just not happening.”
Research shows early intervention and support for students with autism can help children reach their full potential.
With that in mind, the teacher said it’s frustrating to see the TDSB supervisor make decisions that could mean students are less likely to be able to work or volunteer when they’re older — and more likely to need to be on social assistance, such as the Ontario Disability Support Program.
“Why not focus more on early intervention?” she asked. “They’re being set up for failure.”
Educators who spoke with TorontoToday said they want Gupta to come to their classes to see what it’s really like — and whether he believes his decision to increase the class size cap was right.
TorontoToday endeavoured to reach Education Minister Paul Calandra to inquire whether he will intervene to reconsider the diagnostic kindergarten class cap increase, but did not receive a response prior to publication.