Sign Up to Speak at the June 18, 2026 10 AM to 12 Noon EDT A Virtual Town Hall on Disability Barriers in Schools Around Ontario

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

Ontario Autism Coalition

 

Sign Up to Speak at the June 18, 2026 10 AM to 12 Noon EDT A Virtual Town Hall on Disability Barriers in Schools Around Ontario

 

June 3, 2026

 

Sign Up Now!

 

On Thursday, June 18, 2026, from 10 AM to noon EDT, the AODA Alliance and the Ontario Autism Coalition are holding an online Virtual Town Hall to hear from parents of students with disabilities and students themselves on the disability barriers they face in Ontario schools. We want to hear where there are gaps, and what needs to be done to ensure that students with disabilities can fully and equally benefit from all that our publicly-funded school system has to offer. To sign up, write TownHall@ontarioautismcoalition.com. We will accept requests from parents/guardians of students with disabilities, and of course from students with disabilities, on a first come, first served basis. We’ll also keep a waiting list for overflow.

 

Speakers at this Virtual Town Hall will be asked two questions:

  1. What disability barriers have you or your child faced in Ontario-funded schools, whether public or Catholic?
  2. What needs to be done to remove and prevent these disability barriers?

 

 

Please don’t mention your child’s name, or their school or any teaching staff. We’ll introduce you online by your first name. We will ask you to mention which school board you are speaking about, if you are agreeable to do that.

 

 

We are also inviting Minister of Education Paul Calandra to log in, listen to speakers, and say a few words partway through the Virtual Town Hall. Below is the letter inviting the Minister to join us.

 

 

This is especially timely for the Minister. On April 27, 2026, he said this at the Legislature:

 

“The level of special education across the province is different from school board to school board. I’m frankly unhappy with that. I’m unhappy with the disconnect between the three ministries that are responsible. I certainly think we can do a better job. I will be spending a significant amount of time over the next number of months seeing how we can better perform when it comes to special education.”

 

In holding this Town Hall, We are aiming to help the Minister with this work.

 

 

We are very appreciative that the ARCH Disability Law Centre will provide American Sign Language interpretation and CART captioning for this event. This is an online-only event. There is no in-person event to come to. The public will be able to watch the event via livestream on YouTube. The YouTube link will be https://www.youtube.com/c/OntarioAutismCoalition

 

 

We will again make public all the login details closer to the date of the event.

 

 

We’d appreciate it if anyone emailing us to request to be included on the speakers’ list could include the following:

  • Your name.
  • A phone number we can reach you at before and during the Town Hall.
  • The school board you are connected to, whether you are a parent of a student with disabilities.
  • One or two sentences about the problem or barrier you will talk about.

 

After we see how many people will be speaking, we’ll let you know how much time each speaker will get.

 

Text of the June 2, 2026 Letter Inviting the Minister of Education Paul Calandra to the June 18, 2026 Virtual Town Hall

 

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities

Web: www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance

 

June 3, 2026

 

To: The hon. Paul Calandra, Minister of Education minister.edu@ontario.ca

Ministry of Education

14th Floor, 315 Front Street West

Toronto, ON M7A 0B8

Canada

 

 

Dear Minister,

 

Re: Invitation to Attend and Address the June 18, 2026 10 AM to Noon Virtual Town Hall for Parents of Students with Disabilities and Students with Disabilities Themselves

 

On behalf of the AODA Alliance and the Ontario Autism Coalition, I’m delighted to invite you to attend the Virtual Town Hall on June 18, 2026 from 10 AM to noon EDT. At this event, we are inviting parents of students with disabilities as well as students with disabilities themselves to tell us about disability barriers they face at school, and to recommend what needs to be done to remedy this.

 

We invite you to hear what parents and students have to say. We also want to invite you to speak for a few minutes to our virtual audience, partway through the event. We can coordinate with your staff the timing that works best for you.

 

We are accepting speakers on a first come, first served basis. The event will be livestreamed to the public on YouTube.

 

We hope and trust that this Virtual Town Hall will assist you in undertaking the important work on special education that you announced when you addressed the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social Policy on April 27, 2026, where you said:

 

“The level of special education across the province is different from school board to school board. I’m frankly unhappy with that. I’m unhappy with the disconnect between the three ministries that are responsible. I certainly think we can do a better job. I will be spending a significant amount of time over the next number of months seeing how we can better perform when it comes to special education.”

 

 

Please have one of your staff contact me to let us know if you will be attending and to work out the logistics. We hope and trust that you will be able to join us.

 

 

Sincerely,

 

David Lepofsky CM, O. Ont

Chair Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance

Twitter: @davidlepofsky

 

 

CC: Denise Cole Deputy Minister of Education Denise.A.Cole@ontario.ca