AODA Alliance
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update
United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities
Website: www.aodaalliance.org
Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com
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Twitter: @aodaalliance
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Focusing on the Plight of Vulnerable Students with Disabilities in Ontario Schools During National AccessAbility Week that Begins Today
May 31, 2026
SUMMARY
The AODA Alliance is highlighting the plight of tens of thousands of students with disabilities in Ontario schools during National AccessAbility Week. It starts today, and runs through June 6, 2026.
Here are two important media publications on point that we set out below:
- AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky’s monthly column in the Toronto Star’s 25 Metroland publications around Ontario addresses the Ford Government’s opposition to measures that would have helped students with disabilities, during debates in the Legislature earlier this month. The May 25, 2026 AODA Alliance news release gives more detail on the Tories’ systematic votes against students with disabilities.
- A May 31, 2026 report by Toronto Star education reporter Isabel Teotonio reveals how cuts at the Peel District School Board hurt students with disabilities. The May 26, 2026 AODA Alliance Update set out similar problems at the Toronto District School Board. Both of those school boards are directly run by the Ford Government. It ousted their elected school board trustees and replaced them with a provincial Supervisor who reports directly to Education Minister Paul Calandra.
On April 27, 2026, Ontario’s Minister of Education Paul Calandra made this public commitment on behalf of the Ford Government when addressing the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social Policy:
“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.”
How You Can Help
- Circulate this AODA Alliance Update to friends and family. Share it via social media.
- Send letters to the editor about the need for the Ontario Government to get going with its promised reforms to special education. Write Metroland at thenewsroom@metroland.com and write the Toronto Star at lettertoed@thestar.ca Keep your letter to 300 words or less. Mention the name of the article to which you are responding.
- Write the Minister of Education at edu@ontario.ca and Premier Ford at premier@ontario.ca Urge them to reverse these harmful cuts. Tell them to substantially increase funding for students with disabilities/special education needs in Ontario schools.
- Sign up to speak at the June 18, 2026 virtual Town Hall for parents of students with disabilities, and for students with disabilities themselves, to talk about the disability barriers in Ontario schools. To sign up, write the AODA Alliance and Ontario Autism Coalition (who are hosting this event) at townhall@ontarioautismcoalition.com
- Watch the AODA Alliance’s presentation to the Standing Committee on Social Policy on Bill 101 during the April 27, 2026 public hearings.
MORE DETAILS
Inside Halton May 31, 2026
Originally posted at https://www.insidehalton.com/opinion/ontario-bill-101-create-new-barriers/article_597391a1-aa44-5f89-b894-13123da3d890.html
Ontario’s new education bill ‘not a pretty picture’ for students with disabilities, advocate writes
Accessibility advocate David Lepofsky says bill lacked proper consultation and could create new barriers for students.
By David Lepofsky
David Lepofsky is the chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.
With May 31 to June 6 being National AccessAbility Week in Canada, you may expect and hope governments at all levels would line up to announce new actions to tear down at least some of the many accessibility barriers that plague people with disabilities every day.
Sadly, for hundreds of thousands of students with disabilities in schools all over Ontario, the news from Queen’s Park is instead rather grim.
Earlier this month, the province used its majority to ram through the legislature its controversial Bill 101, Putting Student Achievement First Act.
That law largely eviscerates the positions of school board trustees.
Education Minister Paul Calandra has given himself the power to micromanage your schools.
For students with disabilities, Bill 101 is not a pretty picture. Yet when this was publicly pointed out to the government, Calandra rejected several amendments to the bill that would have added some safeguards for vulnerable students with disabilities.
Here are some worthwhile amendments that were rejected.
Bill 101 gives the education minister sweeping power to issue new regulations, guidelines, policies and directives. These will impose a maze of new rules on how schools operate. There’s a huge risk that these can create new barriers for students with disabilities.
For example, Calandra intends to order high schools to penalize students through grades if they miss too many classes. He ignored the many reasons why some students with disabilities may be absent from school, including times when the principal refuses to let them come to school.
When this was pointed out to him, Calandra said he’d exempt students with disabilities from the requirement to penalize high school students for absenteeism. Yet, he didn’t consider that this is going to lead to more bullying of students with disabilities.
It looks like he’s making up education policy as he goes along.
How do we try to protect against this?
The opposition proposed sensible amendments at our request that would require the education minister to consult the community — including parents of students with disabilities — before making any new regulations, guidelines, policies or other directions to ensure changes do not create barriers that impede students with disabilities from equally benefiting from school programs.
The province opposed those amendments.
Bill 101 gives Calandra control over local construction of new schools, or additions to existing schools.
Right now, the government has nothing in place to ensure any new buildings are fully accessible to students, parents and school employees with disabilities. Yes, the Ontario Building Code has accessibility requirements, but they are grossly inadequate.
The opposition proposed an amendment to Bill 101 at our request to require that these new buildings and additions to existing buildings be accessible. The provincial government voted no to that as well.
Many individuals and community organizations strongly opposed the bill and yet only one day of public hearings was scheduled.
At those hearings, the few organizations that got to speak each confirmed the province did not consult them when it was developing Bill 101.
Only three organizations were invited to speak from the perspective of parents of students in the school system.
Calandra was given more time to speak than the three organizations giving a parents’ perspective.
I spoke for 15 minutes on behalf of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Alliance.
You can watch a recording of the presentation on YouTube.
No changes were made to address the serious concerns I have. As well, you’ll see in the video that no Tory MPP asked me a single question about our concerns.
I was questioned only by opposition members.
For one-third of a million students with disabilities in Ontario schools, National AccessAbility Week is just another week of schools replete with disability barriers of all kinds.
David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and the Toronto District School Boards Special Education Advisory Committee. He is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western, Queen’s and the University of Ottawa, and hosts a podcast: Disability Rights and Wrongs – The David Lepodcast.
May 31, 2026 Toronto Star
For this non-verbal student, school is a chance to learn basic life skills. His parents fear a new integration plan in Peel could take it all away
The Peel board plans to overhaul its Learning Hub 10 Resource program in high schools, where high-needs students spend the day in a contained class.
Harish and Tanya Shroff with their son Garv at their Mississauga home. They are among a group of parents concerned about changes the Peel District School Board is making to a specialized program for high school students with complex needs, shifting them from contained classrooms into mainstream classes for half the day.
By Isabel TeotonioEducation Reporter
At his Mississauga high school, Garv Shroff is learning life skills that matter deeply to his family: how to wash his hands, use his walker and feed himself with a spoon.
He returns home each day happy and cheerful, something his mother attributes to the support he receives in a specialized program for students with complex developmental, physical and communication needs.
Garv, who is non-verbal and doesn’t know letters from numbers, spends the full day in a self-contained classroom for 10 students, staffed by a special education teacher and four educational assistants (EA). But that is about to change.
The Peel District School Board plans to overhaul its Learning Hub 10 Resource (LH 10R) program in high schools. Next year, students will spend half the day, or two periods, in a contained class, and integrate into mainstream classes for the other two periods, with support from the EAs.
Parents like Tanya Shroff fear the new model will dilute individualized instruction and displace vital life skills lessons, like cooking or doing laundry. They warn that putting vulnerable children into large, overstimulating classrooms could heighten anxiety, trigger behavioural challenges and compromise safety. They also worry that kids, who can’t easily advocate for themselves, may become targets for bullying or social media exploitation by mainstream peers, and could be overlooked in large classes where regular teachers are already juggling significant demands.
Toronto schools in higher-needs communities are losing extra staff. Why parents are fighting to save TDSB’s ‘model schools’
The board says the change reflects its commitment to greater inclusion — an educational model in which students of all abilities learn alongside their peers in regular classrooms with appropriate supports — and is grounded in Ministry of Education policies.
But parents suspect the shift may be tied to budget pressures at the PDSB, which is under provincial supervision over concerns about long-term finances. Without sufficient planning, staffing and individual accommodations, families argue that inclusion can inadvertently become exclusion, leaving high-needs students physically present but unable to learn, participate or feel safe.
“I don’t mind inclusion,” says Shroff, whose 20-year-old son is in the program at Rick Hansen Secondary School, one of the schools running it. “But they’re not at all prepared for it. They are just picking up our kids from the (LH 10R) class and putting them into the integrated class … We have no option.”
Nicola Allison, president of the local union representing Peel’s public high school teachers, believes the change is driven by “cost savings,” calling it “devastating” to the board’s “most vulnerable students.”
“If you take those 10 students and you put them into classes of 25 to 30 mainstream students with one teacher, and then you may have one EA who comes to support two or three students in that class, that is obviously not the same level of support,” says the president of the teachers’ bargaining unit of Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation District 19. She also warns it will be “very difficult” for EAs to manage medical needs while supervising multiple students in a mainstream classroom.
Parents have worries, and a lot of questions
For parents, the anxiety is compounded because many of their questions remain unanswered. For instance, what will the student-to-EA ratio be in mainstream classes, how will standard classrooms accommodate bulky specialized equipment and how will EAs safely transition multiple students between classes, given that some use wheelchairs, walkers and have serious medical issues including seizures? And if one EA is supporting multiple students in a mainstream class, what happens when more than one kid needs help at the same time?
Furthermore, what’s the backup plan when an EA is absent? This is key because a PDSB report last spring said teachers have previously flagged gaps in support staff as a major challenge of integration rollouts. Front-line staff worry students may be asked to stay home on days when EAs are away.
In a recent letter to senior PDSB staff, on behalf of several concerned parents at the school, Shroff says families fear the proposed model can’t realistically meet students’ needs.
“True inclusion requires students to be appropriately supported, able to participate meaningfully, emotionally regulated, safe and capable of accessing learning in a way that reflects their individual abilities and needs,” according to the letter.
The PDSB did not respond to the Star’s questions about changes to the program, which for students is up to the age of 21.
However, in response to the parents’ letter, Claudine Scuccato, co-ordinating superintendent of special education at the PDSB, says the board is “deeply committed” to ensuring students with special education needs access “safe, inclusive and high-quality learning environments.”
Scuccato says student safety is a top priority, that four EAs will continue to support the program, and local schools will develop staffing and supervision plans to ensure enough support throughout the day. She notes that the PDSB will support the new model through staff training, access to central resources and expertise, and a focus on student well-being and success. And decisions about each child’s placement will continue to be made individually, based on their strengths and needs.
That response offered little comfort to parents Sam and Mandy Malawi, who describe it as a “word salad.”
“We have a genuine concern for the safety, the dignity and integrity of the students,” Sam tells the Star.
The couple’s son Jordan is in the program at Rick Hansen and is “thriving.” He’s surrounded by staff with whom he has a strong rapport and who understand his needs, and is in a contained classroom that provides structure, emotional regulation and key life skills training, such as using public transit. For next year, families are being asked to choose mainstream classes for their kids to integrate in, such as drama, physical education, science and Canadian geography.
The Malawis say there’s a mismatch between what’s being offered and what their son needs, noting Jordan can’t absorb concepts like geography and needs information to be stated clearly and repetitively, which isn’t in line with mainstream teaching styles.
According to the union president, the board expects mainstream teachers to absorb high-needs students, but cutting the specialized teachers’ classroom hours means there’s no one available to modify the curriculum to ensure it meets students’ individual education plans. And while EAs will be in the room, that’s mostly to help with social skills, behavioural issues and physical care, not to rewrite lesson plans.
“For any student … if their needs are not met and they can’t engage with the curriculum there’s going to be frustration,” says Allison. That leads to “an increase in behaviours, and that is going to be detrimental” to everyone’s learning.
The Malawis say Jordan is an emotional 19-year-old prone to meltdowns and can be triggered by a perceived rejection — for example, if someone doesn’t smile at him.
“My biggest fear,” says Mandy, “is that our son regresses and does not want to go to school anymore.”
Isabel Teotonio is a Toronto-based reporter covering education for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @Izzy74.