School Principals’ Arbitrary Power to Exclude Students From School is the Focus of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky‘s June Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications Across Ontario

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

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

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

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School Principals’ Arbitrary Power to Exclude Students From School is the Focus of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky‘s June Column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland Publications Across Ontario

June 19, 2025

SUMMARY

In his Monthly column in the Toronto Star’s Metroland publications across Ontario for June, AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky brings you up to date on an issue that has festered unfairly in Ontario for years. This is the sweeping and arbitrary power of every school principal to refuse to admit people to school, which has been unfairly used against some students with disabilities. Read that column below.

As the article explains, this violates the right of every child to go to school. The outdated section 265(1)(m) of Ontario’s Education Act provides:

“265. (1) It is the duty of a principal of a school, in addition to the principal’s duties as a teacher,…

… (m) subject to an appeal to the board, to refuse to admit to the school or classroom a person whose presence in the school or classroom would in the principal’s judgment be detrimental to the physical or mental well-being of the pupils; …”

This is sometimes called the power to exclude a student from school and at other times is called the power to refuse to admit a student to school. We have advocated for over half a decade along with other disability advocates that this power desperately needs to be substantially reined in.

A ground-breaking report by the non-partisan AODA Alliance, which was publicly released on July 23, 2020,, revealed that for much of Ontario, each school principal is a law unto themselves. They are each armed with a sweeping, arbitrary power to refuse to allow a student to come to school. The AODA Alliance’s 2020 report documented wildly varying and arbitrary differences from school board to school board. Many school boards have no policy on how and when this arbitrary power is to be used. Some school board policies have commendable and helpful ingredients that all boards should have. Some board policies contain unfair and inappropriate components that should be forbidden. Every student facing the trauma of an exclusion from school deserves full and equally fair procedures and safeguards.

Back in January 2019, the AODA Alliance and the Ontario Autism Coalition held a joint news conference at Queen’s park on this abusive power. You can watch a video of that news conference online.

As this column explains, on January 28, 2022, the Ford Government received the final report and recommendations of the Government-appointed K-12 Education Standards Development Committee. It included detailed recommendations that would rein in the power of school principal to exclude students from school. The Ford Government must implement these recommendations now. In the absence of provincial action, each school board should adopt these recommendations and require their school principals to implement them. We set out those recommendations below.

How You Can Help

Send this Metroland column to your member of the Ontario Legislature. Tell them that the Ontario Government must substantially rein in this power.

Send this column as well to your local school board trustee. Tell them that their board must establish a policy on when principals can refuse to admit a student to school that accords with the recommendations of the Government-appointed K-12 Standards Development Committee’s 2022 recommendations, set out below.

Share this report with parents of students with disabilities whom you know. Invite them to sign up for AODA Alliance Updates on the home page of the AODA Alliance website so they can join in our advocacy on this issue.

MORE DETAILS

Inside Ottawa June 18, 2025

Originally posted at https://www.insideottawavalley.com/opinion/columnists/students-with-disabilities-could-miss-more-class-than-expected-thanks-to-unfair-disability-barrier-in/article_15955e14-32d4-5f47-8842-806d8002fee9.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a06&utm_source=ml_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=c7a7d6416b3c4afdbb3abdf940a7aa17&utm_campaign=ovha_39763&utm_term=latest

Opinion

Students with disabilities could miss more class than expected, thanks to unfair disability barrier in Ontario’s schools

There’s a shocking lack of due process when principals use power under the Education Act that prevents a student with disabilities from attending school, advocate writes.

By David Lepofsky

David Lepofsky is chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance.

Metroland file photo

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Every child has the right to go to school. Yet for Ontario’s vulnerable students with disabilities, it is not so simple or clear.

In law, all Ontario students, including all those with disabilities, have the right to go to a publicly-funded school to get an education. However, Ontario has an ugly loophole that school principals too often use that results in some students with disabilities being out of school.

The Education Act gives principals a drastic, sweeping power and duty to refuse to admit a person to school “whose presence in the school or classroom would, in the principal’s judgment, be detrimental to the physical or mental well-being of the pupils …”

Report after report has documented that principals use this power to force parents to keep some students with disabilities at home.

This can go on for days, weeks or months. There’s a shocking lack of due process. Parents may not even be given a reason for barring their child from school. That flies in the face of the duty of fairness which has been enshrined in Canadian law for decades.

Too often, the exclusion of a child with disabilities from school is a result of the school’s failure to properly accommodate that student’s disability at school.

Studies have documented that some principals have told a family, for example, to keep their child with a disability home because their education assistant is away, sick.

Didn’t anyone tell those school boards that this violates their duty to accommodate students with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights? Could you imagine a principal sending an entire regular class home because their teacher is sick? Have these school boards not heard about supply teachers and staff?

Ontario’s Ministry of Education gives school boards and principals precious little, if any, direction limiting how this sweeping power may be used. More than 70 school boards are free to do as much or as little as they wish to ensure that no one abuses this power.

In this area, every principal is a law unto themselves. I doubt they want this. In 2020, we surveyed Ontario’s school boards about their policies. We discovered that some boards have policies which wildly vary, while other boards had no policy at all.

Don’t confuse this with the principal’s very different and carefully-regulated power to discipline students who misbehave by suspending or expelling them. The Ministry of Education properly gives school boards tons of directions limiting how that discipline power can and cannot be used.

More than three years ago, the Ford government received an expert report documenting how to fix barriers in schools that hurt students with disabilities. Its practical recommendations would fix this sweeping power that is so prone to abuse. I served on the provincially-appointed panel that wrote that report. Premier Ford has enacted none of our recommendations.

Ontario’s biggest school board, the Toronto District School Board, took some good steps, but wrongly refused to adopt modest reforms that its Special Education Advisory Committee (which I chair) recommended.

We feared that among the board’s 40,000 students with disabilities, some parents don’t know that every child has the fundamental right to be in school.

We recommended that the board send all parents a plain language statement that all students have the right to go to school and to give them a number to call if their child is being excluded.

TDSB staff refused. They leave parents to wade through the TDSB’s jargon-overloaded website to find out what they are entitled to expect, and to call the very principal who excluded their child, and that principal’s supervising superintendent. Yet that alone has not worked sufficiently.

Imagine a parent who fled to Canada from a tyrannical dictatorship, who fears even questioning any public official. A simple, clear statement by TDSB and a phone number to call would be a lifeline.

After school resumes this fall, too many parents of students with disabilities will again be plagued by the fear that on any day and at any time, their principal may again call and tell them to take their child home from school. It’s time for Ontario’s education minister to protect students with disabilities and their families from this arbitrary unfairness.

David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer who chairs the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance and is a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western, Queen’s and the University of Ottawa.

Excerpt from K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s January 28, 2022 Final Report

Exclusions/refusals to admit to school/reduced school hours recommendations

Originally posted at https://www.aodaalliance.org/whats-new/download-in-an-accessible-ms-word-format-the-final-report-of-the-k-12-education-standards-development-committee-on-what-the-promised-education-accessibility-standardshould-include/

Barrier: parents/caregivers have concerns with the use of the principal’s power to exclude students from school. (Also called refusal to admit to school) Section 265(1)(m) of the Education Act requires principals to:

“Subject to an appeal to the board, to refuse to admit to the school or classroom a person whose presence in the school or classroom would in the principal’s judgment be detrimental to the physical or mental well being of the pupils.”

Concerns are expressed that a significant proportion of those excluded from school are students with disabilities. The Ministry of Education does not track data on exclusions and does not require school boards to track data on them, in contrast to suspensions and expulsions.

Parents/caregivers identified a lack of due process, such as:

not being told the reason for the refusal to admit or how to challenge it
no limit on how long the refusal to admit can continue
the absence of a plan for the student’s return to school
no assured provision of alternative education program while the student is excluded
no consistent and fair process to appeal the refusal to admit

There are many stories from parents/caregivers about formal and informal arrangements for a student with disabilities to attend for less than the full school day or school week without the parents’/caregivers’ voluntary consent. The school board places the student on a “modified school day.” There are no consistent practices for when or how this can occur, the documentation to be kept, or plans for return to full time school.

Concerns have been raised that in some situations, a student with disabilities is excluded from school directly or indirectly because the school has not effectively accommodated that student, as is required by the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights.

A survey of Ontario school boards showed that a majority of boards have no policy on how and when a principal may refuse to admit a student. Of the 33 boards for which a policy was obtained, these policies vary substantially. A student, excluded from school, and their parents/caregivers are treated very differently from one board to the next. Students and parents/caregivers across Ontario deserve the same safeguards. Principals are placed in a difficult position, not knowing what they can and should do.

These recommendations seek to reduce or eliminate the number and duration of exclusion of students with disabilities. References to “refusal to admit” includes formal and informal exclusions, and exclusions from school for all or part of the school day. These measures should be set out in the K-12 Education Accessibility Standards.

Our recommendations regarding Refusal to Admit are:

The K-12 Education Accessibility Standards should require the following of any school board and of the Ministry of Education where it operates schools:

69.1 exclusions/refusals to admit should only be imposed in rare cases when it is demonstrably necessary to protect the health and safety of students or others at school, and only after all relevant accommodations for the student up to the point of undue hardship have been explored or attempted.

69.2 refusal to admit of a student shall not last more than five consecutive school days, unless formally extended following the due process requirements required for an initial refusal to admit.

69.3 refusal to admit a student to school cannot be used, in whole or in part, for purposes of discipline of a student, or as a form of discipline of that student. A student shall not be subjected to a refusal to admit to school for purposes of facilitating a police investigation.

69.4 when considering whether to refuse to admit a student to school, the principal and school board should take into account the fact that excluding a student from school is contrary to the student’s right to an education. The principal and school board should also proceed from the starting point that the rights of students with disabilities under the Ontario Human Rights Code, including their right to accommodation of their disability-related needs up to the point of undue hardship, take primacy over all other Ontario laws and policies.

69.5 the principal must make a family aware of the possibility of exclusion as early as that option realistically presents itself as being under consideration. The school board shall have a mandatory meeting with the family before a refusal to admit is imposed, or if crisis circumstances arise without any warning, as soon after the refusal to admit as possible (a pre-exclusion meeting). The meeting should advise the student and/or family of the school’s intention to exclude the child, the reasons for the exclusion and underlying events, the process for the family to contest the exclusion, the demonstrated outcomes for which the school board shall be looking, and an explanation that a subsequent meeting day will be set within a reasonable timeframe where the principal and parent/caregiver(s) will review progress and discuss a re-entry plan for the student.

69.6 parents and caregivers who themselves have a disability shall be notified that they have a right to have their disability-related needs accommodated where needed to take part in any meetings, appeals or other procedures regarding an actual or contemplated refusal to admit. For example, they should be notified that they have a right to receive any information or documents to be used in any such meeting or process in an accessible format.

69.7 any student excluded from attending school shall be provided an equivalent and sufficient educational program while away from school. a written plan for the student’s education should be required, prepared immediately, and shared with the family.

69.8 a mandatory fair procedure should be established that the school board must follow when refusing to admit a student. These procedures should ensure accountability of the school board and its employees, including:

a student and their families should have all the procedural protections that are required when a school board is going to impose discipline such as a suspension or expulsion.
the prior review and written approval of the superintendent should be required before a refusal to admit is imposed. If it is an emergency, then the superintendent should be required to review and approve this decision as quickly afterwards as possible, or else the refusal to admit should be terminated.
superintendent should independently assess whether the school board has sufficient grounds to refuse to admit the student and has met all the requirements of the school board’s refusal to admit policy (including ensuring alternative education programming is in place for the student).
the principal should be required to immediately notify the student and his or her family in writing, co-signed by the superintendent, of the refusal to admit, the reasons for it, and the duration. The letter should be in plain language, translated if necessary, and include:
1. what a refusal to admit is and the duration
2. the permissible reasons

the school board’s process for reviewing that decision, and

the student/family’s right to appeal (including how to use that right of appeal)
steps that the school board has taken or will be taking to provide an alternative education and to expedite a student’s return to school
the expected timeline for the completion of these steps

a refusal to admit a student to school should not be extended for an accumulated total of more than 15 days (within a surrounding 30-day period) without the independent review and written approval of the director of the, school board or their designate.
an extension of refusal to admit must first consider excluding the student from a single class, and then the option of excluding the student from that entire school, and only as a last resort, excluding the student from all schools at that school board.
the refusal to admit shall be documented, and the record shall include information on:
1. the reason for the refusal to admit
2. the duration of the refusal to admit and any extensions

the plan to provide an educational program to the student for the duration of the refusal to admit

the plan for the student to return to full time school attendance

while the student is excluded, the school board should undertake ongoing efforts to facilitate the student’s return to school as quickly as possible. The return to school plan shall include meetings with the family and student to plan for the return and review the additional supports that may be needed.

69.9 to ensure that appeals to the school board under section 265(1)(m) of the Education Act from a refusal to admit a student to school are prompt and fair, the following should be required:

a student excluded from school or their parent/caregiver should be permitted to launch an appeal from a refusal to admit at any time that the refusal to admit continues. no time limit for filing an appeal should be imposed.
no school board shall set an arbitrary length of time that an appeal hearing can take. The appeal hearing should take as long as needed for a fair hearing. The excluded student or their family should not have an arbitrary prior time limit imposed on their oral presentation of their appeal. They should be allowed the time they need to present their appeal. They shall be permitted to present relevant evidence to support their appeal if they wish.
at an appeal, the school staff should present their reasons first on why the exclusion is justified and should continue. The student or their family shall then be given a chance to present their case on why the student should not have been excluded and why they should be allowed to return to school.
an appeal should be held quickly to minimize the time the student is away from school. The board of trustees shall hear and/or determine the appeal within fifteen business days of receiving the notice of intention to appeal (unless the parties agree to an extension).
once an appeal is launched, the school board shall prepare for the student, their parents/caregivers, and the trustees, a report on the reasons for the refusal to admit, the factual background, and the efforts to return the student to school since the exclusion began. The board staff shall arrange a meeting (pre-appeal meeting) with the student and their family to try to resolve the case or narrow the issues, explain the process, disclose any information the student and their family need, and canvass and address any other matter that might help ensure a smooth and timely appeal.
the appeal should be heard in closed session by the entire board of trustees, not a subcommittee (unless the board can show it has legal authority to delegate this decision to a subcommittee). Any trustee that votes on a decision in an appeal must have been present for the entire argument of the appeal.
a board of trustees, hearing an appeal from a refusal to admit, should consider whether the school board has justified the student’s initial exclusion from school and its continuation. The burden should be on the school board to justify the exclusion from school.
If the student is not successful on the appeal, they should have a further avenue to appeal to court, with mediation available, or to an expert tribunal established and designated to hear such cases.

69.10 the school board shall create an emergency process and fund for accelerating education disability accommodations needed to facilitate a student’s remaining at or promptly returning to school, in connection with an actual or contemplated refusal to admit.

69.11 information and data on refusals to admit shall be collected and aggregated data reported publicly by school boards and by the Ministry of Education.

69.12 the Ministry of Education should develop a central repository/mechanism for sharing effective practices of alternatives to exclusion/refusal to admits and modified days in order to support school board efforts to reduce the number and duration of refusal to admits and modified days.

Timeline: one year for boards; six months for the Ministry of Education