Community Living Ontario (CLO) is reporting that students with disabilities are being excluded, secluded, and restrained at school.
Calling it a crisis in the classroom that needs addressing, the group that advocates on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities and their families, said children with disabilities are isolated, held down, and sent home from class.
Information from 541 caregivers of students with disabilities included in a new CLO report showed the following:
29 per cent had been isolated while in school often behind locked or blocked doors.
14 per cent had been restrained while in school, including being held down on the ground, held while standing, and held while being forced to walk.
31per cent had been sent home or instructed to stay home because the school was unable to meet their needs.
"Schools should be a place of inclusion, belonging, and safety,” said Director of Social Policy and Strategic Initiatives at Community Living Ontario Shawn Pegg. “It is incomprehensible that students with disabilities, some as young as five and six years old, are being physically restrained and separated from their peers. The fact that this is happening across the province shows an urgent need for action from the Premier and Minister of Education."
CLO noted this disturbing situation has been happening in schools for years, adding that nearly half of students who were isolated experienced this treatment more than 10 times.
The association also said in more than a quarter of all cases, caregivers first learn of the isolation from their child and not from school staff.
"All children and youth have the right to be in school and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Ontario Parents for Education Support Founder Elizabeth Garkowski. “The fact that students are being forced to stay home because schools can’t meet their needs is unacceptable and shows a clear need for increased support in our classrooms."
CLO is calling on the Ontario Ministry of Education to make changes that will make schools safe and healthy places for students with disabilities, adding that urgent action is necessary to ensure that students with disabilities are protected, supported, and fully included in schools and communities.
The advocacy group wants the Government of Ontario to do the following:
Increase access to appropriate and adequate staffing and other supports for students.
Increase access to trauma-informed training for educational staff and administrators.
Implement clear provincial regulation and policy re: exclusion and partial-day attendance.
Implement clear provincial regulation and policy re: seclusion and restraint.
Require schools, school boards, and the Ministry of Education to track and report on the use of seclusion, restraint, exclusion, and partial-day attendance.
"Too often, school staff do not know how to respond to their needs in a positive and safe way. There is little or no provincial guidance on the serious issues of seclusion, restraint, and school exclusion, and no provincial data that would allow us to know if these issues are getting better or worse," the report said. "School boards have been forced to create their own policies and principals are implementing those policies in different ways."
The Ontario New Democrats (NDP) call the report "devastating” and join calls to implement expert recommendations to support students with disabilities in Ontario classrooms.
“This is absolutely devastating. Our children deserve so much better. No parent should have to pick up their kid from school with horror stories like these. We are failing these kids and their families," said NDP Shadow Minister with responsibility for the Ontario Autism Program Alexa Gilmour. “Our schools need more caring adults to support students with disabilities and special needs. The crisis we are seeing did not happen overnight. Years of cuts and neglect from this government brought us here. Things need to change, desperately.”
Click here to read the full CLO report.