Special needs students in Sault Ste. Marie – and around the province – are failing to have their needs met due to a lack of vital supports and resources in classrooms, said an Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario official.
In a report released earlier this month, ETFO found some special education issues identified over two decades ago have not only gone unaddressed, but have grown worse over the years.
Among those issues, chronic underfunding and dwindling special education supports and resources are among the numerous issues that have led to school boards “failing” students with special education needs, said a local ETFO official.
“Every student, every child, deserves the opportunity to succeed, but without proper funding we're setting them up for failure,” said Shelly Predum, president of the Algoma ETFO.
“The Ford government has demonstrated time and time again that they are not committed to providing the necessary resources for students to excel.”
Due to underfunding, around $1,500 per student in Ontario – which equates to over $15 million in Algoma District School Board classrooms – has been “lost” since the Ford government took office, which could have been “used to support not just special education students, but also other students in the classrooms,” Predum said.
“It's across the province, what you see in Algoma is what you're going to see in other boards across the province, where the Ontario special education system is in this crisis, and it's due to the chronic underfunding,” she said.
“Schools lack the resources to support those students with exceptionality, early intervention is insufficient, and families face long wait times for assessment.”
For children with special education needs, underfunding means they don't have enough supports in place.
“We don't have enough staff, especially educational assistants,” Predum said.
“Some of these students need one-on-one support, and if you're in a classroom where you have 25 students you may not be able to give that student what they need.”
Beyond underfunding in schools, issues with the health-care system can also spill over into classrooms, as well, when students with special education needs have to navigate an overburdened medical system to get the assessments they need.
Predum described how tough it can be to find help for students with special needs.
“Sometimes they need occupational therapists, psychologists, counsellors, and it's having a family doctor to make those referrals or to do those initial assessments, and then finding somebody who can do it, and then there's a wait list because there's so many people that need assessments, and it's the same for health care.
"It comes down to the lack of funding,” she said.
Sault Ste. Marie has over 12,000 residents currently without a family physician – including 24 vacant physician positions, six of which are family doctors – according to the Ontario Medical Association.
As issues compound in the classroom due to a lack of resources, Predum said violence is on the rise.
Last year, there were 1,844 workplace violence incidents at the Algoma District School Board, a significant jump from the 1,271 incidents the year before.
“There's been quite an increase, and part of that is people are reporting more.
"But also you are seeing an increase in violence in the schools, and once again that is connected to the lack of funding from the Ford government. They have not kept up with inflation,” she said.
“When students act out, they're telling us they require more support, more guidance and more resources to succeed, but this government is failing to address those calls from our students.”
Supports that are in place, like educational assistants, are “taking the brunt of the violence,” Pedum said.
“That's not to say that teachers aren't experiencing it either, because they are,” she said.
“Last year I got calls from several kindergarten teachers where they were experiencing violence, and all they wanted to do was to find a way to help that student.”
In ETFO’s report, titled Promises Unfulfilled: Addressing the Special Education Crisis in Ontario, over two dozen solutions are proposed to tackle the special education crisis in Ontario.
“They made 27 recommendations, including increased sustainable funding for special education, more early reading and intervention support.
"Smaller class sizes would make a difference, because then teachers can meet with students for longer and more frequently,” Predum said.
The full report may be found here.