The Trillium obtained the province's data on school exclusions, but advocates say it's woefully incomplete
Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
They found that 78 children had missed 558.5 hours of school in Ontario — equivalent to 92 days — over two weeks. Ilinca Stefan, a staff lawyer at the ARCH Disability Law Centre, said the lack of publicly available data on exclusions allows boards to use the exclusions with impunity. Advocates say this is why they are used for students with special needs, who cannot be disciplined for behaviour that results from their disability or a failure to accommodate it. "Students are excluded for one reason only: safety," said a spokesperson for the Near North District School Board.
But advocates also say students most often experience “soft” or informal exclusions, that are not documented. A typical example is a principal will call home to say that there’s insufficient staff, often due to a shortage of educational assistants, and ask for the student to stay home for the day. Kate Dudley-Logue, a vice president of the Ontario Autism Coalition, said these kinds of exclusions happen so frequently it’s impossible for some parents to hold onto their jobs.
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, where LeGault's son attends, also said soft and exclusions due to staffing shortages do not occur, even as LeGault said his son experienced both. A spokesperson for the board would not comment on individual cases.
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