Letting specialized schools languish, Ontario is 'creating a pathway for ODSP,' says parent
CBC
Parents and students who attend Ontario's only school for the blind say the Ministry of Education is letting its specialized schools languish, hurting students with disabilities.
W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind, in Brantford, Ont., is one of seven schools that fall under the Ministry of Education's Provincial and Demonstration Schools Branch. The school has been in operation since 1872 and is in need of repairs, said Stephanie Antone, chair of the school's parent council.
"At Macdonald, we've had a rink that's been out of service for, I want to say, more than four years, but only now there's a plan to fix the rink. We've had a heating problem at the school this last year, but that's not a new problem to the school. The boilers have been failing for years," said Antone.
"So why hasn't the Ministry of Education ... fixed it? Why? Why has it gotten to the point that it is? Some of these problems that exist — not just at W. Ross Macdonald, but at the schools for the deaf — have have been present prior to COVID," said Antone.
The Ontario government has the money to fix the schools, said David Sykes, the district officer for district 30 of the OSSTF, but it's not being spent.
A Freedom of Information request, filed by the union and viewed by CBC News, show budgets for the blind and deaf schools (four of the seven schools under the Provincial and Demonstration Schools Branch) increased as follows:
The document breaks down how the money will be spent in broad categories like school program admin, and resource services internal. Sykes has questions about if the money is being spent at all — pointing to infrastructure, like pools.
"We know that money has not been doled out because our pool has not been working at three sites for several years," said Sykes. "We believe that they are sitting on quite a lot of money."
That includes the pool at W. Ross Macdonald, confirms Antone. And while school pools may seem like a luxury, it's where students learn essential skills they can't get anywhere else, said Sykes.
"When you talk about a pool that's designated for deaf students to use, that's a place they can go and have an ASL-using lifeguard. You can't get that at a community pool," said Sykes. "It's really where deaf kids and blind and low-vision kids learn water safety. How important is that?"
W. Ross Macdonald provides programs for students from Kindergarten through to Grade 12 who are blind, low vision and deafblind. One of its famous graduates is the late Canadian musician Jeff Healey.
For Antone and her daughter, the Brantford school provides an inclusive education for people with disabilities. Antone feels the Ministry of Education needs to start investing in them again.
"There's no justification for why their schools are in the state they're in and that they are not taking the concerns of parents and staff seriously," said Antone.
"You are creating a pathway for ODSP. How fair is it that a child with a disability is not given the same resources, and is not treated as important as a student without a disability?"
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.
The toxic drug crisis has taken more than 47,000 lives in Canada since 2016 and the synthetic opioid fentanyl has become a household name. But now, what's believed to be an even more potent class of synthetic drugs is showing up in drug busts across the country: nitazenes.
The Liberal government and the NDP have agreed to introduce a two-month GST vacation on certain items before the holiday season, Radio-Canada has learned.
Veterinarians are warning Londoners to make sure their dogs are vaccinated and keeping clean after a deadly virus outbreak was declared in London this week.
Registered nurses rallied in St. John's Wednesday as part of a week-long convention, again calling on the Newfoundland and Labrador government to create permanent solutions to staff shortages and workplace violence.
New poll results released by Narrative Research suggest the Progressive Conservatives are heading into Tuesday's provincial election with a commanding lead over their political rivals.
A measles outbreak in New Brunswick is set to push Canada's annual case count to the highest it's been in five years, highlighting how infectious the disease is and how low vaccination rates have allowed it to take hold, says an immunologist.