The union representing Ontario’s elementary school teachers is sounding the alarm on the state of special education in the province.
“The right to an education that enables every child to reach their full potential is not just a promise, it is the law, but this government has failed to uphold the law, systemically failing students, educators, education workers and families,” Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) President Karen Brown said at a news conference Tuesday.
The union released a 124-page report Tuesday outlining what they call a “crisis” in special education in Ontario.
Special education services are provided to students who have a range of special learning needs, from learning disabilities such as dyslexia, to autism, to physical disabilities and more.
Each school board has an Identification, Placement and Review Committee (IPRC) responsible for determining whether a student should be identified as exceptional and deciding what sort of learning accommodations they should receive.
Psychological testing also helps determine a student’s needs.
But critics say there is a large backlog for testing, with thousands of students awaiting an assessment and some turning to private practitioners. Even once they are assessed, some parents say, accessing proper supports for a child can be a struggle.
‘Feeding us breadcrumbs’
“A diagnosis does matter,” said Joanna Conrad, the mother of a 10-year-old daughter who has Down syndrome. “It is the key to accessing the right support, whether for speech and language, reading, writing or math. It allows educators to understand a child’s needs and provide the interventions necessary for success. Yet we are moving in the wrong direction.”
Conrad said she received a “crash course” in advocacy when her daughter started school and had to access proper learning resources.
“I learned the hard truth. The system wasn’t built for her. Navigating it required strategy, persistence and a fight I wasn’t prepared for, but one I couldn’t walk away from,” Conrad said. “There was a moment when I realized just how little value was placed on my daughter’s education, and she’s not alone.”
The ETFO report outlines a lack of early interventions to address learning problems, barriers to accessing programs, shrinking funding and increased school violence because of unmet student needs.
“The ministry is spending time feeding us breadcrumbs in education and then telling us it’s dinner,” said Jennifer Pinder, a special education resource teacher at the Waterloo Region District School Board. “It’s performative nonsense.”
She said she has had to evacuate classrooms due to “physical or emotional violence” and said “everyone in a school building is currently experiencing the effects of the severity and the normalization of violence and high, high levels of stress.”
She pointed out that the lack of special education funding in classrooms affects other students as well.
Conrad echoed that idea and said special education is an investment to make sure that all students are better off, both in the classroom and beyond.
“We can choose to invest in students now, or we can pay the price later, when the same students, unsupported and unprepared, become adults left behind by society,” she said.
Per-student funding not adequate
The report outlines 27 recommendations for improving the state of special education in the province. In particular, it recommends indexing special education funding to inflation, changing the model that is used to allocate funding, and addressing the assessment backlog.
“The special education funding, what it provides in real, concrete terms, is anything between an hour and two-and-a-half hours of dedicated support to a student with special education needs,” said Ricardo Tranjan, one of the authors of the report. “One to two-and-a-half hours in a school week of 25 hours. That’s less than 10 per cent, and that’s the best case scenario.”
Tranjan said he doesn’t have any estimates for what it would cost to adequately fund special education in Ontario. He said that’s because the current funding model -- which works based on estimated needs rather than assessed needs – doesn’t provide an accurate picture of what the actual needs are “on the ground.”
Asked about the report at Queen’s Park Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford did not specifically address special education, but broadly said his government has increased education funding.
“When it comes to education, we went from $30 billion up to $40 billion,” Ford said. “When the previous government was closing 600 schools, we’re building $16 billion of schools. We’re going to continue funding education. We have 9,000 more educators today than we did back when we took office. So education plays such a critical role, but the foundation of that – education and health care – is our economy.”
The Ministry of Education did not specifically respond to a request about how many students are currently awaiting an assessment.
However in a statement, Education Minister Jill Dunlop said special education funding has increased over the past seven years.
“Since coming into government, we have improved funding for special education supports every single year – and by the end of 2025 - funding is projected to total almost $4 Billion, the highest amount of special education funding ever provided and a 31% increase from the previous Liberal government,” Dunlop said.
She said the government has hired 9,000 education workers, including 3,500 education assistants.
“We will continue to work with parents and educators to meet the changing needs of our classrooms, but it is absolutely critical that school boards ensure all funds they are provided by our government, including for special education, go straight to meeting the learning needs of all our students.”
In a statement to CP24.com, Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) President Kathleen Woodcock said that while the government has increased overall funding for education, those funding increases have not kept pace with inflation, “let alone the increasingly complex special education needs of our students.”
Woodcock said the OPSBA has previously made recommendations for “key investments” in special education around staffing, improve accessibility for families, and professional development for educators and support staff.
“Ontario’s public school boards are dedicated to providing inclusive and supportive learning environments for all students,” Woodcock said. “However, the funding allocated for Special Education is not keeping pace with the growing and increasingly complex needs of students across the province.”
