Disappointment and frustration as parents of medically fragile children say they’re unable to safely send their kids to school due to a lack of both support staff and funding.
One parent tells CityNews this year, with the Toronto District School Board now under the Ford government’s supervision, has been particularly awful.
Almost two weeks into the school year, Charlotte Schwartz’s 14-year-old son, Isiah, still doesn’t have a permanent bus route. Isiah has a rare disease that caused brain damage when he was an infant, resulting in developmental delays.
“Before, I could just blame the board, but now the province has so graciously stepped in to manage everything and look at the job that they’ve done with it so far. That feels like a joke,” says Schwartz. “You wouldn’t send your three or four-year-old to school on their own, it would be a safety issue.”
On top of the safety concerns, Schwartz says routine and consistency are critical to Isiah’s success
“The day starts badly when it doesn’t start with the bus,” she says. “So he’s now struggling at school because the routine isn’t there.”
Like so many other families with vulnerable children, Schwartz used to turn to her trustee for help. Until this year, when the Ford government stripped them of their powers at the TDSB and four other school boards.
“The trustees have always been my best first line of defence,” said Schwartz.
A survey conducted by the Ontario Autism Coalition found more than 100,000 families with vulnerable children contacted trustees for advocacy last year alone. The same survey also found that 20,000 children couldn’t attend school at all because of a lack of special education supports.
“The government is more focused on removing trustees and building new schools, but they weren’t focused on the bones of the system.”
Amy McQuaid’s five-year-old son Charlie, is one of those children being denied an education.
“Today is day eight of Charlie not being able to attend school,” McQuaid tells CityNews. “We’re afraid for Charlie’s safety. He cannot attend school without one-to-one support.”
Charlie goes to school in Brighton, two hours east of Toronto. He has uncontrolled epilepsy and has seizures three to five times a day. But on the first day of school this year, McQuaid was told there was no support staff available for him.
“So it’s scary, right? Because he needs someone that can be there that knows him, that’s trained with him, that can see and intervene when necessary,” explains McQuaid.
“I think at the end of the day, people need to realize that the government has starved the system for so long that we’re all begging for scraps at this point and expecting it to be normal. And I’m not going to beg for scraps for my child when it comes to his safety.”
CityNews reached out to the Education Minister’s office for comment but has yet to receive a response.
