OCDSB delays elementary program changes by a year

Ottawa’s largest school board will take a year longer to implement potential sweeping changes to elementary programs.

Possible changes on the table for 50,000-plus students at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board could include integrating children with special needs into mainstream classrooms and changing the way French immersion is delivered.

After months of consultations, parents, staff and school communities were expecting a list of recommendations or options when a report was released by the board on Friday.

Instead, the report said “it has become clear that an opportunity for additional consultation, such as with advisory committees, as well as Ministry representatives, during the fall of 2024, will further inform thinking regarding the program review process.”

According to the original schedule, public meetings would be held in October, with decisions to come in November and implementation in the fall of 2025.

The consultation process has now been extended through the winter and spring of 2025, with decisions to be made by trustees next spring and changes implemented in the fall of 2026.

The report notes there are a lot of factors under consideration, including regulatory requirements and guidelines, program-based school attendance boundaries, scheduling and staffing implications, child care services, resource allocation, transportation, as well as capacity building and professional development for educators.

For parents who had expected the report to lay out changes, the extended consultation process means more time to advocate — but also more anxiety about if and when the axe will fall, said Kate Dudley Logue, the mother of two children on the autism spectrum and a vice-president with the Ontario Autism Coalition. 

“It’s not a relief at all. It’s delaying the inevitable,” she said.

When framing the review last spring, school board officials said the current elementary program model was formulated during a time when program choice was prioritized and often focused on the needs of the highest-achieving students while leaving other students underserved.

According to OCDSB figures, elementary schools may have 900-plus students or fewer than 200. Schools with low enrolment are often those that don’t offer French immersion. That is causing inequities between schools and students and early French immersion was “streaming” students at a young age and placing them on pathways they can’t overcome without a lot of work, director of education Pino Buffone told trustees last April.

Meanwhile, some parents of children with learning disabilities and complex needs have said they fear the changes will mean the end of self-contained specialized program classes geared to their children and have opposed full integration, arguing that their children would not get the support they needed, and unregulated behaviours wouldbe disruptive for other students. Last year, there were 1,231 students enrolled in specialized program classes.

The report released on Friday said research supports full integration.

“Despite the prevalent notion that congregating students with disabilities into small, resource and intervention-rich environments is effective, there is a dearth of empirical research to support that students fare better academically within a special education model of education,” said the report.

Meanwhile, there have been questions raised in other jurisdictions where inclusive classrooms have been mandated. Last May in New Brunswick, the provincial child and youth advocate Kelly Lamrock presented a report that was critical of the effects of integrated classrooms. 

School districts are increasingly putting hundreds of students with disabilities or behavioural challenges on a partial-day plan, said Lamrock. Students were not being educated for large portions of the week and time away from school could vary from months to years, he said.

“There were no additional services, no change in techniques,” said Lamrock in May. “To this day, districts do not track the impact of partial days on the children or whether or not children placed on partial days succeed or just disappear. It is a policy of giving up on the children most in need.”

This is exactly the scenario that parents of children with autism and complex needs fear will happen in Ottawa, said Logue.