Safe schools law leads to excessive suspension, expulsion of special needs kids

"We are down to the last strands at the end of our rope."

So writes a father to provincial politicians about his 13-year-old daughter, a student with a severe developmental disability. The girl had been making progress in a specialized class in her school, but last spring she started having setbacks with her behaviour. Meetings were called, program changes promised.

School starts up again in the fall. But the father's request to meet with officials to ensure everything is there to prevent the behaviour problem from recurring, is not met. Suddenly, nearly a month ago, his daughter is suspended from school. She can't come back, the principal says, until a new program for her is in place. The dad makes a stink. A meeting is held and his child is allowed back, for half days and with the threat that if it doesn't work out, she's out of school again.

The dad's letter is coincidentally dated the same day as Ontario's education ministry holds a press conference to release statistics on the number of suspensions and expulsions handed out under the Safe Schools Act.

Among other problems, the stats show students with "exceptionalities" like the girl above are being disproportionately suspended and expelled from school.

Special needs students make up 18% of all suspended students and 20% of all expelled students -- even though they make up 13% of the total Ontario student body. Education Minister Gerard Kennedy has said there are big differences in how the act is being used and his ministry has launched a review. Public consultations will be held in Toronto tomorrow and Wednesday.

The Safe Schools Act was brought in by the previous Tory government to bring clear definition, accountability and consequences to dangerous, disrespectful -- and, I'd say, controllable behaviour that jeopardizes others' safety. But its critics also say last week's stats underline their allegation principals are misusing powers to get rid of students they don't want -- while their boards continue to get money for those kids, even though they're not in school.

Advocates for children with disabilities and Tory education critic Frank Klees are appalled by the numbers.

"I find it shocking," Klees told me. "These are exceptional students whose parents are already struggling and those kids aren't in school. Their parents don't know what to do with them."

Disability advocates warn last week's stats don't give the full picture of how many special needs children are being deliberately kept out of school by school authorities. Reva Schafer, who works with Toronto Family Network, says the stats would not include students whose families have agreed to a "voluntary withdrawal" of their special needs child from school, rather than deal with the stigma of a formal suspension being put into their child's official school record.

As well, there have been lots of complaints that special needs students -- and their parents -- are being "excluded" from school, which principals can do under the Education Act if they think somebody is "detrimental to the physical or mental well-being of the pupils." There are no limits on how long an exclusion can last and the province says it keeps no figures on how many kids have been dinged under that one.

As it turns out, a letter sent to the father at the top of this story, by his daughter's school, refers to the regulations governing exclusion -- not the Safe Schools Act -- as the reason for sending the girl home. The school board in question says it has made several changes for her -- including providing a pressurized vest for her safety, which the board believed was jeopardized before -- and that its plan is to bring her back full-time.