Groups urge premier to remove barriers for disabled students

Andrea Gordon, Toronto Star, December 5, 2016
Students in wheelchairs who can’t use playground equipment or open classroom doors. Children with impaired vision or dyslexia unable to read the Smartboard in class. Youth with autism who miss out on co-op placements because workplaces don’t accommodate their needs. These are just a few examples of obstacles faced by special needs students from pre-school to university who aren’t getting the education they are entitled to, according to a group of almost two dozen community groups. Developing an education standard would also mean a fundamental shift towards creating a universal design for schools, curriculum and teaching strategies aimed at a broader range of students, rather than relying on an old mainstream model that involves shoehorning special needs kids into an environment that doesn’t fit.