I want to thank everyone for the veritable barrage of wonderful supportive reactions and comments to my post a few days ago that announced that I have been acclaimed to again serve in 2025 as the Chair of the Toronto District School Board’s Special Education Advisory Committee. These mean so much to me.
Ontario’s 72 school boards each must have a Special Education Advisory Committee to advise them on how to improve education in K-12 schools for students with special education needs. We can only give advice. Whether a school board actually implements that advice is quite another thing.
I’ve served on TDSB’s SEAC for almost a decade, and previously been elected as its Chair in 2016, 2017 and 2024. SEAC members, myself included, often get very frustrated. School boards can spend much more time telling us what a great job they are doing, or giving reasons why they are not implementing a recommendation we bring to them. Too often, they do not do enough to implement good advice from us.
I see my role as trying to focus us on crafting recommendations that will benefit the most students with special education needs and the most vulnerable of these students. My aim is to help our membership arrive at a consensus, compose recommendations that are as persuasive as possible, and make the case to the TDSB senior executives and elected trustees that they should listen to us.
I’ve found that in their hearts, individual TDSB staff are quite often totally supportive of our efforts. However, there is too much of an overall atmosphere at the school board of collectively defending the status quo rather than fixing it.
This past year is illustrative. At TDSB’s SEAC, we’ve spent over 8 years trying to get the school board to do a much better job of letting parents of students with special education needs know what placements, services and supports are available at the school board for their kids. TDSB is like a restaurant that won’t give you a menu. We’ve presented overwhelming proof that this is a big problem for parents. However, the institutional resistance to fixing this is monumental. I know that that makes no sense at all.
If you are interested in helping parents across Ontario advocate for reforms in our K-12 school system for students with disabilities, I strongly encourage you to join a fantastic parents’ advocacy group on Facebook entitled Ontario Parents for Educational Supports. They have 1,700+ members and tons of potential. Get others to join it as well.
Last month our SEAC hosted a town hall, where parents could tell us about the barriers their kids face at school. Their tearful stories where utterly heart-wrenching. Next year, our SEAC aims to press for reforms on the key fronts that these parents identified. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to help with this.
Again, a massive thanks to all for kind thoughts and words.
David Lepofsky is a retired lawyer, disability advocate and Chair of the Toronto School Board Special Education Advisory Committee.
Ontario Parents for Education Support
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2678152195666383/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT
Images: CanStock. Ontario Parents for Education Support.
