Provincial and Demonstration Schools may not be a term you’re familiar with. These are the provincial schools for children and youth who are blind, deaf, hard of hearing and those with severe learning challenges.
The seven English language schools and one French instruction school for deaf and blind students include W. Ross Macdonald school for the Blind built in 1870 in Brantford, E. C. Drury school for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing built in 1963 in Milton, Robarts School for the Deaf built in 1973 in London, Sir James Whitney School for the Deaf built in 1870 in Belleville and Juels-Leger School in Ottawa. Programming covers kindergarten to grade 12.
With the exception of Centre Jules-Leger in Ottawa, there are no elected school trustees overseeing the administration of the English language schools. Instead, English language schools fall under the direct control of the Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce and his deputy minister, Kate Manson-Smith.
Manson-Smith is not an elected Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) but holds a senior administrative role within the government. Manson-Smith has refused to meet with Provincial Schools Authority Teachers (PSAT) despite multiple requests.
I recently had the privilege to speak with NDP MPP Chandra Pasma about Lecce’s lack of action to address systemic issues of physical, emotional and sexual abuse as well as discrimination and neglect at the English language day and residential deaf and blind schools.
The Official Opposition Critic for Education has repeatedly tried to get answers from Lecce, Manson-Smith as well as Lecce’s Parliamentary Assistant, Ajax MPP Patrice Barnes.
Most recently, when questioned by Pasma, Barnes provided disinformation and word salad along with downright contempt for the children, parents, staff and union reps involved by calling decades of allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and documented school mismanagement, ‘opposition rhetoric.’
Lecce claimed that $8.6 million has been invested to enhance and renew facilities that lodge these ‘kids.’ Yet, W. Ross Macdonald has recurring issues with the heating system. So much so, that classes had to be held in a school washroom because it was the only room warm enough for students to remove their mittens so they could communicate using American Sign Language (ASL).
Most Ontario schools have a policy of keeping children in at recess when temperatures drop to between -20 to -28 Celsius (-4 to -18 Fahrenheit).
However, when the children in question are deaf and hard of hearing and use ASL to communicate allowances must be made especially when those students are bused great distances and drop off at school well before the doors usually open.
Incidents have been documented at E. C. Drury School where day students have been left out in temperatures just above -20 Celsius leaving those students prone to frost bite on their extremities as they remove their mittens and gloves in order to communicate with peers.
Imagine any elementary or high school using a cow bell as an emergency alert system. Now, think about how useful that would be in a school where the students and most of the staff are deaf or hard of hearing? This was reported by a Ministry of Labour investigation.
Or, how about class sizes violating the collective agreement for student safety?
In fact, there is a history of under funding and neglect when it comes to infrastructure issues and this is important to keep in mind given the age of these English language provincial and demonstration schools as well as the historical and ongoing infrastructure neglect.
Many of these issues have been reported by the Ford government’s own Ministry of Labour inspectors.
Then, consider how you would feel as a parent if your child only received an assessment if you hired a lawyer or complained directly to your Conservative MPP?
Recently, two class action suits involving thousands of students and former students going as far back as the 1970’s were settled for $23 million by the Ford government. Currently, an additional three law suits have been filed or are pending.
When questioned by Pasma, part of Lecce’s rhetoric included announcing the he had appointed a new permanent executive director, but failed to name the person. She is in fact, Stephany Balogh.
In the same breath, Lecce said that a clinical manager had also been put in place. However, there has been no staffing announcement regarding a clinical director.
Instead, rumours had been circulating that that former Provincial and District Schools Branch (PDSB) chief psycholgist, Dr. Stephen James, was coming back under contract to fill the position of clinical manager.
I was able to confirm that as of March 1, 2024, Dr. James had started booking consultation meetings with teachers.
Dr. James, who is ASL-fluent, resigned in February 2022 stating in an open letter, “After 14 years of serving the OPS, decisions made by the senior management team (SMT) under Karyn Bruneel are the reason I am leaving. I love PDSB and its community. Leaving was a painful choice.”
Dr. James laid bare that he was prevented from carrying out the clinical duties that he was hired to perform. That meant PDSB students had years of instruction, and even graduated, without needed assessments.
“At best, these families paid thousand of dollars out of pocket to get access to DSO [Developmental Services Ontario] services and accommodations for their children. At worst, our lack of transition support changed these graduating students’ life trajectories,” Dr. Stephen James — from his resignation letter.
“SMT’s decisions have not displayed a value of equity. While denying my clinical work, SMT directed me to do two assessments. Both assessments were hand-picked by senior management. These were not selected for clinical need. No clinical triage system was applied.
The first was because the family threatened PDSB with a lawyer.
The second was because they took the matter to an MPP.
I objected to the inequity of a system in which they failed to provide for all students, and select the assessments based on SMT’s needs. Especially as this unfairly favours families with privilege. I also objected to the hypocrisy of asking me to provide specific assessments while denying me the ability to do the assessments for which I was hired,” Dr. Stephen James.
“SMTs other options are not cost effective. PDSB’s main option will only be to procure psychologist services at twice or more the rate of a PDSB OPSEU psychologist or chief psychologist manager. This assumes PDSB can even find someone to keep up with the referral rate at ECD [E. C. Drury].
They will need to extend two of the contracts (one Deaf, one Blind) to provide services that will bring them even partially in line with PDSB’s requirements as per PPM1.
Psychologists and psychometrists are all OPSEU positions. While my manager role was negotiated with them, contracting psychologist services has never been negotiated with OPSEU.
Therefore, Karyn’s [Bruneel] choice to allow students to go without psychoeducational assessments for years, while she had an ASL-fluent, full time psychologist in the building willing to do them, will always be a mystery to me. The decision does not seem to make clinical, financial, political, or ethical/equitable sense,” Dr. Stephen James.
Karyn Bruneel was the executive director of PDSB until June 2022. Bruneel lived in and worked from Godderich while acting as executive director. Bruneel had her son hired as a teacher of the deaf without qualifications and without being a certified teacher.
“On a personal note, I felt that Karyn treated me with a lack of respect.
Karyn spent a total of 37 minutes meeting with me outside of a large group since she started her role at PDSB. I was managed by email.
We had a seven-minute meeting in August 2020 when she called me to add the Mental Health Lead to my job duties, and a 30-minute meeting in Nov 2021 when I made one last attempt to get my clinical duties returned to me.
She failed to meet with me while negotiating with me over my requested demotion back to psychologist in August 2021. This was despite my inviting Karyn to discuss matters by phone. She was also my direct report manager at that time, as we were between SOs.
At the outset of the pandemic Karyn loaded progressively more duties onto me.
She made me the Covid Lead. This was a role no other chief psychologist in the Boards had, and well outside of my job description. She then tasked me to find every piece of information we could about a virus that nobody knew much about. All of which was out of my scope of practice.
She did this during one of the largest mental health crises of our time, while MH [Mental Health] services continued to be delivered remotely. Meaning that my MH team was not only working, but also adjusting to a very new delivery model and set of concerns.
She removed my administrative support, while simultaneously approving and directing me to hire 20 new on-call nurses.
She denied my clinical work stating that an OPS manager could not do OPSEU work.
Her reasoning should have been shared with me when she first denied my clinical work in November 2020. Instead she shared this in November 2021.
My performance of clinical work was negotiated with OPSEU when my job was created.
Direct services were in the job posting.
Another OPS manager at PDSB is currently doing 50% OPSEU work, as I had been. When I pointed this out, Karyn stated she would get back to me and never did.
After formally denying my clinical duties:
She directed me to draft a decision note, informing the ADM that hiring or contracting with a psychometrist was our best course of action. She had me write her opinion that hiring a less qualified person was a better option than my own clinical work. She directed me to provide clinical supervision (not management), and therefore accept professional liability, to my less qualified replacement.
She then had me present that decision note to all of senior management in a meeting. She directed me to explain to her team why replacing my clinical work with a less qualified person was in PDSB’s best interest.
I applied for a demotion to psychologist and I was the successful candidate for that position. The salary was far lower than the Boards, and Karyn chose not to negotiate over summer duties and summer work location,” Dr. Stephen James.
It’s clear, the PDSB, aka Lecce et al, are trying to contract out psychologist services. Keep in mind, that does not guarantee that these psychologists will be ASL-fluent and that will mean hiring additional ASL-fluent staff to translate for the doctors.
To really understand the extent to which these children, youths and their advocates like Dr. James, are being neglected and mistreated, make the time to read Dr. James’ open letter here.
Pasma has called for the auditor general to investigate various serious allegations as well as incidents of neglect and mismanagement along with a plethora of other issues.
However, this situation is symptomatic of a much larger, systemic disregard by the Ford government for any Ontarian requiring accommodations.
I encourage you to listen to my conversation with NDP MPP Chandra Pasma. Then, check out the information below and contact the appropriate members of the provincial government to ensure all Ontarians have equitable access to education, health services, information, resources, provincial parks, museums, art galleries, Queen’s Park and the quality of life that able bodied Conservative MPPs have.
Documents of interest mentioned in the podcast:
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA) Act
This act is provincial law that aims to make the province accessible for people with a wide variety of disabilities by setting standards for accessibility in various daily interactions.
The province is required to be in full AODA compliance by 2025, but is no where near fulfilling that mandate throughout the healthcare system or at elementary, secondary and post-secondary schools; provincial parks like Bronte Creek, Forks of the Credit and Pinery; Queen’s Park and the list goes on ad infinitum.
AODA compliance applies to physical access as well as signage and access to online content.
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act must be reviewed every three years.
The Honourable David C. Onley, Ontario’s 28th Lieutenant Governor, was appointed to review the act and conducted public consultations in 2018 producing a scathing report in 2019.
In 2022, the Ford Government appointed Rich Donovan to conduct public consultations into the experiences of Ontario’s 2.9 million persons with disabilities and their families.
The Donovan Interim Report (March 2023) calls the Ford governments ‘efforts’ a complete failure citing a lack of data collection, no plan, a lack of accountability and transparency as well as failures and missed opportunities that left Donovan angered.
Make the time to read this short excerpt from the preamble of Donovan’s report:
“The AODA begins with these words: “Recognizing the history of discrimination against persons with disabilities in Ontario”. It is clear to the Reviewer that this implied “history” of discrimination is still the lived experience of millions in Ontario. Every day. A word that comes up frequently in disability spaces is “ableism” – a form of discrimination that favours people without disabilities. The Reviewer heard this term, and accounts of discrimination, frequently over the past 10 months. The Reviewer has been told, repeatedly, of how Ontario has failed in its commitment to create a more accessible experience for Ontarians with Disabilities.
Following a first round of consultations with PWD and AODA stakeholders, the 4th Reviewer of the AODA has no choice but to assess this regulatory regime in its current form and practice to be an unequivocal failure. The reasons for this failure are straightforward and predictable. There is virtually no meaningful data collection on the experiences of PWD in Ontario. This, coupled with no plan for change for how Ontario will get from where it currently is to where it needs to be that can be practically enforced has made the goal of an accessible Ontario by 2025 difficult, if not impossible to achieve. In such an environment, there is no owner of regulatory outcomes, and thus no accountability. The result is a series of failures and missed opportunities that has spanned 17 years. It is the missed opportunities that most anger the Reviewer.” -- Rich Donovan
For another honest assessment of the Ford government’s inaction on AODA compliance check out AODA Alliance.
Well, the wait list has increased to over 60,000 children under Doug Ford who said that his government would streamline the process back in 2018.
Instead, parent Amanda Hunter from Lincoln, Ontario was told by her Conservative MPP Sam Oosterhoff in 2023 to move out of province – aka Alberta – to get the autism assessments, services and supports she and her two autistic children not only need, but deserve and are entitled to.
Developmental Disabilities Sector
Funding for programs and services for adults with developmental disabilities has been frozen with no increases for the past 15 years.
Members of the Conservative Provincial Government to contact:
Minster of Education Stephen Lecce
Deputy Minister of Education Kate Manson-Smith
Kate Manson-Smith is not an elected Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). Instead, she holds a senior administrative role within the government.
Her appointment was announced twitter:
4/4 Also effective June 19, 2023, Kate Manson-Smith becomes Deputy Minister of Education and Shannon Fuller becomes DM of Policy and Delivery and Associate Secretary of the Cabinet.
Email: Kate.Manson-Smith@ontario.ca
MPP for Niagara West Sam Oosterhoff
Executive director of PDSB, Stephany Balogh can be reached at stephany.balogh@ontario.ca
Music: Real Estate by UNIVERSFIELD is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. freemusicarchive.org.
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NDP Education Critic Pasma finds systemic abuses, discrimination and neglect at schools for blind and deaf