Special Education Complaint and Appeal Processess in Ontario 2017

Identifying inefficiencies, costs and effective resolution in the students’ best interest -June 2017

The results of the study indicated that processes currently in place do not support timely resolution of Special Education concerns in the students’ best interest in terms of efficiency (communication and delay), credibility (impartiality), oversight and enforcement. School boards are education service providers but many do not apply a high standard of responsiveness, transparency and accountability as a public service.

New resolution mechanisms are recommended in this report to reflect the priorities of the Ministry of Education for high standards and exemplary practices in public education and increased collaboration with parents, to replace adversarial, ineffective and costly current processes regarding Special Education service delivery in Ontario’s public schools.

Please note the following correction: Table 5 of Appendix 3 should indicate 23 school boards did not respond to requests (32%). The omitted school boards from the table are: Toronto Catholic District School Board, Thunder Bay Catholic, Waterloo Catholic, York Catholic, Northeastern Catholic, Keewatin-Patricia DSB and James Bay Lowlands Secondary School Board.