New report reveals how Ontario schools restrain and isolate students with disabilities

This Matters

Guest: Shawn Pegg, Director at Community Living Ontario

A new report by Community Living Ontario exposes a disturbing reality faced by children with disabilities in Ontario schools. Based on interviews with over 500 parents and caregivers, it details how students, some of whom are as young as five, have been locked in rooms, physically restrained, or sent home because schools couldn’t meet their needs. Despite nearly $4 billion in annual special education funding, families and advocates say the system is failing the children. The result is a pattern of trauma, fear, and exclusion playing out in classrooms across the province. We talk to Shawn Pegg, the author of the report about the findings and what needs to be done.

Produced by Saba Eitizaz and Paulo Marques