It’s a struggle ‘beyond belief’
School system failing kids with autism during pandemic, parents say
While hearing troubling stories from hundreds of parents of special education students, Christine Levesque said she too faced difficulties after classes resumed.
Levesque, a Niagara Falls resident and co-founder and chair of Autism Advocacy Ontario, said more than 600 people have filled out an online survey her organization launched three weeks ago, asking families if they have concerns about safety and the challenges their children might face returning to school.
She said 80 to 90 per cent of parents who completed the survey opted for online learning, concerned about ensuring support they needed in the classroom would be available.
“But they’re struggling beyond belief,” she said. “They’re saying, ‘I can’t send my kids to school and I can’t do the virtual learning. My kid is having mental breakdowns every minute of the day, basically.’”
Levesque said she too chose to enrol her eight-year-old daughter, Elihka, in online French immersion programs while homeschooling her son Larz, who has autism.
She said Elihka “loves to learn.”
“She loves school and she loves her academic classes.”
But after being verbally bullied by a classmate, she said, Elihka “went from an eager, happy learner to hating having to open that Chromebook, while in tears.”
Levesque said it’s clear from the survey responses she has received that her daughter isn’t suffering alone.
Welland resident Fallon Chisholm said her son has been spared the bullying Elihka faced, but he is coping with undue stress while attending online grade 6 classes — without the supports he would typically have available to him in the classroom setting.
Part of the problem is delays in forwarding her son’s updated individual education plan to his teacher.
“Here we are in October and we still don’t even have it,” she said. “It’s 2020, you can’t just email it?”
Chisholm said she too is considering home-schooling her son, although she would prefer to keep him in class if possible.
Niagara school boards were unable to provide information for this article prior to deadline.
But Levesque said students elsewhere in Ontario have struggled, too.
“I have a couple of families in Ottawa whose children were removed from their specialized learning programs,” she said. “They can’t read or write and were told basically ‘tough luck’ when they have to use the chat room to ask questions.”
She said special education students in other parts of the province such as the GTA have yet to even begin their classes due to a lack of teachers.
Levesque said many parents who completed the survey say they are now considering home-schooling their children.
Although school boards receive thousands of dollars in subsidies for each special education student attending classes there, that funding isn’t redirected to parents who choose to home-school their child.
She said the survey asks how that funding would be used if available to parents.
“One-hundred per cent of the families said they would take the money for their child and run from the public education system — 100 per cent,” she said.
“It’s failing our kids.” Levesque said the organization will continue running the online survey for one more week, in the hope of getting more than 1,000 responses to share with the provincial government and school boards.