For Immediate Release//Toronto, Ontario, April 23, 2025
Crisis in the Classroom: Children with Disabilities Isolated, Held Down & Sent Home
New report details disturbing treatment in Ontario Schools
A new report published by Community Living Ontario is shedding new light on the exclusion, seclusion, and restraint of students with disabilities in Ontario schools. Numerous authorities are calling on the Premier and the Minister of Education to act to address these issues immediately.
Crisis in the Classroom: Exclusion, Seclusion, and Restraint of Students with Disabilities presents information from 541 caregivers of students with disabilities. Among the findings from children and youth represented in the survey:
- 29% had been isolated while in school, i.e., placed in a separate space away from their peers, often behind locked or blocked doors.
- 14% had been restrained while in school, including being held down on the ground, held while standing, and held while being forced to walk.
- 31% had been sent home or instructed to stay home because the school was unable to meet their needs.
“Schools should be a place of inclusion, belonging, and safety,” said Shawn Pegg, Director of Social Policy and Strategic Initiatives at Community Living Ontario, the organization that published the study. “It is incomprehensible that students with disabilities, some as young as five and six years old, are being physically restrained and separated from their peers. The fact that this is happening across the province shows an urgent need for action from the Premier and Minister of Education.“
This situation is not new and has been happening in schools for years. Crisis in the Classroom updates the data and paints a worrying picture of what students with disabilities are experiencing. For example, nearly half of students who were isolated experienced this more than ten times, i.e., on a regular basis. In more than a quarter of cases, caregivers first learned of the isolation from their child, and not from school staff.
“All children and youth have the right to be in school, and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Elizabeth Garkowski of Ontario Parents for Education Support. “The fact that students are being forced to stay home because schools can’t meet their needs is unacceptable and shows a clear need for increased support in our classrooms.”
Crisis in the Classroom provides detailed recommendations and calls on the Ontario Ministry of Education to implement changes that will make schools safe and healthy places for students with disabilities. To read the full report, visit https://communitylivingontario.ca/resources/crisis-in-the-classroom/.
A media conference will be held on April 23rd at 10:30 a.m. in the Queen’s Park Media Studio to launch the report and answer questions from the media.
Media contact:
Lisa Tabachnick
Director of Marketing, Communications and Development
lisa@communitylivingontario.ca
416-447-4348 x 229
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Community Living Ontario (CLO) is a non-profit provincial association that has been advocating with people who have an intellectual disability and their families for 70+ years. CLO works alongside 124 local agencies and advocates with 250,000 people with intellectual disabilities and their families across Ontario.
Crisis in the Classroom — Overview of Study Findings
In 2023, Community Living Ontario partnered with Jess Whitley, Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Education, to understand students with disabilities’ experience of exclusion, seclusion and restraint in Ontario schools. The findings from more than 500 respondents are highly concerning:
- 29% of caregivers reported that their child had been secluded in school, i.e., placed in a separate space away from their peers, often behind locked or blocked doors.
- 14% of caregivers reported that their child had been restrained in school, including being held down on the ground, held while standing, and held while being forced to walk.
- Students living in households with lower parental education and income levels were at increased risk for both seclusion and restraint.
- A large percentage of respondents reported experiences of exclusion:
- One in five students were attending school on a part-time or modified schedule.
- 31% of students had been sent home or instructed to stay home because the school was unable to meet their needs.
- More than half of caregivers reported that their children were ‘sometimes,’ ‘often,’ or ‘always’ excluded from academic events and opportunities.
- One in four students represented in the survey ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ enjoy school or feel valued or accepted by school staff.
- 40% of students avoided school or were reluctant to attend because of anxiety and fear caused by their experiences within the school community.
Our findings add to a growing body of research on exclusion, seclusion and restraint of students with disabilities in Canadian schools, following similar studies in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec. Our report brings attention to the need for urgent action to ensure that students with disabilities are protected, supported, and fully included in the lives of their schools and communities. Specifically, we on calling on the Government of Ontario to:
- Increase access to appropriate and adequate staffing and other supports for students.
- Increase access to trauma-informed training for educational staff and administrators.
- Implement clear provincial regulation and policy re: exclusion and partial-day attendance.
- Implement clear provincial regulation and policy re: seclusion and restraint.
- Require schools, school boards, and the Ministry of Education to track and report on the use of seclusion, restraint, exclusion, and partial-day attendance.
As it stands, students with disabilities do not have access to the level of staffing and other support they need to succeed. Too often, school staff do not know how to respond to their needs in a positive and safe way.
There is little or no provincial guidance on the serious issues of seclusion, restraint, and school exclusion, and no provincial data that would allow us to know if these issues are getting better or worse. School boards have been forced to create their own policies, and principals are implementing those policies in different ways.
It is time for the provincial government to turn its attention to these problems, to bring a cohesive approach to addressing them, and to prioritize the well-being of students with disabilities.
The report includes direct quotes from parents and caregivers, and their accounts offer deep insight into the experiences of students with disabilities:
My child has been restrained and secluded in past years, this was not communicated by the school until I asked. I had to hear it from members of the community who recognized my child and contacted me with what they had seen. No matter how much we make efforts to communicate, we don’t necessarily trust that this has not continued.
My son has spent a lot of time in a padded room within his school. I was not aware of this room initially until I picked him up earlier in the year while he was in there. Not a great experience as a parent. He is in this room daily due to behaviors and emotional dysregulation. The staff are not trained well at all in supporting children with behavioral issues and trauma. My son continues to be retraumatized at school and does not feel safe there.
I have asked my board for transparency and accountability here as there is no policy or procedure around restraint, seclusion or exclusion. It has been almost a full school year with no progress on that policy. At various times in the year, different people have denied aspects of my child’s restraint, seclusion and exclusion. We have never been given written documentation despite asking repeatedly. My child was deeply, deeply traumatized by restraint and seclusion.
My child is not accepted in normal classes. Called ‘sped’ or ‘LAC girl,’ never by name. My daughter has severe anxiety and classmates in normal class never engaged with her and she never made any friends. It was like she had the plague and some took her anxiety and mutism as something funny.
What are others saying about these issues?
- There have been several media reports on the seclusion and restraint of students with disabilities, including a grade 1 student, a 10 year old boy, an 11 year old girl, a 6 year old girl, a young adult in Toronto, and another in Lindsay.
- In a report on its extensive investigation into Ontario’s education system, The Local found that, “In a public education system that is?suffering from decades of underfunding,?it’s the students receiving special education who feel it most… When students get the attention, resources, and opportunities they need, they’re less prone to outbursts, less likely to become frustrated, bored, or overwhelmed, and at lower risk of acting out violently or trying to flee. Teachers have more time and energy for the entire class, and everyone is safer and better off. Yet all too often, according to TDSB educators and parents, that’s not happening.”
- People for Education reported that in 2024, 63% of Ontario elementary school principals reported instructing students with disabilities stay home because their support needs could not be met (up from 48% in 2014). This was also the case for 58% of secondary school principals (up from 40% in 2014).
- The Ontario Autism Coalition has stated that, “While educators and school staff are working hard to support students, they are doing so within a framework of chronic underfunding and systemic neglect. School boards are left struggling to meet the complex needs of special education students with the resources to hire adequate staff, provide appropriate training, or implement necessary support.”
- The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has stated that, “After years of funding cuts and policy changes… school boards simply do not have the ability to provide children with disabilities in this province with the supports, resources, and programs they need to succeed. The system is fundamentally broken.”