The Education Act on Special Education
The principal provisions governing special education in Ontario were
introduced into the Education Act by the Education Amendment Act of 1980
(Bill 82). Many of the provisions of Bill 82 have been changed or removed by
subsequent amendments to the Education Act. Consequently, the actual
text of Bill 82 is of historical interest only. However, the principal provisions
of Bill 82 remain in the Education Act. These include:
- the responsibility of school boards to provide (or to purchase from
another board) special education programs and special education services
for their exceptional pupils (paragraph 7 of subsection 170(1));
- a special education program is defined as an educational program that is
based on and modified by the results of a continuous assessment and evaluation
of the pupil and that includes a plan (now referred to as an Individual
Education Plan) containing specific objectives and an outline of the
educational services that meets the needs of the exceptional pupil
(subsection 1(1));
- the responsibility of the Minister (Subsection 8(3)):
- to require school boards to implement procedures for the early
and ongoing identification of the learning abilities and needs of
students;
- to define exceptionalities of pupils and to prescribe classes,
groups or categories of exceptional pupils and to require the use of
these definitions by school boards;
- to provide an appeal process for parents concerning special
education identification and/or placement decisions;
- to ensure that special education programs and services are provided
without payment of fees by school boards to their exceptional
pupils;
- the establishment of a
Ontario Special
Education Tribunal to provide final and binding arbitration in
disagreements between a parent and school board concerning the identification
or placement of an exceptional pupil.
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