Image is a screen capture from ETFO's report titled "Promises Unfulfilled: Addressing the Special Education Crisis in Ontario"
Text reads "Inclusion and a continuum of services: 2000–present. By about 2000, inclusion had become a major part of a wider school culture in which equity and diversity are highly valued (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2013). In line with this, instead of treating exceptional children’s differences as deficits to isolate or correct, inclusion treats them as unique characteristics to accept, and even to celebrate (Ellis & Axelrod, 2016). In Ontario’s inclusive schools, 'the regular classroom [is] the placement of first choice; for exceptional pupils. Yet the province has also chosen to carry on offering “a range of placements” – the continuum of services – as options for some children, simultaneously with inclusion (Bennett & Wynne, 2006). Ontario began getting teachers ready for this policy with an emphasis on universal design for learning and differentiated instruction (Bennett & Wynne, 2006; Bernard & Wade-Wooley, 2005). Differentiated instruction is a marked departure from the differentiated settings (separate classrooms) that the province first adopted over 100 years ago for special education."
Which publicly funded schools in Ontario are inclusive?
Simply putting autistic/ ND students in the same classroom as their NT peers is not #inclusion. It's not physical location but a mindset
#OntEd #autism #education #SpecEd #neurodiversity