Selected Cases

A vendor complained to us after attempting to bid on a school board’s fire alarm testing contract.

A Francophone student complained to us that his French-language high school couldn’t provide him with a “section 23” program, which is support provided through the ministries of Education and Children, Community and Social Services to students who cannot attend school due to identified social, emotional, behavioural or mental health needs.

A mother complained to us that her child’s school bus route was far too long, averaging four hours per day.

We received a complaint from the father of a student with disabilities who resides during the week at a provincial demonstration school in southern Ontario.

We helped a parent who was refused an identification, placement and review committee (IPRC) to assess her daughter’s giftedness in kindergarten.

An English-speaking mother whose child attends a French-language school was facing barriers when attempting to raise concerns with the school principal.

A woman in a remote northern community complained to our Office that her grandson, who has Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), had been excluded from school for four months due to escalating violent behaviour. When the child was allowed back to school, he was only allowed to attend for two hours per day, four times a week. 

A Grade 10 student was disappointed to receive a failing grade on the writing component of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test.

A father contacted us after he went to pick up his daughters at their after-school program and discovered they were off premises without any prior notice.

Our staff helped two parents whose local school board wanted to charge them more than $6,000 in tuition for their son because his legal guardian lived outside of Ontario – even though the boy did not live with the guardian.

A mother of two sought our help after she was unable to get a response from her school board about why she could not get busing for her four-year-old son, even though her eight-year-old son was being bused to a school closer to home.

The parent of a high school student with autism spectrum disorder contacted us after she was informed by her son’s school that he would not receive credit for one of his courses because he had not met course expectations.

The mother of a five-year-old girl with medical needs enrolled her in a special program after she was told a bus monitor would be assigned to administer the child’s medication if needed.

After a teacher-in-charge kept a student out of class for more than two hours over an incident, the student’s mother complained to us about the board’s response to her concerns.

The mother of a kindergarten student with special needs complained that her son’s bus was repeatedly late and that he had once been dropped off at the wrong address.

The mother of a Grade 4 student was concerned for her son’s safety because he had to cross a busy intersection on his walk to school.

A mother of a teenage boy with autism sought our Office’s help after her son was restricted to 45 minutes of school per day due to behavioural issues.

A woman complained to us after trying for months to get a school board to respond to her safety concerns about vehicles regularly driving up onto a curb on school property near an entrance for young children.

A father contacted us when the principal at his daughter’s school told him she could no longer attend the school, since the family lived outside the catchment area.

A student complained that one of his female classmates was refused entry into class for having her shoulders exposed.

A woman complained to us after she and her husband received a ‘Notice of Prohibition of Entry’ from a board in October 2012, with no end date or written rationale provided.

A mother felt that her daughter's school board didn't follow its own rules after she tried to appeal a change to her daughter's school bus route, which effectively doubled the amount of time her daughter spent on the bus.

A parent complained to our office after a school board decided to move their child's bus stop 300 metres to a busier intersection.

A parent complained to our office after the school board looked into her conflict-of-interest complaint about two trustees who participated in decisions to close a local high school.

A woman contacted our Office when she discovered the school board would only bus her granddaughter to a school that was more than twice as far away as the next closest option.

We received a complaint that several students in the same neighbourhood were deemed ineligible for busing despite believing they lived within the school's distance requirements policy, and that the board would not provide the walk distance calculation to the complainant or other parents.

A teenage boy with autism who was only permitted to attend class for 45 minutes a day due to aggression issues was refusing to return to school because of an incident when police were called.

A primary school student with special needs was put on a waiting list for placement in a support program for children with autism. The boy's mother was told that a spot was unlikely to become available soon. Concerned that her child's needs were not being met, she escalated her concerns with the school board and then called our Office.

The mother of a kindergartner with special needs contacted the Office with concerns about busing services.