Reevaluation of Special Needs Education in Quebec?
South shore Montreal area parents who sued the Marie-Victorin School Board in 2006 have won their Human Rights Tribunal case against the board.
The parents, whose son attended regular classes for his first two years of schooling, were furious when, after evaluation by a school psychologist, the school board insisted that he then go into a special class for children with intellectual difficulties.
Please see this article by Gabrielle Duchaine in rue Frontenac (now archived at www.exruefrontenac.com) for a full report on the case.
The tribunal found that the school board had put their prerogative to group children appropriately for their own purposes, ahead of the boy's interests and his right to be treated equally. There is speculation that this ruling will force CSMV and other school boards in Quebec to re-evaluate their special needs policies from top to bottom.
From the point of view of parents with kids who have special needs this decision comes as welcome news. However, the counterpoint is that it becomes painfully obvious how the dysfunctional system permits five years of a childs' education to fly by while such a case bounces around on its way to a final ruling.
The headline on the news story that this links to was "Une victoire majeure pour l'intégration scolaire des déficients intellectuels", but it has been pointed out that the findings of the tribunal could also be turned the other way. That is to say that parents should also have access to more specialized educational settings for their children's education if more suitable.
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