Advocating for a Student at a TDSB's School Transition Meeting

One of TECA's - Ontario Education & Communications Associates'  mandates is to advocate for parents at the school level. A parent asked me to attend her child’s IPRC meeting ( a special school meeting for students with special needs)  at her son's school. I did and I attended the meeting as a parent advocate. 

Adam is a grade 8 student in Toronto and he will be going to secondary school in the fall of 2016. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has policies in place to ensure that students’ transition from one panel to the next will be a smooth one.

 For those students  who  have been identified with learning disabilities, the sending schools will send information to the receiving schools informing school personnel of these students’ learning needs, so that programming can be planned to meet their needs for the coming year.

Ann L., the principal of the school was there to chair this Transition Meeting, along with the presence of  the Vice Principal, the classroom teacher, the Special Education Consultant from the school board and a teacher who could speak this student’s  heritage language translating for the parents. That was a productive meeting.

The meeting started with the homeroom teacher producing one of Adam's Math test papers and giving a snapshot of the student’s current progress. The homeroom teacher then proceeded to say that this student had achieved a Level 3 ( above 70%) in Mathematics, therefore he had no concerns about this student's academic achievement.

After the teaching's sharing, Adam's mother asked the teacher about Adam's ability in solving word problem in Math and we reminded the teacher that though the student could do straight calculations, Adam did have difficulty at home while problem solving on his own especially when the Math questions involved comprehension and higher level of analytical reasoning. The teacher concurred and agreed with the parents' observations which contradicted to his earlier claim that he had no concern about this student's progress in Math. Therefore, we advocated to have extra support and assistance for the student in the problem solving and reading comprehension area.

Another area of concern for Adam was his anxiety and oral communication. I shared my observations and concern about this student’s lack of confidence to advocate for himself on a number of occasions when he was bullied in school. We asked that this information be noted and passed on to the next school where Adam will attend and that teacher should monitor his social interactions at school and Guidance Support be provided to help student to cope with future incidents.

This kind of exchange of information between school and parents is important as it gives all stakeholders opportunities to learn more about the student and therefore a more accurate and complete picture of the student’s academic and social abilities.

Hopefully, the next school teachers and staff will read the students' OSR ( Ontario Student Record) where information about the student is stored, and can plan their programs accordingly to meet the needs of this student.

R.T.
Director - TECA
Toronto Education &
Communications Associates
Scarborough, Ontario