Currently, there are no AODA education standards. However, two AODA standards development committees have drafted recommendations of guidelines that AODA education standards should include. One committee has recommended guidelines for the kindergarten to grade twelve (K-12) education system. In this article, we outline recommendations for accessibility in face-to-face and online learning.
The committee’s mandate from the Ontario government requires recommendations focused on the publicly-funded K-12 school system. However, students and educators with disabilities also face barriers in other school settings, including:
- Private schools
- Pre-school programs, such as early literacy programs
Therefore, all these settings should comply with the forthcoming K-12 education standards.
Accessibility in Face-to-Face and Online Learning
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, some classes now take place both in-person and virtually. While some students attend class face-to-face, other students attend the same class remotely. In other words, teachers must instruct face-to-face and online students at the same time. However, the Committee reports that this teaching format does not meet the accessibility needs of students with disabilities.
Students already face many accessibility barriers when their peers all attend class in the same way. On one hand, students attending class in person face distinct barriers, including:
- Physical barriers in schools or classrooms
- Organizational barriers, such as lack of policies for service animals in school
- Shortages of staff, such as educational assistants
On the other hand, different barriers are more common in online learning, such as the lack of:
- Accessible online learning platforms in class
- Digital course content in accessible formats
- Captions
- Audio description for increased video use
The Committee recommends many mandates in the K-12 education standards to remove and prevent each of these barriers. Nonetheless, current staff in the classroom and in administration lack the resources and expertise to remove and prevent these barriers.
Therefore, the Committee recommends that teachers and students should not face all of these barriers at the same time. In other words, classes should not contain mixtures of in-person and virtual students. This teaching format, which began as an emergency measure, should not continue when the emergency is over. Instead, in-person students should learn with peers face-to-face, while virtual students learn with peers who are also learning online. Meanwhile, students with disabilities should not be assigned to these dual classes. Students with disabilities, like other students, should choose whether to learn face-to-face or online. However, once they make this choice, they should learn with other students who are using the same format.