Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: http://www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
We encourage you to watch TVO’s flagship current affairs program “The Agenda with Steve Paikin” tonight at 8 or 11 pm eastern time for an extensive interview on whether the learning needs of students with disabilities are being met this fall, both those doing distance education and those attending re-opened schools. The guests are AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, Ontario Autism Coalition President Laura Kirby-McIntosh and Grand Erie District School Board Special Education Advisory Committee member Paula Boutis (who is also President of Integration Action for Inclusion, a parent association of families with children with disabilities working to improve inclusion in education and community).
This program will appear on TV (for those who still use it). It will also stream tonight at 8 pm on the Twitter feed and Facebook page of The Agenda with Steve Paikin. It will be permanently available on YouTube. In a future AODA Alliance Update, we will provide the YouTube link.
On November 13, 2020, the Agenda included a panel that explored how effectively distance education is working during COVID-19. Those earlier panelists gave distance education very positive grades, but did not give sufficient consideration to its impact on students with disabilities. Today’s broadcast gives viewers a chance to learn about that important issue with this new panel.
We applaud The Agenda with Steve Paikin for addressing this disability issue on tonight’s broadcast, which is important for a third of a million Ontario students with disabilities in publicly-funded Ontario schools. Back on May 8, 2020, The Agenda included an interview about our campaign to get the Ontario Government to address the barriers that people with disabilities are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today’s new interview provided a good opportunity to bring viewers up to date, with a specific focus on the hardships facing school-age students with disabilities.
Help us use this broadcast to promote real change. Please
* Encourage your friends and family to watch this interview.
* Promote this interview on social media like Twitter and Facebook.
* Press members of the Ontario Legislature to watch this interview.
* Urge your local media to cover this issue too. Bring them stories about barriers facing students with disabilities in Ontario’s schools.
* Follow us on Twitter: @aodaalliance. On Facebook: www.facebook.com/AODAAlliance/
* While you’re at it, please encourage parents and guardians of students with disabilities to watch the captioned online video by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky where practical tips are given on how to effectively advocate for the needs of students with disabilities in the school system. We’ve already received very encouraging feedback on that video. Tell your school board to publicize it to all parents.
There have now been 677 days, over 22 months, since the Ford Government received the final report of the Independent Review of the implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act by former Ontario Lieutenant Governor David Onley. The Government has still announced no comprehensive plan of new action to implement that ground-breaking report. That makes even worse the serious problems facing students with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, addressed in this new episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin.