74 pages. 65% of reviewed files had no written rationale for a special-class placement.

The Education Act requires each board to provide a parent guide following an IPRC referral. The Auditor ran the three boards’ guides through three readability tools and found reading levels ranging from Grade 12 to graduate studies (TCDSB), from post-secondary year 1 to graduate studies (PDSB), and from Grade 11 to post-secondary year 2 (UCDSB). PDSB was the only board that made its guide available in multiple languages on its website.

The IEP consultation process is filled with jargon. In addition, navigating the special education system is challenging, even for those of us with specialized knowledge of how it works.

Teacher comment · OAG anonymous teacher survey · Audit, p. 17

The Ministry does not provide guidance on when assessments are required, what documentation supports an identification, or how to comprehensively define exceptionalities. It permits each board to develop its own.

To identify a developmental disability, PDSB requires a cognitive score below the 0.1st percentile; TCDSB sets the threshold at the 1st percentile. The same child could be identified at one board and not the other.

The Ministry’s categories and definitions of exceptionalities list a limited number of diagnoses. FASD, brain injury, ADHD, depression, and bipolar disorder are not explicitly included in any category, so they may receive varying placements and levels of support depending on the IPRC making the decision. Autism is classified as a communicational exceptionality, even though the audit notes many autistic individuals may better align with the behavioural or developmental disability category.

Source: Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, Special Report on Special Education Needs, May 12, 2026 · § 4.2.1.

At the audit date, 34% of students at TCDSB and PDSB who needed an assessment had been waiting more than a year: 499 students at TCDSB and 248 at PDSB. The Auditor General’s 2017 report on school boards found that a quarter to about a third of the students on psychological-assessment wait lists at three boards had been waiting more than a year.

Each specialist runs their own waitlist for an assigned cluster of schools, with no consolidation across the board. At TCDSB, one specialist had 64 outstanding speech-language assessments; another had two. None of the three boards prioritizes assessments based on a complete consolidated waitlist.

The equity issue: a psychological assessment in Ontario typically costs $2,500–$4,500, and can total over $5,000 with autism and ADHD screening. Private assessments must be reviewed by board specialists, and the audit found no delays in that review at the three boards. As a result, students with private assessments often received placements and supports sooner than students waiting for board assessments, and the Auditor notes that students whose families cannot afford external services face barriers to timely services.

At every board, at least 90% of annual learning goals lacked measurable criteria. Modified expectations lacked measurable criteria at least 94% of the time. Alternative expectations lacked measurable criteria 50% to 86% of the time.

Accommodations, teaching strategies, and assessment methods were generic across the entire sample. Frequent check-ins, proximity to instructors, extra time for processing, modelling, prompting, observations, anecdotal notes These were repeated. The student-specific part of the “individual” education plan was missing.

Parent participation is a legal requirement. The audit found no evidence of parent consultation in 38% of TCDSB files, 67% of PDSB files, and 95% of UCDSB files. Where consultation was noted, documentation did not show meaningful engagement.

In its 2017 policy and resource guide the Ministry set out 14 IEP standards and said it would conduct annual reviews of selected boards to assess compliance. At the time of the audit, it had not conducted a single one.

Educational Assistants, the staff doing day-to-day behaviour, personal care, and IEP implementation work, were absent at higher rates than any other educator group. EAs were absent on an average of 18% of EAs on any given school day across the three boards combined (special education teachers: 10%; other teachers: 11%). EA absences often went unfilled or were filled by an unqualified temporary staff member.

According to a 2024 survey by the Ontario School Board Council of Unions, 95.8% of EAs and child and youth workers experienced violent or disruptive incidents, 54.8% daily.

The staffing was inequitable to begin with. Student-to-teacher ratios at TCDSB ranged from 8–76 students per teacher; PDSB 13–70; UCDSB 10–78. PDSB schools were understaffed by a net of 51 EAs in 2024/25 against the targets set by PDSB’s own documented scoring methodology; the audit says the shortage resulted from adjustments the board made to stay within its EA budget.

Source: Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, Special Report on Special Education Needs, May 12, 2026 · § 4.4.1.

The Ontario College of Teachers does not include specific certification requirements related to special education, although teachers assigned to special education positions must hold at least Special Education Part 1. The Ministry does not set minimum training requirements. Province-wide, between 2019 and 2024, approximately half of all certified teachers held Special Education Part 1, about 20% held Part 2, and about 15% held the Specialist qualification.

For EAs, the Ministry sets no entry or training requirements. There is no provincial certification, licensing body, or mandatory qualification standard. Required behaviour de-escalation training varies: PDSB requires it for all EAs, UCDSB only for those supporting students with safety plans, and TCDSB encourages but does not require it.

At least 59% of regular-classroom and special-education teachers surveyed reported receiving no or minimal training on key special education topics. Over 70% of those respondents said additional training would help.

Source: Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, Special Report on Special Education Needs, May 12, 2026 · § 4.5.

Under the Education Act, a principal can refuse a student entry if their presence would be detrimental to the well-being of others. The Ministry calls these exclusions a last resort. When they happen, schools must document the reason, notify parents, and create a return-to-school plan.

Between 2020–21 and 2023–24, an average of 239 students receiving special-education services were reported excluded each year, just 0.07%. 23 school boards (32%) reported no exclusions of students with special-education needs in any of those four years.

The Auditor’s teacher survey told a different story. 39% of teachers surveyed said they had observed an undocumented exclusion at least once during the 2024–25 school year. Of those respondents, 33% said it had happened more than five times.

And students with special-education needs were over-represented in formal suspensions: students receiving special education services averaged 16% of the student population but 43% of suspended students (2019/20 to 2023/24). The audit also reports that 48% of students with special education needs were suspended more than once over the five years, compared with 21% of other students.

Total special-education spending across Ontario’s school boards rose by 19% from 2019–20 to 2023–24, faster than the 15% rise in Ministry funding and 15% inflation over the same period.

In 2023–24, 46 of Ontario’s 72 boards collectively spent $397.9 million (14%) more than they were funded for special education; the other 26 boards underspent by a combined $51.2M, a net overspend of $346.7M (ETWO arithmetic from the audit's two figures). Boards are allowed to carry forward unspent funds, which must be spent on special education in future.

The Ministry promised in its own policy guide to review board special-education plans for compliance. Of the 49 boards that submitted 2023–24 checklists, 69% reported they had amended their plans, mostly without specifying what. The Auditor found no evidence the Ministry identified or reviewed those changes.

School boards have allocated funding to special education programs from other budgets because they have identified this as necessary to try to meet the needs of this vulnerable population. This can negatively affect other education programs and services, impacting the daily lives of students, parents, guardians and teachers.

Office of the Auditor General of Ontario · Audit, p. 57

Three-board comparison with the source and audit date for each row

The audit ran from January 2025 to March 2026. The team interviewed Ministry staff, board senior management and operations staff, families of students with special-education needs, and external stakeholders including representatives of boards’ Special Education Advisory Committees, organizational members of the Parent Associations Advisory Committee on Special Education Advisory Committees, and the Toronto Family Network. The report says the three boards were selected to illustrate the types of challenges and areas requiring improvement that could exist across the sector.

What was sampled: student files at TCDSB, PDSB, UCDSB; IEPs varying by exceptionality, grade, placement; IPRC decisions, placement-change documentation, assessments; an anonymous survey of all teachers at the three boards; 2024/25 board special-education plans and 2025/26 public communication materials. The report does not publish the number of files sampled.

What’s out of scope: special needs programs for gifted students, and programs for children and youth in non-school settings such as care and treatment, custody, and correctional facilities.