WEBVTT

NOTE The narration is a synthetic voice. The captions are its words.

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They called it a calm room.

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Samira was eight.

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An autistic child,

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in a program meant to support her.

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Her parents expected somewhere soothing,

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when she felt overwhelmed.

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The school did not tell her parents

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they were isolating her.

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They found out when a representative

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of a local social services agency

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visited the classroom.

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The principal then confirmed it.

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An 8-by-8-foot room.

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Concrete walls. No window.

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A desk and a chair,

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labelled with her name.

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According to her family’s account

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in Ontario’s Auditor General report,

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about 80% of her school day

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was spent there.

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In October 2024,

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after a physical incident,

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a few days at home

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became a formal exclusion.

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One hour of online learning a day.

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Lessons that did not meet her abilities.

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She returned in October 2025.

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A classroom returned.

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A year did not.

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Samira is not the only one.

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The auditors also surveyed

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teachers at three boards.

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39% had seen a student with special

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education needs removed from school or class,

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without it being recorded as an exclusion.

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A third of them said

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it happened more than five times.

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Asked why, most named behaviour or safety.

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64% also named a lack

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of support and resources.

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The ministry drafted a policy

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on exclusions in 2024.

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Work on it was paused in January 2025,

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before the election.

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At the time of the audit,

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there were no updates

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or directions on next steps.

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65% of the files the auditors sampled

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had no written reason for recommending

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a special education classroom,

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even though one is required.

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Separately, as of May 13,

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71,263 autistic children and youth

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were waiting for core clinical funding

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from the Ontario Autism Program.

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In July, the Ontario Autism Coalition said

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a child registering then

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faced at least a five-year wait.

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Elsewhere, and in Ontario’s past,

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this has a history.

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In 2019, reporters at ProPublica Illinois

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and the Chicago Tribune found students

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put alone in school isolation rooms

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more than 20,000 times,

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from the 2017-18 school year

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to December 2018.

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Most of them had disabilities.

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In more than a third of the cases

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with enough detail to tell,

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staff recorded no safety reason.

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The day after the story ran,

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Illinois banned locking students

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in isolation rooms.

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And Ontario has its own history.

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For more than a century,

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Ontario ran institutions like

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the Huronia Regional Centre,

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for people with developmental disabilities,

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including children.

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In 2013, the Premier apologized

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in the Legislature.

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She said the province “broke faith”

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with some of its most vulnerable residents.

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Our read: a school calm room

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is not an asylum.

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But we see a pattern.

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In each case, the child

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who needed the most

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ended up apart from everyone else.

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Some children got a smaller room.

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Some were sent home.

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Tens of thousands were left waiting.

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We think children are being punished

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for needing help.

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A year of her education does not come back.

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Neither does a childhood spent waiting.

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Read The Concrete Room.

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Share the record.

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Ask your MPP what will change.