The OPVIC logo includes the print letters O P V I C. Inside the O is the Braille letter O. Beneath the word OPVIC in print are the words: Ontario Parents of Visually Impaired Children
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OPVIC Feedback to K-12 Education Standards Development Committee

Ontario Parents of Visually Impaired Children (OPVIC)
Also known as Views for The Visually Impaired
www.opvic.ca

To: K-12 Education Standards Development Committee
Via email: educationsdc@Ontario.ca
September 19, 2021

Feedback on the Initial report and Recommendations of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee

This feedback is submitted to the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee by OPVIC (Ontario Parents of Visually Impaired Children). Our organization now uses the name OPVIC in our daily activity. Our corporate name remains Views for the Visually Impaired. The name OPVIC more effectively explains who we are.

We are provincially recognized as the organized non-profit, non-partisan advocacy voice of parents and guardians of children with vision loss in Ontario. This includes children and youth who are blind, or who have low vision, deaf blindness, or vision loss combined with one or more disabilities. As the parents of children with vision loss, our role every day is, in our own ways, to teach our children.

OPVIC advocates at the provincial and local levels on behalf of the needs of students with vision loss. For example, OPVIC has representatives on several Special Education Advisory Committees around Ontario. It is entitled to be represented on those committees as the grassroots voice advocating for the needs of children with vision loss.

OPVIC supports all the recommendations in the initial report of the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee. We want to see all of them implemented. We do not want any of them weakened or delayed.

We especially endorse the recommendations specific to the needs of students with vision loss, and congratulate the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee for coming forward with these recommendations. We have been trying, without success, to get the Ontario Government and the Ontario College of Teachers to raise the standards for qualifying as a Teacher of the Visually Impaired in Ontario for over three and a half years. It took that long just to get a joint meeting with the Government’s key officials and the Ontario College of Teachers. We have heard nothing over the weeks since we finally had that meeting.

This is just one example of how low incidence disabilities are treated with a disturbing second-class status in Ontario’s education system. It is very important for the Education Accessibility Standard to put an end to that second-class status for students with low incidence disabilities.

We ask the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee to add the following additional recommendations when it submits its final report to the Minister of Accessibility.

Pressing Need for An Assured Supply of Orientation and Mobility Specialists for Ontario Schools.

Barrier: For students with vision loss, it is vital to learn how to safely get around on their own. Without this vital life skill, all other efforts at education will be substantially more challenging.

For some, this includes training in the safe use of a white cane. School teachers do not teach this. Instead, a separate professional is required, called an Orientation and Mobility (O&M) specialist. School boards either employ O&M specialists, or contract outside providers for their services. The Ministry of Education does not appear to require each school board to report to the Ministry how many hours per week of O&M services students with vision loss receive, or how many O&M specialists (full time or equivalent) each school board has. See below OPVIC’s unsuccessful attempt to get this information directly from school boards.

As such, it is left to each school board to decide how many hours of O&M service each student with vision loss receives, and the qualifications of those providing this service. There is no accountability for this, nor is there any provincial monitoring. This is a serious issue, especially since Ontario has a shortage of O&M specialists, and no plan to replenish that dwindling supply. The Ontario Government’s Mohawk College used to provide an O&M training course for these instructors. However, this Government program was shut down some years ago, despite the pressing need for it.

We therefore ask the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee to recommend that:

  1. The Education Accessibility Standard should set and make public minimum standards that ensure that each student with vision loss who needs it receives the hours per week of direct orientation and mobility instruction by a qualified Orientation and Mobility specialist to ensure that the student can become safely and independently mobile.
  2. Each school board should be required to record, make public, and report to the Ministry of Education on the number of full-time qualified Orientation and Mobility specialists or full-time equivalents that they employ or contract for per year. The Ministry should be required to make this information public on a board-by-board basis, and to ensure that each school board has a sufficient supply of Orientation and Mobility specialists to meet the needs of their students with vision loss.
  3. The Ontario Government should be required to restore and maintain a post-secondary program in Ontario for training a sufficient supply of qualified Orientation and Mobility specialists.

Need for Each Student with Vision Loss to Receive a Sufficient Number of Hours Per Week of Direct Service from Qualified Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVI’s).

Barrier: The level of direct service that each student with vision loss receives per week varies wildly across Ontario. It is not tied to their actual needs. This is due to the shortage of TVI’s, the unfettered discretion of each school board to decide how many TVI’s to hire and how many hours to assign to each student, the lack of accountability, and the lack of a mandatory proper tool from being used across Ontario to assess each student’s functional needs.

OPVIC sent a survey to all publicly funded school boards on May 1st, 2021, to find out how many TVI’s and O&M specialists they employ and the levels of support that each student with vision loss receives, on average. We attached the survey below. Only seven school boards have answered our survey. Others have not answered, have said they will not answer, or have said that we must submit a Freedom of Information application or a research request. There is thus a very disturbing lack of public information and accountability.

A volunteer parents association such as ours should not have to undertake the work of trying to conduct such a survey. This should be the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Its chronic failure to do so is an example of how poorly low-incidence disabilities can be treated in the education system.

We therefore ask the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee to recommend that:

  1. Each school board should be required to track the kinds of information set out in the attached OPVIC survey, to report it to the Ministry of Education on an annual basis, and to make it public. The Ministry should annually make this information public on a province-wide basis and a school board by school board basis.
  2. The Ministry of Education should be required to mandate the use of an effective tool for assessing each student’s need for TVI support.
  3. The Education Accessibility Standard should require a school board to provide each student with vision loss with the hours of direct service from a TVI that the student needs to be able to fully and effectively undertake their education.

May 1, 2021 Survey Sent by OPVIC to All Ontario School Boards.

Ontario Parents of Visually Impaired Children (OPVIC)
Also known as Views for The Visually Impaired
April 28, 2021

I am a member of the board of directors of Ontario Parents of Visually Impaired Children (OPVIC). We are Ontario’s officially recognized volunteer non-profit charitable organization of parents of children who are blind, deafblind, or low vision. We advocate for the needs of those children. We are entitled to representation on Special Education Advisory Committees of school boards around Ontario. (Our corporate name remains Views for the Visually Impaired).

We are conducting a survey of all Ontario-funded school boards and welcome your assistance. We would appreciate it if your board could answer the 10 questions set out below. Answers may be emailed to us at “opvicsurvey@gmail.com”. We would appreciate receiving a response by Friday, June 11th, 2021. If your board will need more time, please let us know. If your board needs any help or clarification regarding our questions, contact us at “opvicsurvey@gmail.com”.

The purpose of our survey is to document the professional supports available in Ontario-funded schools for students with vision loss. We focus specifically on Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs) and Orientation and Mobility Specialists (O&M Specialists).

What do we plan to do with the information we obtain? We plan to consolidate it and make it public. We aim to present it to the Ontario Ministry of Education, and to make it available to all school boards. This information will form part of our advocacy efforts to ensure that students with vision loss get the supports they need to succeed in school. The Ontario Ministry of Education does not collect, consolidate and report on the information we are requesting. We hope this will help all involved in Ontario’s education system. We emphasize that we seek no identifying or confidential personal information about anyone, whether students or staff.

Background to This Survey

Vision loss is a “low incidence” disability among school-age children. When students with vision loss reach school, an indispensable school board employee who is vital to their acquiring literacy and other key learning skills is the expert TVI. At school boards, they are itinerant teachers. The TVI goes from school to school, providing the hands-on direct training to individual students with vision loss, one at a time, in specialized areas like braille reading and writing, where needed. They teach blind, low vision and deafblind children how to use rapidly evolving adaptive technology, such as screen-reading and print-enlarging programs. These apps enable them to use a computer, tablet or smart phone, essential to their learning.

The itinerant TVI is also the indispensable expert who educates and supports a student’s classroom teacher, special needs and educational assistant, and other teaching staff on how to effectively teach that student with vision loss. Most of the time that students with vision loss spend in school is with general education or special education teaching staff who have no training in how to teach students with vision loss. Where a TVI is involved, the TVI typically only spends a proportion of the student’s in-school time with a specific student who has vision loss.

In addition to the TVI, the O&M Specialist is an itinerant expert who plays a key role in educating students with vision loss on independence skills. They provide training for persons with vision loss on how to know where they are in space, and how to move through space safely and independently. That can include providing training on the use of a mobility aid such as a white cane, where appropriate. Some professionals train to work both as a TVI and an O&M specialist.

This request for information should not require approval of any Research Committee. We are asking for your Board’s policies, curriculum, practices, staffing levels, and ratios as they specifically relate to students with disabilities.

The Survey Questions:

We request the following information, if possible, for the present school year (2020-21) and the previous school year (2019-20).

(When this survey refers to students with vision loss, we mean any student who is blind, deafblind, or low vision. That includes, for example, students with cortical visual impairment CVI. “Students with vision loss” here includes students who also have another disability.)

  1. What is the total number of blind, low vision or deafblind students enrolled at your school board, from Kindergarten to Grade 12, and up to age 21, inclusive? Of these, how many are:
    1. totally blind
    2. low vision
    3. deafblind
    4. have vision loss plus at least one other disability, other than deafblindness.
    5. have cortical vision impairment (CVI)
    6. are now braille users or are aiming to become braille users and/or tactile users.

    (Note: some students may fit within more than one category above, and so, should be included in each category where they fit.)

  2. What is the total number of full-time or full-time equivalent Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs) that work for your school board? Of these how many are:
    1. full-time employees
    2. part-time employees
    3. on contract, either full-time or part-time.
  3. Of the teachers of the visually impaired working for your school board, how many have a masters or higher-level graduate degree specializing in teaching students with vision loss?
  4. How many full-time or full-time equivalent Orientation and Mobility Specialists work for your school board. Of these, how many are:
    1. full-time employees
    2. part-time employees
    3. contract workers or providing fee for service, full-time or part time.
  5. How many full-time or full-time equivalent Braillists work for your school board to do braille transcription and the creation of tactile raised-line materials for your students with vision loss? Of these, how many are:
    1. full-time employees
    2. part-time employees
    3. contract workers or providing fee for service, full-time or part time.
  6. What is the average student case load of your school board’s TVI, and of each Orientation and Mobility Specialist? In other words, for each full-time equivalent position, how many students are there per TVI (e.g., 20 students for each TVI full-time equivalent) and for each Orientation and Mobility Specialist (e.g., an average of 20 students for each full-time equivalent Orientation and Mobility Specialist)?
  7. Who (i.e., what position in your school board, and not the person’s name) decides in your school board how many hours per week a student with vision loss will get of direct TVI services? Or of direct Orientation and Mobility Services?
  8. What standards or tools are used for deciding how many hours of TVI or O&M direct services a specific student with vision loss will receive per week, and to govern the content of those services?
  9. For teaching students with vision loss, has your school board approved and required the use of the Expanded Core Curriculum for education of all students with vision loss?
    https://www.prcvi.org/resources/the-expanded-core-curriculum/
  10. The Canadian Coalition on Vision Health has established specific standards for teaching students with vision loss. They are called the Canadian National Standards for the Education of Children and Youth Who are Blind or Visually Impaired, Including Those with Additional Disabilities, 2017 Updated Edition, https://apsea.ca/assets/files/bvi/canadian-national-standards-doc.pdf.
    1. Is your school board aware of these standards?
    2. To what extent has your school board adopted these standards for teaching students with vision loss, and required that they be complied with?
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