The Long Saga of OPVIC Advocating for Reform to the Training  of Teachers of the Visually Impaired, and the Need for Far More TVIs to Be Available to Students with Vision Loss in Ontario

Since early January 2018, OPVIC, earlier operating under the name Views, tried valiantly to get the Ontario Government and the Ontario College of Teachers to reform and strengthen the training requirements for teachers of the visually impaired, and to increase the number of TVIs and orientation and mobility specialists available in Ontario. It has been a frustrating uphill battle, meeting a great deal of delay, polite words, and recurring inaction by public officials and politicians. The following 16 documents tell you the story of these four years of our latest round of effort, leading up to the June 2022 Ontario provincial election.

1. The January 28, 2018 brief that OPVIC, then called Views, submitted to the Ontario Minister of Education. It explains the issue to the Ontario Government, points out what reforms are needed, and urges prompt action.
2. The January 31, 2018 letter from CNIB to the Ministry of Education. Here, Canada’s largest organization specializing in services for people with vision loss fully supports the January 28, 2018 OPVIC brief that called for reform in this area.
3. The March 2, 2018 email from Views board member David Lepofsky to Ontario Assistant Deputy Ministers of Education Martyn Beckett and Shirley Kendrick. This confirmed the meeting that CNIB and Views (now OPVIC) had with Ministry officials on March 1, 2018. There was to be a follow-up meeting in four weeks. It did not happen, despite our availability.
4. The April 24, 2018 letter to the Ontario Ministry of Education from the Ontario chapter of AER Ontario, the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired. AER is an organization of teachers and other rehabilitation professionals who are specialists in working with people with vision loss. In this letter, AER endorsed the January 28, 2018 OPVIC brief to the Ontario Government.
5. The May 18, 2018 letter to Views (now OPVIC) from Ontario Assistant Deputy Ministers of Education Martyn Beckett and Shirley Kendrick. In substance, it gives no specific answers to our concerns and commits to no reforms, nor any future discussions. It in effect points us to speak with a Ministry-appointed advisory committee, NACSE, which has no power to fix any of these problems.
6. The February 14, 2020 brief by OPVIC, then calling itself Views, to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s “Right To Read” inquiry. The Ontario Human Rights Commission was looking into barriers to learning to read for students with reading disabilities. The Commission was too narrowly focusing on students with learning disabilities, but not students with vision loss. Our brief raised our concerns with TVI training and availability for students with vision loss, and urged the Commission to broaden its inquiry to cover this. It was a long shot to raise our issues there, but the Ontario Human Rights Commission should consider the right to read matters for students with vision loss, not just students with learning disabilities. The chief commissioner of the Commission at that time, Renu Mandane, refused to meet with us or have a phone call to discuss this issue.
7. The May 1, 2020 letter from OPVIC, then calling itself Views, to Jeff Butler, Ontario’s acting Assistant Deputy Minister of Education responsible for special education. In this letter, we again spelled out the TVI issue, and called for Government action.
8. The June 18, 2020 OPVIC brief to the Ministry of Education on planning for re-opening schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the pandemic first hit in mid March 2020, all Ontario schools closed, and went to distance learning. This created additional barriers for students with vision loss, which the Ontario Government did not effectively address. In June 2020, the Ontario Government sought public input on its plans for re-opening schools that fall. In this brief, OPVIC made several constructive recommendations. As far as we know, none were implemented. These recommendations included measures regarding the availability of TVI supports and services for students with vision loss.
9. The June 25, 2020 OPVIC brief to the Ontario College of Teachers on raising training qualifications for TVIs. OPVIC had for some time tried to get the Ontario College of Teachers to take action to strengthen the training requirements for TVIs. The Ontario College of Teachers had been told in the past about these deficiencies, but had never corrected them. In this brief, OPVIC addressed new reform proposals that the Ontario College of Teachers was then considering. We showed how those reform proposals were inadequate. Since then, as far as we have been told, the Ontario College of Teachers did not implement the reforms it was then consulting on.
10. The March 22, 2021 email from OPVIC board member David Lepofsky to senior Ontario Ministry of Education officials Patrick Case and Claudine Munroe yet again trying to get the Ministry to take action on these TVI issues.
11. The April 6, 2021 letter from OPVIC to Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce. In this letter, OPVIC raises these TVI concerns with Minister Lecce and asks him to get his Ministry to take action on this issue.
12. On July 15, 2021, the Ministry had organized a virtual roundtable meeting to discuss options for improving the training of TVIs in Ontario. We had been pressing for this roundtable to take place for three years. This email summarizes the key discussions at that roundtable, and calls for follow-up action.
13. The August 3, 2021 letter from OPVIC to Ontario’s Minister of Education again trying to spur Government action on the TVI issues we have been raising for years.
14. The September 19, 2021 OPVIC brief to the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee. In 2018, the Ontario Government appointed the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act to recommend to the Government what should be included in a new regulation, to be called the Education Accessibility Standard, to tear down the many barriers that impede students with disabilities in their education. In this brief, OPVIC lays out for the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee what it should recommend for students with vision loss, especially as concerns the problems with TVI training and supply in Ontario.
15. Excerpts from the March 1, 2022 final report of the Government-appointed K-12 Education Standards Development Committee that address specific needs of students with vision loss. OPVIC endorses all these recommendations.
16. Excerpts from the January 27, 2022 final report of the Ontario Human Rights Commissions “Right to Read” inquiry. In this report, the Ontario Human Rights Commission notes the objections we have been raising for years regarding the training of, and inadequate number of, TVIs in Ontario.