‘It’s discriminatory’: Students of Ontario school for the blind urge province to end virtual learning

in-person learning.“Everyone else is allowed to go back to school right now, I feel like it’s discriminatory,” said student Megan Myers.“Being online means we don’t have equal access to education, and as people who are already a minority in society this is a major setback,” said student Jade Ondrick.In an interview with Global News, 18-year-old Ondrick said she is losing out on important life skills because the school’s lodging program has been shut down.“Being able to be in the lodging program means that I get to help with cooking on Thursday nights and I get to learn proper cutting techniques and all that kind of independent skills that people who are abled and who are fully visual take for granted,” she said.

Mental health must be part of curriculum as students cope with COVID-19 pandemic, say experts W. Ross Macdonald School is one of a handful of Provincial and Demonstration Schools in Ontario that have closed their residences.“The recommendation was that if we can’t achieve isolation with an immediate timeframe if a child is symptomatic to go home it could have an impact and potential risk for these kids and so we made the difficult decision on the strict advice of the Chief Medical Officer of Health to have a temporary pivot to virtual, but I know these kids have to get back to class,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce told Global News.If students can get to the Brantford school every day, they can attend in person, but most live far away so they are at home learning virtually.

Acadia students, faculty call for flexible learning options as in-person classes resume “It doesn’t matter if you’re visually impaired, low vision, partially sighted, blind, deaf-blind doesn’t matter, we learn in a hands-on environment,”.