The Local: A Long-Brewing Crisis in Special Education

Illustration by Maggie Prince / The Local

Marie Smith sat next to the boy, stunned by what he wrote.

The boy had already spent a full year with Smith, a veteran educational assistant with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Smith works with a special education teacher in an intensive support program, or special education class, of 12 students between grades one and three with mild intellectual disabilities.

Amid the daily chaos of the classroom, the boy was generally quiet and kept to himself. But he was also quick to explode, physically striking out at anything or anyone near him if he heard a loud noise like a sneeze. He was considered non-verbal, meaning he didn’t express himself through speech. And like some of his classmates, he wasn’t yet using the toilet on his own.

So that day when Smith had a rare moment to sit down with him and explain that “E” was for “elephant,” she was shocked when he responded by writing out the word “elephant.”

She tried again.

“‘E’ as in ‘envelope,’” she said.

With his pencil in hand, he wrote “envelope.”

“‘E’ as in ‘electricity,’” she said.

Again, he wrote out the entire word.

“He was absolutely brilliant, and we didn’t even know it,” said Smith, who is using a pseudonym because she was not authorized by the TDSB to speak with the media. “Nobody ever had time to sit with him and learn.”