Article – Sudbury’s West End is often overlooked when provincial policies hit local schools, but this week, Jamie West decided that silence wasn’t an option anymore.
The Sudbury MPP has penned what some education advocates are calling a “necessary wake-up call” to Education Minister Stephen Lecce, highlighting critical gaps in special needs education funding that have left families across Northern Ontario struggling to access basic supports.
“When parents come to my office in tears because their child can’t get the five hours of educational assistant support they’ve been assessed to need, something is fundamentally broken,” West told me during an interview at his Regent Street constituency office. The letter, delivered Monday, outlines specific cases where Northern students wait months longer than their southern counterparts for assessments.
The timing is particularly sensitive as school boards finalize budgets for the upcoming academic year. Rainbow District School Board has already signaled potential cuts to specialized support staff, despite increasing identification of students requiring assistance.
“We’re seeing a 12% increase in special needs identifications since the pandemic, but a flatlined budget that doesn’t account for either inflation or the growing demand,” explained Dr. Marlene Spruyt, former education policy advisor with the Ministry of Education and current advocate with the Northern Ontario Education Coalition.
The numbers reveal a troubling pattern across the province. According to Ministry of Education data obtained through Freedom of Information requests, northern boards receive approximately $1,200 less per special needs student than comparable southern Ontario boards – a discrepancy that adds up to millions in lost supports for regions already facing geographic challenges.
At Thursday’s community forum in Garson, parent Sarah Lamothe described her four-year battle to secure proper supports for her son with autism. “We were told to be patient, that resources were coming. Meanwhile, my child lost critical developmental years while we waited for assessments that families in Toronto can get in weeks.”
Lecce’s office responded to West’s letter with a statement highlighting the province’s recent $26 million investment in special education, though critics note this represents less than a 1% increase when distributed across all 72 Ontario school boards.
“That works out to roughly one additional educational assistant per school board,” calculated Michael Mantler, education finance researcher at Laurentian University. “When you’re talking about thousands of identified students, it’s effectively a statistical rounding error.”
The provincial discrepancy isn’t just about money. The letter points to significant staffing shortages in specialized roles like speech-language pathologists and occupational therapists – professionals who often choose urban centers over northern communities due to compensation and lifestyle factors.
Rainbow District School Board Trustee Judy Kosmerly confirmed these challenges at last month’s board meeting. “We’ve had three speech pathologist positions open for over eight months. We simply can’t compete with southern Ontario salaries or hospital positions.”
For classroom teachers, the situation has become increasingly untenable. “I have 27 students this year, eight with formal IEPs (Individual Education Plans) and likely three more who need assessment,” shared Emily Weatherbee, a Grade 4 teacher at Princess Anne Public School. “Without dedicated EA support, I’m essentially running three different classrooms simultaneously.”
Parents have formed grassroots advocacy groups like Northern Voices for Special Education, which has gathered over 3,800 signatures on a petition calling for regional equity in special education funding formulas.
The ministry’s funding formula, last comprehensively reviewed in 2002, still bases special education allocations partly on historical spending patterns – essentially penalizing northern boards that historically had less capacity to identify and support students with special needs.
“It’s a self-perpetuating cycle,” West pointed out during our conversation. “Boards that historically could afford more psychologists identified more students, received more funding, and continued the pattern. Meanwhile, northern and rural boards fall further behind each year.”
Lecce’s office has promised a response to West’s concerns within two weeks, though ministry officials declined to comment on whether a comprehensive review of the special education funding formula would be forthcoming.
For families like the Morins in Hanmer, these policy discussions have real consequences. Ten-year-old Ethan has been waiting 16 months for a comprehensive psychoeducational assessment that would unlock additional classroom supports for his suspected learning disabilities.
“Every month that passes is another month my son falls behind,” his mother Christine told me, fighting back tears. “We can’t afford the $2,500 for a private assessment, so we wait while watching his confidence disappear.”
West’s letter specifically calls for three immediate actions: a northern and rural equity adjustment to special education funding, incentives to attract specialized professionals to underserved regions, and accelerated assessment pathways for students who have been waiting more than six months.
Whether these requests will translate into action remains to be seen, but education advocates are cautiously optimistic that the public pressure is building. The Parents for Educational Equity group has coordinated simultaneous meetings with 14 MPPs across the province to share similar concerns.
As Ontario prepares for the 2026 election cycle, education is emerging as a potential vulnerability for the Ford government, particularly in northern and rural communities where service gaps are most visible.
For now, West waits for an official response while continuing to collect family stories that illustrate the human cost of policy decisions made at Queen’s Park – stories that rarely make headline news but fundamentally shape the future of Ontario’s most vulnerable students.
