The Toronto District School Board says a blog post that slams teaching staff at a North York elementary school for preventing a young student with autism from taking part in a graduation ceremony is “inaccurate” and does not reflect the views of the child’s parents.
The woman who authored of the post, which has generated considerable buzz on social media, says parents of the junior kindergarten student were asked by staff at Muirhead Public School to bring the child to school late on the morning senior kindergarten students were graduating.
In the post, the woman, who claims to be the child’s caregiver, said she believes that teachers asked the special needs student to skip the graduation because they did not want her to “ruin” the event. She added that the child’s parents told her they agreed to it because the school had asked them to.
“As newcomers to Canada, the father was confused about his daughter’s rights in the public school system,” she wrote.
However the TDSB says opinions expressed in the post are not supported by the child’s parents.
“While we are very limited in what we can say publically due to privacy reasons, rest assured that the situation is not as it is portrayed. All decisions were made together with the family and in the child’s best interest,” TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said in a written statement released Wednesday morning.
The TDSB spokesperson added that the parents did not consent to the information being published online.
“It’s our understanding that the child’s parents have asked the author to remove the post. At this point, it does not appear that they have been successful,” Bird said.
