Ontario eyes boost to protections in school for kids with medical conditions

Ontario is proposing to strengthen protections for students with medical conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, severe allergies and asthma to ensure they are safe while at school—welcome news for parents like Amy McQuaid.Her son Charlie has uncontrolled epilepsy with seizures that are silent and can just look like small, repetitive behaviours that can easily be missed in a busy classroom, she said.Charlie is in senior kindergarten this year and McQuaid said their experiences with varying levels of support for him prompted her to dive deep into the Ministry of Education policy on students with prevalent medical conditions.What she found was gaps in plans of care, supervision and enforceable provisions and she started Safe at School Ontario to advocate for changes. Much of what McQuaid urged is now being proposed by the government, including mandating several safety provisions.“I think the province has taken important steps in strengthening (the policy) by moving key elements from ‘should’ to ‘must,’ which is great, and they’re creating clearer, more consistent expectations for supporting medically fragile kids in Ontario,” she said.Proposed changes would ensure all school boards use the same form for creating plans of care for those students, specify that they apply both in school and on field trips and buses, require standardized training for staff and include sudden unexpected death in epilepsy risk factors, as well as other new measures.McQuaid is especially pleased at the inclusion of a sudden unexpected death in epilepsy risk factor assessment, with a son whose epilepsy is resistant to medication, and now would like to see the government include provisions that high-risk students must always be within a direct line of sight so subtle seizure activity is not missed.“It’s more specifically for medically fragile children who have significant amount of seizures,” she said. “A lot of the kids won’t need it, but the kids that do need it really need it, because they need help, they need intervention. With our son, he can’t tell you when he’s had a seizure. He loses his speech . . . and he can’t advocate for himself, and that’s a really clear risk.”Alana Diening, whose son has Type 1 diabetes and who has also been advocating for changes to this policy, said there are some good improvements in what is proposed, but she is hoping remaining gaps can be closed through the province’s consultations, such as a specific mention of administering a nasal spray in an emergency low-blood sugar situation.“These all have the potential to be incredible steps forward,” she said. “Unfortunately the individuals that will find out how effective these changes are will be our children.”The province is consulting on the proposed changes and comments can be submitted until July 12.

Ontario eyes boost to protections in school for kids with medical conditions

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