Brenda Bowlby

The applicant, born in Hong Kong on January 1, 2006 (local time), sought admission to junior kindergarten.

At the exact moment of his birth, it was December 31, 2005, in Ontario.

The school board denied admission because eligibility required a 2005 birth year as reflected on the birth certificate.

The applicant alleged discrimination based on place of origin.

The Tribunal dismissed the application, finding that relying on the local date of birth on a birth certificate does not engage the purposes of the prohibition against discrimination based on place of origin, as time zones do not relate to stereotyping or historical disadvantage.

The applicant, a nursing student, alleged discrimination on the basis of race against Humber College and several faculty members regarding a grade dispute process.

The applicant failed a course twice and was required to withdraw from the program.

She alleged that procedural flaws in the grade review process, including being denied the right to review her exam, were discriminatory.

The Tribunal found that while the grade review process was procedurally flawed, the flaws were inherent in the academic regulations and the college's practice of denying all students the right to see their exams.

The Tribunal concluded that the applicant failed to establish that her race played a role in how she was treated, and dismissed the application.

The applicant failed to attend the scheduled hearing of her human rights application.

The respondent requested that the application be dismissed.

The applicant subsequently left voice messages claiming she was too ill to travel.

The Tribunal declined to dismiss the application immediately, instead directing the applicant to provide medical documentation explaining her absence and her failure to notify the Tribunal in a timely manner, failing which the application would be dismissed as abandoned.

The applicant, an international student, alleged that a student services officer at the respondent College made a discriminatory comment to him based on his race and place of origin.

He also alleged that the College failed to properly investigate his subsequent complaint.

Following a hearing, the Tribunal found that the applicant failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that the alleged comment was made, noting corroborating evidence supporting the employee's denial and inconsistencies in the applicant's claims regarding the incident's impact.

The Tribunal also found that the College's internal investigation was comprehensive, serious, and timely.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant, an eleven-year-old student, alleged that the school board's head lice policy discriminated on the basis of age.

In this interim decision, the Tribunal addressed several procedural requests.

The Tribunal dismissed the applicant's requests for an interim remedy, to add the examining nurse as a respondent, and for early production of documents.

The Tribunal denied a publication ban but ordered that the applicant and her next friend be anonymized in decisions due to her age and the potential stigma.

The Tribunal also directed that the applicant's constitutional challenge to the definition of age in the Human Rights Code be heard as a preliminary issue.

The applicant, an eight-year-old boy with disabilities, sought an interim remedy to compel the respondent school board to immediately transition him to a full-time grade three program with specific accommodations, rather than the one hour per day currently offered.

The Tribunal granted the request to expedite the proceedings due to the urgency of the child's educational situation and the risk of developmental regression.

However, the Tribunal dismissed the request for an interim remedy, finding that the expert evidence provided did not establish that a rapid transition to full-time schooling was in the applicant's best interests or would effectively accommodate his disabilities.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission requested a reconsideration of an interim decision that dismissed portions of a human rights complaint on the basis of abuse of process, as the matters had already been dealt with by the Special Education Tribunal.

The Tribunal denied the request, finding that the Commission failed to establish any of the threshold criteria for reconsideration under Rule 102, and that the request amounted to re-arguing issues already decided.

The complainant, a student with autism spectrum disorder and a developmental disability, alleged that the school board discriminated against him by failing to accommodate his disability.

The school board brought a preliminary objection, arguing that the issues raised in the human rights complaint had already been decided by the Special Education Tribunal (SET) and should be dismissed based on issue estoppel, abuse of process, and s. 45.1 of the Human Rights Code.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found that while issue estoppel did not apply because the parties were not identical, proceeding with the complaint would be an abuse of process as it would permit re-litigation of issues already decided by the SET.

The Tribunal also found that s. 45.1 of the Code applied, as the SET proceeding appropriately dealt with the substance of the matters in dispute.

The Tribunal dismissed the portions of the complaint that had already been decided by the SET.

The appellant appealed the identification and placement of her child to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal after abandoning the Special Education Appeal Board (SEAB) process.

The Toronto District School Board challenged the Tribunal's jurisdiction on the basis that the appellant had not exhausted all rights of appeal as required by section 57(3) of the Education Act.

The Tribunal found that the appellant prematurely abandoned the SEAB process on the advice of her advocate.

Consequently, the Tribunal concluded it lacked jurisdiction to hear the merits of the case because the statutory prerequisite of exhausting all appeal rights had not been met.

The parent of a 12-year-old student with Autism/PDD appealed the school board's Identification, Placement and Review Committee decision.

The parent sought to have the student identified as an exceptional student with Communication - Autism/PDD and placed in a self-contained Learning Strategies class.

The school board agreed with the identification but argued for a Regular Class with Resource Assistance placement.

The Tribunal ordered that the student continue to be identified as an exceptional pupil with Communication - Autism/PDD and ordered a placement of Regular Class with Withdrawal Assistance, allowing the student to remain with peers while receiving intensive help from a special education teacher for less than 50% of the day.

The Tribunal also ordered amendments to the student's Individual Education Plan.

The appellant appealed the identification and placement of their child to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal.

The school board contested the Tribunal's jurisdiction, arguing the appellant had not exhausted all rights of appeal because they abandoned the Special Education Appeal Board (SEAB) process.

The Tribunal found that the school board had met its legislated obligations in setting up the SEAB and that the appellant had not fully exhausted their rights of appeal before applying to the Tribunal.

The appeal was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

The appellant parent appealed the special education placement of her child, an eight-year-old student with autism, to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal.

The school board raised a preliminary objection that the issue was moot because the parties had already reached an agreement on the placement (Regular Class with Resource Assistance) following a Special Education Appeal Board recommendation.

The Tribunal found that the parent had already received all the remedies sought in her Notice of Appeal and that there was no actual disagreement between the parties regarding identification or placement.

As the statutory precondition of a disagreement under s. 57(3) of the Education Act was not met, the Tribunal dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

The parent of a 12-year-old child with autism and a developmental disability appealed the school board's decision to place the child in a self-contained special education class.

The parent sought an integrated placement in a regular Grade 6 classroom with supports.

The Tribunal found that the child's complex needs, including being non-verbal, requiring intensive habit training, and needing a calm environment, could not be met in a regular middle school classroom.

The Tribunal ordered placement in a self-contained special education class with opportunities for integration during non-academic activities.

The appellant parent appealed the special education identification and placement of their child to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal.

The school board brought a motion to dismiss the appeal on the basis that there was no disagreement between the parties regarding the child's identification or placement.

The Tribunal found that the parent agreed with the child's identification and that the school board had offered the specific placement location requested by the parent.

As the requested placement was implemented for the start of the school year, the Tribunal concluded the appeal was moot and dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction.

The appellant parent appealed the identification and placement of her child, who has Autism/PDD, to the Ontario Special Education (English) Tribunal.

The respondent school board brought a motion to dismiss the appeal, arguing the Tribunal lacked jurisdiction because there was no disagreement between the parties regarding the student's identification or placement.

The Tribunal found that the appellant had exhausted all rights of appeal under the regulations and remained dissatisfied with both the identification and placement decisions.

Consequently, the Tribunal dismissed the board's motion and assumed jurisdiction to hear the merits of the appeal.

The parent of a 14-year-old child with Down syndrome appealed an IPRC decision identifying the child with a Developmental Disability and placing the child in a Special Education Class (Home School Comprehensive).

The parent sought an identification of Exceptional with no category named (or Multiple Exceptionality) and a full-time regular class placement with a dedicated educational assistant.

The Tribunal ordered the child identified as Exceptional Intellectual pending further psychological assessment, finding previous assessments outdated or unreliable.

The Tribunal ordered a mixed placement: a regular Grade 8 class for at least 50% of the time with special needs assistant support, combined with resource withdrawal assistance for mathematics and language in the Home School program, concluding that full-time regular class placement without specific skill instruction was not in the child's best interests.

The parent appealed the school board's special education placement decision to the Special Education Tribunal.

The school board brought a preliminary motion arguing the appeal was moot because it had already agreed to provide the specific placement requested by the parent (Special Class with Partial Integration) and had attempted to convene an IPRC meeting to implement it, which the parent refused to attend.

The Tribunal agreed with the school board, finding that since the requested placement had been offered, there was no live issue to decide.

The Tribunal declined jurisdiction to hear the appeal on the basis of mootness.

The parent of a gifted student appealed the school board's Identification Placement Review Committee decision to change the student's placement from a congregated gifted class to a categorical placement in a regular grade nine class.

The parent argued that the student required a congregated gifted program to meet their needs, which the board claimed it did not offer at the secondary level.

The Tribunal found that the categorical placement was inappropriate and would not provide the necessary intellectual challenge or peer interaction.

The Tribunal ordered the school board to provide the student with a placement in a gifted congregated (clustered) program.

The applicants, representing occasional teachers, sought interim relief and filed a complaint alleging the OSSTF and the Toronto District School Board breached the Labour Relations Act.

They argued that a new collective agreement for full-time teachers effectively eliminated the work of occasional teachers, breaching the OSSTF's duty of fair representation and the employer's duty not to interfere with a trade union.

The Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissed the application, holding that a union's duty of fair representation only applies when it is actively representing that specific bargaining unit, and that the employer's agreement to terms impacting another unit's work did not constitute statutory interference.

The respondent employer brought a motion to defer setting hearing dates until the Divisional Court and Court of Appeal decided pending appeals in other cases raising similar issues regarding the exclusion of women on maternity leave from short-term disability benefits.

The Board of Inquiry dismissed the motion, finding that its public interest mandate under the Human Rights Code required it to expeditiously decide the issues before it, and that deferring the hearing could result in years of delay.