Haughton v. Toronto District School Board, 2009 HRTO 655

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Keimo Haughton by his next friend Yvette Haughton

Applicant

-and-

Toronto District School Board, Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario as Represented by the Minister of Education, Gerry Connelly, Kathleen Wynne, Angela Grogan, Don MacLean, Elana Loannou, Emanuel Moura, Krista Shay, Patricia Hodgins, Tara Blackwell and Wendy Glazier

Respondents

INTERIM DECISION

Adjudicator: Sherry Liang

Date: May 20, 2009

Citation: 2009 HRTO 655

Indexed as: Haughton v. Toronto District School Board

1This is an Application filed on April 2, 2009 under section 34 of Part IV of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19 as amended (the "Code"). The Application alleges discrimination in educational services on the basis of disability. Essentially, the applicant, a Grade 9 student at a school within the Toronto District School Board (the Board), alleges that as a student with special needs, the Board and its staff and officials have failed to provide him with appropriate education services, and have discriminated against him on the basis of his intellectual and physical disability.

2The Application names a number of other respondents; for some of them, it is not clear how they are alleged to have violated the Code.

3Some of the allegations made in this Application are identical to those in Tribunal File No. 2009-01784-I, an Application filed against the same respondents by another Grade 9 student at the same school.

4The applicant filed a Request to Expedite Proceedings along with his Application. The time for responding to the Application has not elapsed and no Responses have yet been filed, but the Tribunal has received responses to the Request to Expedite from many of the respondents, including the Board and the Minister of Education (the Province).

5The Board opposes expedition of the Application. The Province takes the position that it is not a proper party to the application, and takes no position on the Request to Expedite. The Tribunal does not rule on the position taken by the Province. If it wishes to be removed as a party from the proceedings the Province must, following or with the filing of its Response to the Application, file a Request for Order During Proceedings in Form 10.

REQUEST TO EXPEDITE

6In the Application, the applicant's mother states that her son has been home schooled since October 2008. In support of the Request to Expedite, the applicant's mother states that her son may lose the school year if she becomes unemployed. She states that she continues to suffer undue financial hardship because she is paying a tutor to home school her son.

7The Board objects to the Request to Expedite on the basis, among other things, that the nature of the allegations is unclear, the circumstances complex and preparation of its position requires reviewing the case with a large number of respondents, which will be difficult to accomplish in an expedited manner. It also asserts that the applicant's claims of possible harm are based on speculation.

8The desirability of dealing expeditiously with a claim that a student is not receiving proper education services is self-evident. However, whether such a claim warrants expediting the Tribunal's regular processes must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. It has been the Tribunal's experience that it receives a significant number of complaints about the schooling of young students – if all were expedited, the Tribunal's resources would be heavily weighted in favour of dealing with these cases at the expense of many other applications before it.

9In this case, without diminishing the seriousness of the applicant's concerns and the sincerity of the applicant's mother's desire to address her son's situation, the factors described as supporting an expedited process are not meaningfully different from those described by many other applicants before the Tribunal.

10This Application refers to events during the current school year that led the applicant's mother to withdraw her son from school in October 2008. This Application and Request to Expedite were not filed until more than six months later. Although it appears that events in the fall of 2008 are the main issue for the applicant, it is also apparent that the Application concerns disputes about the applicant's education that have accumulated over some time. The issues are complex and the Tribunal does not find it appropriate to require the respondents to prepare their Responses in an abridged time frame.

11The applicant's mother states that she decided to withdraw her son from school because of what she describes as the Board's failure to investigate her allegation of physical abuse against her son by his teacher. No detail about the allegation of abuse is provided. Although not specifically cited as a ground for expediting the Application, the applicant's mother clearly believes that urgent action must be taken on this allegation. She asks as part of her remedy that an independent investigation be conducted into the alleged abuse of her son.

12It is not clear that expediting the processing of this Application will resolve this issue for the applicant. A human rights proceeding, whether or not expedited, is unlikely to be the most appropriate forum for the applicant's mother to achieve her goal of compelling the Board to act on an allegation of physical abuse.

13In all the circumstances, the Tribunal will make no direction about abridging time lines for filing Responses or in connection with the hearing of this matter. The Board and the applicant have agreed to mediation, and the Tribunal will schedule a mediation as soon as possible following the filing of Responses.

14The Tribunal notes that even if the parties are not able to resolve all of the issues in the Application through mediation, the narrowing of the issues in dispute will assist in the expeditious hearing of this matter.