The Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority (APSEA), despite facing opposition from families, has announced its intentions to discontinue its essential centralized short-term interventions and psycho-educational assessment services.

News & Updates

• CBC Radio Interview – November 22, 2024
• Response From the Liberal Party
• Nova Scotia Election 2024: Letter to Official Parties
• January 20: Atlantic Canadian families of blind children call on Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority; provincial governments to reinstate vital training and assessment services
• Families meet with the Hon. Becky Druhan advocating for services for Nova Scotia’s blind youth

Who are we?

We are a group of over 60 students, families, and former staff and students of APSEA advocating for essential programs and services for children and youth with sight loss.

What are short-term programs?

Short-term programs are interventions wherein students from all four Atlantic provinces travel to APSEA’s campus (travel provided by APSEA) in Halifax for one to two weeks to receive intensive, ‘nine to nine’ instruction in the nine areas of the expanded core curriculum. This curriculum consists of nine skill areas essential for blind and partially sighted students’ success after high school, including independent travel throughout the community, and safely completing activities of daily living.

What are psychoeducational assessments?

Psychoeducational assessments allow educators to understand a child’s aptitude and academic achievement in core skill areas such as reading, writing, and numeracy. These assessments are an invaluable tool for educators teaching blind and partially sighted students.

What are itinerant services?

Itinerant services are provided by an itinerant teacher, or teacher of the visually impaired (TVI). They are assigned a caseload and travel between schools to work one on one supporting students in schools. They teach essential compensatory skills such as braille and assistive technology, support a student’s academics, advocate for students, and support school teams. They are the link between school staff and APSEA and are families’ primary contact at APSEA.

Itinerant services may also include a school or home visit by a specialist, such as an orientation and mobility instructor or assistive technology specialist. However, due to the large geographic area served by APSEA, frequency is very limited.

Why is this important?

APSEA’s service delivery model, itinerant services in students’ home communities and access to a centralized center of excellence, was once regarded as one of the best in North America. Few other places give students access to full inclusion and intensive training opportunities to prepare them for success inside school, the community, and their careers.

Short-term programs are the most efficient and effective way to teach students in our largely rural region the essential expanded core curriculum skills. Short-term programs allow students to attend mainstream schools in their home communities, while still learning all the skills they will need to succeed after high school, with minimal interruption to their studies.

Due to the nature of the itinerant service model, the amount of time itinerant teachers can spend with students is inherently limited, leaving little available time for orientation and mobility (O&M), life skills training (ex. cooking and cleaning safely, hygiene etc.). Short-term programs allow students to learn skills quickly and apply them upon return to their home communities. Furthermore, some expanded core curriculum skills can only be taught in an urban area, such as independent, urban travel skills; this training would otherwise be inaccessible to many families, if not for the residential short-term program. It is well-known by educators of students who are blind and partially sighted that frequent training and reinforcement is essential skill acquisition, which, as mentioned above, is drastically limited by a solely itinerant service delivery model.

Traditional psychoeducational assessment techniques used for sighted students can’t accurately capture the abilities of blind and partially sighted students. Assessments performed by psychologists without adequate training and support can -and have- lead to inappropriate assumptions about students’ full potential, which can impact their placement in school and opportunities to succeed. Correctly performed assessments ensures our students are treated equitably and aren’t falling behind their peers. This is especially essential for young students, ensuring that they start school at the same level as their peers.

The model proposed by APSEA

The new service delivery model, proposed by APSEA, would abandon their highly regarded short-term programs and assessment services in favor of virtual programs and smaller, regional, in-person gatherings.

Given the rural nature of APSEA’s caseload, regional gatherings are challenging; not only to find participants, but many rural areas lack the infrastructure to effectively teach expanded core curriculum skills. Put simply, a picnic in the park once per quarter will do little to teach students independent travel or career skills. Early, and frequent interventions are vital to students’ acquisition of these essential skills.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, APSEA, like other organizations temporarily offered their traditional programming virtually. Parents reported that the virtual learning series presenting content of the expanded core curriculum was ineffective and left many families with ‘Zoom fatigue”. In addition to limitations in their efficacy, virtual learning series eliminates assessment and evaluation provided in traditional short-term programs. These formal, detailed reports were provided to update both the students’ schools and families on their progress. For virtual learning series, only the limited content that is presented to students is reported, with limited evaluation of comprehension.

Families’ response to the new model

Over the past year, families have made it clear to APSEA that we oppose abandoning centralized short-term programs and assessment services. While regional gatherings and virtual learning opportunities are a useful bridge to connect students in rural areas, families strongly believe that virtual learning for educating blind and partially sighted students is inadequate. This is not to mention the devastating loss of community felt by blind and partially sighted students, lacking regular opportunities (through short-term programs) to connect with each other. Our students are already a marginalized community, and depriving students of opportunities to connect further increases the isolation felt by blind and partially sighted students, who are often the only student with sight loss in their school.

Following the two-year disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more essential than ever that out children have access to short-term programs and assessment services.

You can read more about families’ response to these announcements in our briefing note and open letter to APSEA’s board of directors: