Ottawa families with autistic children are once again asking a familiar and urgent question: are Ontario schools doing enough to keep vulnerable students safe?
The question resurfaced this week after a nine-year-old autistic child wandered away from school — an incident that advocates say is far from isolated, and one that points to deeper, systemic gaps in how Ontario supports students with disabilities.
What Is Elopement?
The behaviour is called elopement — when an autistic person runs or wanders away from a caregiver or a location where they're supposed to be safe. It's not a tantrum or defiance. For many autistic individuals, elopement is a response to sensory overload, anxiety, or an overwhelming environment, and it can happen quickly and without warning.
For schools, elopement is a known and documented safety risk. Educators and support staff are generally aware it can happen. The troubling part, say experts, is that awareness hasn't translated into adequate prevention.
Advocates Say the System Is Under-Resourced
Advocates and special education experts across Ontario have long argued that the province's schools are chronically under-resourced when it comes to supporting students with developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Support workers, educational assistants, and behavioural therapists are often stretched thin — sometimes responsible for multiple students at once — making close, individualized supervision difficult to maintain throughout a school day. For a child who may elope without any visible warning signs, that gap in attention can become a safety crisis in minutes.
Families with autistic children frequently report having to fight for individualized education plans (IEPs) that actually reflect their child's needs, and even harder battles to ensure those plans are properly resourced and followed in the classroom.
A Familiar Story for Many Ottawa Families
For Ottawa-area parents of autistic children, this week's incident will resonate deeply. Many have navigated school systems that are well-meaning but underfunded, and have experienced the fear of a child wandering somewhere unsafe — or the exhaustion of advocating for basic safety measures.
Ontario's special education funding model has faced criticism for years. While the province provides a base level of funding to school boards, critics argue it doesn't account for the real cost of one-on-one support that many autistic students require to safely participate in school life.
What Needs to Change
Experts point to several areas where improvement is needed: more trained support staff, better physical safeguards in school buildings (like secured entry points and check-in systems), and robust safety protocols specifically designed around the risk of elopement.
Crucially, individualized safety plans — developed in partnership with families who know their child best — should be standard practice for any student with a known elopement history, not something parents have to push for.
Until Ontario meaningfully invests in the staffing and infrastructure that special education requires, incidents like this week's will keep happening — and families will keep wondering if their child is truly safe at school.
Source: CBC Ottawa
