Put It in Writing: What I Learned About IEPs, Safety and Asking the Right Questions

Today my son starts Grade 1.

Last night, I should have been checking his backpack, preparing his clothes and trying to make the morning feel exciting. Instead, I found myself learning the rules of Ontario’s special education system because I did not understand exactly how my son would be kept safe at school.

Isaac is on the autism spectrum. Academically, I have no concerns about him. Over the summer, he taught himself the Sanskrit, Arabic and Urdu alphabets and number systems. His handwriting has improved tremendously, and he has made incredible progress with conversations and pretend play. But academic ability does not erase disability-related support needs. Isaac still has difficulty recognizing when he is hungry or needs to use the toilet. He has sensory difficulties with cleaning himself, can become distracted while moving between places and does not always recognize physical danger. He has also had difficulties with elopement, although he has made great progress through CHEO URS this summer.

Before speaking to the school, I emailed them everything I wanted to discuss. I asked for photos of his classroom, teachers and hallway so that he could prepare visually. I explained the changes in his transportation needs. I listed the areas I hoped we could address through his IEP: bathroom support, hunger cues, safety awareness, conversations, peer play and daily living skills. I also included his progress and strengths because an IEP should not be a list of everything a child supposedly cannot do.

The school sent me the photos, and they helped. Isaac could see his English teacher and some of the spaces he would be entering. He was still anxious about starting school, but the unknown had become slightly less unknown.

Then I received a phone call.

During that conversation, I understood that there was no capacity for Isaac to have a 1:1 EA, that there would be no EA in his French classroom and that the school was going to wait and see how he managed in Grade 1 before settling his new IEP goals.

I panicked.

What I heard was: There will be no EA in French, and we will wait to see whether he bolts.

That may not have been what the school meant, but it was what I understood. When the subject is your child’s physical safety, “We will see how it goes” is not a sentence that quietly floats away. It sits in your chest and grows teeth.

Normally, I might have called PLEO and spoken to someone who understands the education system. But my son was starting school the next morning. I did not have time to arrange an appointment, gather every document and calmly investigate the entire process.

So I used what I had.

I spoke to AI—both ChatGPT and Gemini.

I know that makes some of you uncomfortable, and honestly, it should come with a warning. AI is not a lawyer, a special education advocate or an official source. It can misunderstand laws, confuse Ontario rules with American ones and state something far too confidently. In fact, some of the initial advice I received was too absolute. It suggested that staffing limitations could never be relevant and came close to implying that Isaac had an automatic legal right to a dedicated EA and a formally titled “Elopement Plan.”

Ontario law does not promise every disabled student a 1:1 EA. It requires the school board to provide appropriate, individualized accommodation that effectively meets the student’s disability-related needs, up to the point of undue hardship. The school may meet those needs through a combination of staff support, routines, environmental changes, transition procedures, equipment and other measures. The law protects the need—not necessarily the parent’s preferred job title or staffing arrangement. (Ontario Human Rights Commission: Appropriate accommodation)

But AI helped me do something I desperately needed in that moment: it helped me slow down, organize my fear and turn it into specific questions.

I did not send an accusation. I sent a request for clarity.

I thanked the school for the phone call and the photos. Then I wrote down what I believed I had heard: no 1:1 EA, no EA in the French classroom and a plan to see how Isaac managed. I explained that because of his history of elopement and difficulty recognizing danger, I was concerned about transitions, bathroom trips and unfamiliar spaces.

Then I asked:

• What supervision and safety measures will be in place during French class and hallway transitions?
• How will his bathroom routine and safety monitoring be managed when dedicated support staff are unavailable?
• When will we meet to review and formalize his IEP and his safety procedures?

That email changed everything—not because it threatened anyone, but because it exposed a misunderstanding.

The reply explained that Isaac would not be alone in the hall. Mrs. Angela would meet him at the van and take him to his morning classroom. An EA would walk him between classes. If he needed the bathroom during French, the EA from his English class would be called to take him. Both classroom doors would have bells, and he would wear his high-visibility vest in the yard. His French class would not have an EA inside it, but the school had still planned support around the times and places where his risk was greatest.

The school also clarified that “waiting to see how things go” referred to observing him before setting his Grade 1 IEP goals—not waiting for a safety incident to occur.

I cannot adequately explain the relief that came from reading those details.

The situation itself had not suddenly transformed. There was still no EA stationed in the French classroom. What changed was that I finally knew the plan. There were names, actions and procedures. I no longer had to fill every blank with the worst possible scenario.

This is why clarity matters.

An IEP Is More Than a Form

In Ontario, an Individual Education Plan, or IEP, is a working document. It can record a student’s strengths and needs, accommodations, special education programs and services, learning expectations, ways of measuring progress, required human support, individualized equipment and transition planning. It should be implemented, monitored and updated as the student’s needs change—not prepared once and then forgotten inside the Ontario Student Record. The Ministry describes it as both a working document and an accountability tool. (Ontario Ministry of Education: What is an IEP?)

Parents must be consulted during the development and review of an IEP, and information about those consultations must be recorded. Parents must also receive a copy of the completed plan. However, consultation does not mean that the parent alone writes the IEP or has an automatic veto over every part of it. The parent’s signature generally records consultation, receipt and comments; it should not be mistaken for a statement that the parent agrees with every word. (Ontario Ministry of Education: Components of the IEP)

For a student formally identified by an Identification, Placement and Review Committee—an IPRC—and placed in a special education program, Ontario Regulation 181/98 requires the principal to ensure that the IEP is completed and sent to the parent within 30 school days of placement. That is not 30 calendar days. Schools may also create IEPs for students who have not been formally identified through an IPRC, but parents should check their board’s special education policy to understand how its process and timelines apply in those cases. (Ontario Regulation 181/98; Ontario Ministry requirements)

Ontario policy also requires transition planning for students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 who have an IEP. “Transition” does not only mean graduating from high school. It can include starting school, changing grades, moving between classrooms or subjects, changing activities and moving from one school or program to another. For a child like Isaac, travelling from English to French, returning from the bathroom and entering a new Grade 1 environment are not insignificant details. They are exactly the kinds of transitions that may need planning. (Ontario Ministry of Education: Support for students with autism)

The Right Is to Accommodation, Not Necessarily a Particular Person

This distinction is important because parents are often told, “There are not enough EAs,” and the conversation ends there.

It should not end there.

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, education providers have a duty to accommodate disability-related needs up to the point of undue hardship. According to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, only cost, outside sources of funding, and health and safety requirements may be considered when assessing undue hardship. A vague statement that a school has limited resources is not, by itself, proof that accommodation would cause undue hardship. The Commission also says that if the best accommodation cannot be provided immediately, the education provider should consider timely interim measures. (OHRC: Undue hardship standard; OHRC: Accommodation process)

At the same time, this does not mean a parent can demand one particular employee and that the school must agree. The question is whether the plan actually addresses the child’s needs effectively, individually, safely and with dignity.

Instead of asking only, “Will my child have a 1:1 EA?” it may be more useful to ask:

• Who will meet my child when they arrive?
• Who is responsible during each transition?
• What happens if they leave the classroom?
• How will staff know that the door has opened?
• Who accompanies them to the bathroom?
• What happens during recess, lunch, assemblies and field trips?
• What is the backup plan if the usual staff member is absent?
• Where will these arrangements be written?
• Who will review whether they are working, and when?

A school may call the result a safety procedure, risk-management protocol, supervision plan, accommodation plan or something else. There does not appear to be one province-wide rule guaranteeing that an elopement protocol must carry one particular title. What matters most is that known risks are addressed, responsibilities are clear, relevant staff know the procedure and the supports are actually implemented.

Observing a Child Is Not the Same as Withholding Support

The school’s decision to observe Isaac for a few weeks before finalizing his Grade 1 goals was not inherently unreasonable. Grade 1 has different routines, class sizes and expectations from Kindergarten. His teachers need to see his current strengths and needs in that environment if they are going to write useful goals.

But there is an important difference between observing a child so that a working document can be improved and withholding support until the child fails.

Known safety needs do not disappear during an observation period. If a child already has a documented history of elopement, the school should not need a new incident to prove that transition supervision matters. Existing information, previous plans, family input and relevant clinical reports can be used to put immediate or interim measures in place while the new IEP is being developed.

In Isaac’s case, those safety measures already existed. I simply had not understood them from the phone conversation.

That matters too. Sometimes the problem is not that nobody has made a plan. Sometimes the plan exists inside the heads of several adults while the parent is imagining an unguarded door.

A plan that has not been clearly communicated cannot reassure the family. A plan that has not been clearly documented can also be harder for substitute staff or new teachers to follow consistently.

Why I Put Everything in Writing

I write because I forget. I write because spoken conversations move quickly, and anxiety can make it difficult to process what I am hearing. I write because two people can leave the same phone call with completely different understandings of what was said.

Writing an email after a call is not automatically hostile or an attempt to “build a case” against a teacher. It can simply be an external memory.

PLEO’s education-system guide advises parents to keep education documents in chronological order, put school communication in writing, take notes during meetings and send a summary email after phone conversations. It also encourages parents to ask for clarification when they do not understand a term and to write down what they believe they heard so the school can confirm or correct it. (PLEO: Navigating the Education System)

That is almost exactly what happened here.

I wrote, “This is what I understood.” The school replied, “There was a misunderstanding,” and then gave me the missing details. I did not need to start a legal war. I needed to know who was meeting my child at the van.

A useful follow-up email does not need to be aggressive. It can contain four things:

1. What you understood: “During our conversation, I understood that…”
2. Why it matters: “Because my child has difficulty with…, I am concerned about…”
3. What you need clarified: “Could you please explain who will…, what will happen if…, and when we will review…?”
4. The next step: “Please let me know when we can meet or when I can expect the written plan.”

Specific questions are far more useful than “Please make sure my child is safe.” Everyone can agree that safety matters while imagining completely different procedures.

What Parents in Ontario Should Know

If you are entering this process and do not know where to begin, start with your child’s functional needs. A diagnosis can be important, but accommodations should address what the child actually experiences at school: communication, sensory regulation, personal care, transitions, attention, mobility, safety, emotional regulation or access to learning.

Write down your child’s strengths as well as their needs. Bring recent assessments, clinical recommendations, previous IEPs, incident information and strategies that already work. Ask who is responsible for each action and when it will happen. After meetings and calls, send a short factual summary and invite corrections.

Ask for your school board’s parent guide to special education and its special education plan. Every district school board must maintain a plan describing how it provides special education programs and services. Every district school board must also have a Special Education Advisory Committee, or SEAC. SEAC advises the board about special education, although it is not normally the body that decides an individual child’s day-to-day accommodation dispute. (Ontario special education laws and policies; Ontario SEAC information)

If concerns are not resolved, use the board’s chain of communication: classroom teacher or special education teacher, principal, appropriate superintendent, director or board complaints process, and trustee where appropriate. PLEO’s guide similarly recommends starting at the lowest practical level while escalating when necessary.

Parents should also understand the difference between an IEP and an IPRC. An IPRC formally decides whether a student is “exceptional” under Ontario’s education system and determines placement. A parent can request an IPRC in writing, and the principal cannot simply refuse that request. Within 15 days, the principal must acknowledge it, provide the board’s parent guide and give an approximate meeting date. Parents may attend and participate.

If a parent disagrees with the IPRC’s identification or placement decision, they may request a second meeting within 15 days or file an appeal within 30 days of receiving the original decision. After a second meeting, the appeal deadline is 15 days from receiving that decision. Those formal appeal rights concern IPRC identification and placement; they are not a general appeal process for every disagreement about wording or services in an IEP. (Ontario IPRC process; Ontario IPRC appeal guide)

Where a family believes disability-related needs are not being accommodated, the Ontario Human Rights Code may also apply. The Human Rights Legal Support Centre provides free legal information and support to people in Ontario who have experienced discrimination and may be considering an application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. That is a legal route, not usually the first email to send when a clarification may solve the problem, but parents should know the resource exists. (Human Rights Legal Support Centre)

Education is governed provincially, so parents outside Ontario should check their own province or territory’s education legislation, human-rights law and special-education process rather than assuming Ontario’s timelines apply across Canada.

Using AI Without Handing It Your Judgment

I am glad I used AI today.

I am also glad I did not treat its first answer as law.

AI helped me organize information, make my email less emotional and identify questions I had not thought to ask. It gave me language when anxiety had taken mine away. But its claims still needed to be checked against Ontario’s regulations, Ministry guidance and human-rights policy.

If you use AI for something similar, you can ask it to:

• organize your notes before a meeting;
• turn your concerns into specific, respectful questions;
• summarize a phone conversation;
• draft a follow-up email;
• explain unfamiliar terms in plain language;
• locate possible official sources for you to verify; or
• compare what the school said with what is written in the current IEP.

Do not rely on it to tell you definitively what the law guarantees. Ask for sources, open those sources yourself and check that they apply to your province, school system and current year. Remove unnecessary personal information before entering it into any online tool, especially medical, identifying or school information about a child. For urgent or unresolved legal concerns, speak to an appropriate advocate or lawyer.

AI did not advocate for Isaac today.

I did.

AI helped me arrange the words, but I knew my son. I knew which risks mattered. I decided what to send, and the school responded with the information I needed.

What Clarity Gave Us

After receiving the school’s explanation, I wrote back and thanked them. I said that hearing the specific measures—being met at the van, accompanied during transitions and bathroom trips, bells on the classroom doors and the high-visibility vest—gave me peace of mind. I also said I understood why they wanted a few weeks to observe his adjustment before finalizing his Grade 1 goals.

That was not me backing down.

That was the problem being clarified.

Advocacy does not always end in a fight. Sometimes it ends with everyone realizing that the same sentence meant two completely different things to the people in the conversation.

I do not want parents to feel that they must arrive at every meeting ready for battle. Teachers and school staff are often trying to help while working inside a complicated and strained system. I also do not want parents—especially overwhelmed, disabled or newcomer parents—to believe they must quietly accept language they do not understand because the professionals in the room appear more confident.

You are allowed to say, “I do not understand.”

You are allowed to ask, “Who will do that?”

You are allowed to ask, “When?”

You are allowed to request the answer in writing.

You are allowed to read the document, take it home, think, ask more questions and seek help before deciding what you believe.

I sent Isaac to Grade 1 still carrying the ordinary fear that comes with sending your child somewhere you cannot follow. No email can remove that completely. But now I know who will meet him, who will walk with him and what will happen when he needs the bathroom.

Tonight, that clarity is enough to let me breathe.

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This article provides general information about Ontario’s publicly funded education and human-rights systems. It is not legal advice. Policies and procedures can vary by school board and may change over time.