The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a human-rights case that could change the way public schools respond to their specialneeds students.
North Vancouver, B.C., father Rick Moore, who has been fighting a legal battle on behalf of his dyslexic son and other severely learning disabled children for 17 years, said he was thrilled with the news.
"It's fantastic," he said in an interview Thursday, after hearing the news from his lawyer Frances Kelly. "It's a big day for me."
Moore filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal in 1997 when his son Jeff was in Grade 3 at his neighbourhood school and still unable to read. The school referred him to the district's diagnostic centre for help, but the centre was closed for budgetary reasons before Jeff could attend.
Desperate for help, Moore pulled his son from Braemar Elementary and enrolled him in an independent school, despite hefty tuition fees. Jeff, now 24, learned to read, graduated from high school, attended postsecondary school and is employed as a plumber.
In what was described at the time as a groundbreaking decision, the human-rights tribunal agreed that the education system had discriminated against Jeff by failing to accommodate his learning disability, but that decision was overturned on appeal by the B.C Supreme Court.
Later, the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's ruling in a 2-1 decision, saying Jeff received as good or better service as other special-needs students in the North Vancouver school district.
But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Anne Rowles said equality of services was not the issue.
"Reading is part of the core curriculum and is essential to learning. The accommodation sought by Jeffrey and other SLD (severely learning disabled) students is not an extra, ancillary service; instead it is the way by which meaningful access to the service can be achieved," she wrote.
Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/court+hear+dyslexic+case/5039635/story.html#ixzz1R1PytzKw
