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ARTICLE

Customer Service Standards in Schools (Disability Issues)

Christine Brown
Fall 2009

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Does  a  parent who  is  blind  have  the right to bring a  guide dog into school on  “meet  the  teacher” night, even  if the  teacher is  allergic to  dogs? If  an elevator will be closed for maintenance, must the board inform potential users? If an admission fee is charged  for a  board-sponsored event, can the board also charge someone who is there solely to provide attendant care to an individual  who uses a wheelchair?

Four years ago, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act was passed. It is an unusual statute in that the implementation period is quite lengthy –  until the year 2025, to be precise. But from now until then, various pieces of  this complex law will be put into effect. Eventually, there will be five standards: transportation,  customer service,  employment, communications, and information, and the built environment.

In January 2010, school boards are required to implement  the customer service standard, which is now a Regulation.

School boards  must:

  • Establish policies, practices, and procedures on providing  goods and services to people with disabilities.
  • Use reasonable  efforts to ensure these are consistent  with the principles of independence, dignity,  integration, and equality of opportunity.
  • Set policy on allowing people to use their own assistive devices to access a board’s goods and services, and on  any other measures available to access these goods and services.
  • Communicate with individuals with disabilities in a way that takes their disabilities into account.
  • Unless otherwise  prohibited by law, permit guide dogs and service animals to enter board premises open to the public; if animals are prohibited,  develop  alternative ways to accommodate the person with the disability.
  • Permit support  persons to accompany individuals  with disabilities into premises open to the public, and where  an admission charge applies to an event, provide advance  notice of the charge, if any, for a support person.
  • Provide notice when facilities or services normally used by individuals with disabilities will be temporarily  unavailable.
  • Conduct training  for employees, volunteers, and contractors who deal with the public; among other things, this  must include training on how to interact with persons with disabilities.
  • Establish a feedback process and publicize its existence.
  • Provide documentation  on the policies,  practices, and procedures established  to meet the customer service standard; publicize  the fact that documents  related to the standard are available, and be  prepared to provide these documents in an accessible format.

If  the standard sounds very ambitious, it  is. The boards are ultimately responsible for ensuring compliance  with  the law. However,  as board employees, ETFO  members will be involved in a number of ways. Please note, for  example,  the requirement for training. The customer  service standard  is not perfect, and cannot work the kind of miracle it would take to remove all of the  many barriers in our schools. However, it will take us a bit closer to the ideal articulated  in the Regulation,  that “goods  or services must be provided in a manner that respects the  dignity and independence  of  persons with disabilities.”