Welcome to the OBA’s Education Law Section. On behalf of the section’s executive, I encourage you to participate in our section’s activities. Attend our CPD programs, write articles for our newsletter, and share your thoughts and ideas about advocacy initiatives and CPD programming.
Advocacy on public policy issues affecting the profession, our legal system, and, for our section, education law, is a core mandate of the OBA. Over the course of the year, we will be presented with opportunities to provide feedback to the provincial government on policy, regulatory, and legislative proposals and changes involving our area of practice. If there are particular issues that matter to you on which the education law bar would share a common voice, please tell us.
Providing relevant and engaging CPD for education lawyers is another core mandate of our section and we have some exciting programs in the works for early 2019.
At the OBA’s Institute on February 6, 2019, our panel, “Current Trends and Emerging Issues in Student Discipline”, will present an in-depth look at Part XIII of the Education Act. Our expert panelists will comment on current discipline landscape from perspectives of school boards, students, the Child and Family Services Review Board, and hopefully, the Ministry of Education. The panel will also look at how student discipline has developed since the 2008 amendments; offer commentary on whether the changes have improved bias-free discipline, including as it relates to students with disabilities; and discuss essential cases and latest trends and initiatives.
Planning is also underway for a program in early 2019 on the controversial changes to Ontario’s Health and Physical Education curriculum, and we have been approached by the OBA’s Family Law Section to share information about imminent and significant changes in their field, which will impact our area.
Stay tuned for more information on these and other programs.
Finally, I want to extend my thanks, in advance, to all of the volunteers on the Section’s executive for their hard work. It is a pleasure to be working with and learning from so many excellent lawyers.
Mandy Wojcik is chair of the OBA Education Law Section. Her practice at Goldblatt Partners encompasses labour law, occupational health and safety, human rights, disability law, professional regulation, and corporate governance, with a particular focus on the education sector.