The Enhancing Equity in Ontario Elementary Education Symposium took place on October 11 and 12, 2023. The symposium invited participation by all Ontario district school boards, education stakeholders, and scholars focused on educational equity and human rights to allow for sharing of promising practices around equity-based initiatives, along with providing space to reflect on and commit to action towards enhanced equity for elementary school students. At the symposium, in partnership with podcast host Stephen Hurley (voiceEd Radio), we hosted a powerful series of ‘Speaker’s Corner’ podcast conversations with equity leaders across the province.
Each Educational Equity Podcast episode explores the ongoing work of dismantling systemic barriers in education and highlights the lived experiences, insights, and calls to action from advocates and educators working to make education more inclusive and equitable.
Educational Equity Podcast #2: Speaker’s Corner – Relationships, Dialogue, and Listening with Atala Andratis In this episode, Atala Andratis, Equity Lead for the Grand Erie District School Board, shares about the essential role of dialogue in breaking down barriers and building inclusive environments. Drawing from her multilingual background and experiences as an educator, Atala advocates for an asset-based approach to supporting diverse student populations.
Some key messages from this episode include:
Equity in education involves removing systemic barriers that prevent students from accessing what they require to be successful.
Building relationships with students is essential in creating transformative and responsive learning environments.
Educators hold immense power and responsibility in making decisions that significantly impact student’s lives, and they must approach this sacred trust with care and awareness.
Educational Equity Podcast #3: Speaker’s Corner – Community Voices and Appreciating the Whole Fruit Salad with Ingrid Palmer In this episode, Ingrid Palmer, founder of Focus on Ability and Principal IDEAL Advocate at Realize, shares about the importance of educational equity for students with disabilities, drawing from her personal journey, extensive experiences, and as a passionate advocate for inclusive practices.
Some key messages from this episode include:
Language in disability advocacy: The conversation highlights differing perspectives on language around disability.
Promoting inclusive education: Ingrid discusses strategies for supporting students with disabilities in schools, and advocates for a collective lens and supporting equity to reduce stigma and enhance inclusion.
Authentic community engagement: Emphasizing the need for community voices in decision-making, Ingrid calls for a shift in how institutions engage with communities, and advocates for community-led initiatives in addressing systemic barriers.
Educational Equity Podcast #4: Speaker’s Corner – Culturally Relevant Pedagogy with Karen Murray In this episode, Karen Murray, System Superintendent for Equity, Anti-Oppression, and Early Years at the Toronto District School Board, discusses her book My Best Idea: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and the everyday practices that support equity in classrooms. Karen emphasizes the value of educators embedding culturally relevant approaches in all aspects of teaching.
Some key messages from this episode include:
Equity work needs to be braided into everyday teaching practices, not treated as a separate initiative.
Educators should honour community and family knowledge by inviting families to share the different ways they engage with subjects at home, and also share their approaches in the classroom with families.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is about setting high expectations, demonstrating cultural competence, and developing students’ critical consciousness.
Educational Equity Podcast #5: Speaker’s Corner – Human Rights and Equity Initiatives with Pam Agawa In this episode, Pam Agawa, Human Rights and Equity Lead for Keewatin Patricia District School Board, discusses the shift from research to actionable steps, the importance of community relationships and innovative approaches to overcoming systemic barriers. With a background in both education and government, Pam shares about the challenges and possibilities of ongoing efforts to create inclusive and supportive learning environments.
Some key messages from this episode include:
Action Over Research: Pam emphasizes the need to move from continuous data collection to implementing concrete actions that address educational equity challenges.
Community and Relationships: Establishing strong, reciprocal relationships within communities is crucial for the success of equity initiatives.
Innovation and Precedent: Pam advocates for innovation in overcoming systemic barriers. She stresses the importance of collaboration among educational leaders across different districts to set new precedents and push the boundaries of established protocols.
Congratulations to all of our undergraduate and graduate students who convocated in Fall 2024! We are celebrating Jane Cervi, who was a student in Dr. Sejal Patel’s graduate Internship in Early Childhood Studies course, and an alumna of the Masters in Early Childhood Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University.
We would also like to acknowledge Martha Friendly, who has been a leading member in the child care movement since the 1960s, recently becoming an appointee to the Order of Canada and receiving a Key to the City of Toronto. Martha is the founder and executive director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit in Toronto where Jane Cervi was a graduate student intern in Winter 2024.
Martha has led the child care movement in Canada advocating for an equitable, universal, high-quality child care sector. A social science researcher by education, she started working on early childhood education and child care research in the late 1960s and became a part of grassroots child care activism in the 1970s. Martha founded the Childcare Resource and Research Unit (CRRU) at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban and Community Studies in the early 1980s, which has a mandate to work towards a universal child care system. The CRRU is now an independent non-profit organization continuing to do this work. Martha is the author of numerous publications and the recipient of many awards, including an honourary doctorate from Trent University.
On behalf of Jane Cervi and the School of Early Childhood Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, we wish to personally congratulate Martha on her tremendous accomplishments.
During Jane Cervi’s time at the CRRU, Martha taught her many valuable lessons about leading the way and advocating for children and families, and the role of research and policy in the early learning and child care sector.
Martha and the CRRU team inspired Jane Cervi to continue with this important work and to be an advocate for a universal child care sector that we can all be proud of. “Having spent significant time listening, reading and learning throughout my time as an intern with the CRRU team I soon began to realize there was a major piece of the early learning and child care puzzle missing. This piece is to look deeper at prioritizing expansion for children and their families through the lens of a professional who understands and cares deeply for the early learning and child care sector.”-Jane Cervi
Click hereto read more about the need for child care expansion in Ontario’s Niagara Region.
To promote mobilization of the ideas and resources that were shared during the EEOEE Symposium, one-page summaries were created based on each panel. To view these summaries, click on the blue links below or visit https://www.torontomu.ca/educational-equity-symposium/panel-summary-reports/ for more information.
The first episode of the Educational Equity podcast, titled Indigenous Perspectives on Learning and Unlearning, is now live!
Hosts Stephen Hurley and Dr. Nicholas Ng-A-Fook are joined by young Indigenous knowledge keepers, Kiera Brant-Birioukov, Kyrstin Dumont, Stephanie Sanders, Marissa Magneson, Roxanne Gillis, and Melissa Somer. In this podcast, participants shared their perspectives on equity, informed by their Indigenous worldviews and lived experiences. The discussion was guided by the following questions:
•What is equity for each of you in terms of your lived experiences and in terms of your current work in relation to settler colonial K-6 public and private schooling systems in Ontario?
• What are some of the historical and/or ongoing individual, structural, systemic and societal barriers?
• What is some of the professional (un)learning work taking place to support students?
To listen to the podcast and for more information about each speaker and their work, head to https://www.torontomu.ca/educational-equity-symposium/podcasts-/
Meet Sarah Saeidpour, the Research Manager on the GEEC team. Sarah is in her second year of the Bachelor of Education program at York University, and holds a B.A. in Early Childhood Studies from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). Sarah has experience working in a variety of educational settings with children and families, such as in preschools with specialized programming for children with disabilities, elementary classrooms, and resource consultation.
As an Ontario Certified Teacher, Sarah highly values inclusion and accessibility. She is always looking for ways to increase student and family engagement in education, and is passionate about compiling or creating resources that are relevant to each child’s/family’s individual needs and experiences. Sarah strives to follow and advocate for frameworks such as Universal Design for Learning, and hopes to create spaces where children and families feel a sense of belonging and community.
As a member of the GEEC team, Sarah is looking forward to gaining more insight into the world of research, and discovering new resources that are relevant to her practice and goals. Sarah is excited to build and share her passion for equity and accessibility in education throughout her participation on the team.
Between April 21 and 26, 2022, educators, researchers and community members met for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting. This year’s theme was, ‘Cultivating Equitable Education Systems for the 21st Century’. Professor Sejal Patel and her former student Natalie Cummins (M.E.S., M.A.) shared about school administrators’ leadership strategies and practices to foster family-school-community partnerships in a school board-wide equity initiative. Findings suggest that anti-oppression and family-school-community partnership training should be mandatory for leaders in equity-deserving communities. In order to create more equitable outcomes, place must be considered, alongside targeted and tailored leadership strategies. Professor Sejal Patel and Krischanda Bemister (Research Project Manager, GEEC) shared about school-based stakeholders’ perspectives on their neighbourhood, housing redevelopment, social dynamics and sense of belonging. Findings support the importance of including child, teacher and parent voices when planning, implementing and evaluating policy initiatives that directly affect their lives.
Having not been together in person since class on March 13, 2020 when the University switched to a virtual format, Professor Sejal Patel was excited to reconnect with Leah Balkovec, her former first-year Human Development I & II student. They bumped into each other at a community ice skating rink, where Leah works as a skating coach for young children.
About Leah Balkovec
Leah is a third year student in the Early Childhood Studies program who aspires to work as a teacher after graduating. She noted that her favourite part of the Human Development I and II courses was “learning about how a child’s brain processes information”, and that she “gained an in-depth understanding about child growth and development.” Leah shared that she has “been able to apply what [she] learned from Human Development I and II to [her] placement and work place settings.” During the pandemic, Leah shared that she found connecting through group chats and over the phone helpful in liaising with her classmates while learning online, despite the challenges of not being able to interact in person. During stressful times, such as during exam period, she “found that going for walks, working out, and listening to music were great stress relievers.” Leah shared that her choice of the Early Childhood Studies program was the result of her “passion for working with children” and that she appreciated the “hands-on experience in the field” that she gained from the program.
On #NationalDoctorsDay, we celebrate Dr. Walaa Al-Chetachi, Dr. Sejal Patel’s former research intern and an alumna of the Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMD) Bridging Program at X University.
Dr. Al-Chetachi and Dr. Patel, in collaboration with MAECS alumna, Jacqueline H. Chan, contributed to secondary qualitative analyses of data that were collected as part of Dr. Patel’s longitudinal school-based Model Schools for Inner Cities research.
Dr. Walaa Al-Chetachi is a medical doctor with a Ph.D. in Public Health and over 20 years of experience in public health education and research. She has led and implemented research studies in maternal and child health and chronic diseases, with an impressive publication record. Dr. Al-Chetachi has worked in government settings in Qatar for nine years, developing and implementing health promotion programs, national health care plans, along with training and supervising medical students and health care professionals. She is passionate about health promotion and empowering culturally diverse populations. Currently, she is collaborating with Dr. Sejal Patel’s research team, is a scientific committee member of the 13th Maternal Child Health handbook conference, a research team member in the diabetes prevention PREVENT project, and is a mentor for international medical graduates, advocating for their success in Canada.
