I have motor impairment, cerebral palsy. The main consequences are limitations in walking, coordination and oral communication. I use an iPhone or iPad with a keyboard to overcome this, but over time people can come to understand me without any help.

I started my schooling at the Victor-Doré school, which specializes in physical disabilities. In 1976, this was the normal path for children with cerebral palsy.

In 1978, despite some fear from my parents, they were offered that I attend the school in my neighborhood given my potential. In second year, I therefore entered the Saint-François-Solano school with Tanya, Sophie, Judith, Serge, Ghislain and Carl. I would therefore be one of the first primary school children with a motor impairment to have integrated the ordinary class at the CECM.

If I was able to do this and today have a graduate degree, it is undoubtedly thanks to the contribution of traveling teachers (that’s what they were called at the time).

Denise, André, Yvon were there to support my teachers in an adventure they did not know: teaching a disabled student. They supported me, in particular by withdrawing me from the class so that I could better assimilate the material covered in class. They helped me to use technical aids. There is no doubt that the presence of these itinerant teachers facilitated my integration into the regular class.

I did my baccalaureate and my master’s degree at UQAM in political science. In the baccalaureate, I excelled in practical work, but in exams, I struggled despite the palliative services that were in place: note taking, extra time for exams, support for the layout of the work.

My average was above 4, I had a few excellence scholarships and I loved the intellectual ferment that is graduate studies.

My topic was the interaction between the disability community and the United States Congress. I chose it on the one hand because I am very interested in American society and politics, and on the other hand because having been quite involved in Quebec in organizations for people with disabilities, I wanted to see something else.

The master’s allowed me to do two research stays, three months in Washington and two weeks at the Dole Institute of Politics in Kansas.

I am convinced that the presence of remedial teachers has been extremely beneficial for many students. By eliminating this service, we will deprive children and adolescents of palliative services for their disability.

For example, this means that Christian, who has a motor impairment, has access to an accessible class, high-performance equipment. That Léa, who has a visual impairment, can have all the support she needs to learn braille.

It is therefore with these elements that I read the decision of the CSSDM to abolish the Educational support service for integration (SSPI). Although I would like to see other means of school organization, funding that would follow the student, for example, the SSPI was closest to what I agree with.

The approach that Quebec educational authorities seem to favor is one where the service offer is managed and designed for large groups: for example, offering “a service” to the student and not one that actually meets his needs. We talk about integration into the regular class and special class: one is overloaded and the other has been, for decades, the antechamber to… nothing, that is to say an exit from high school without any degree!

I think we have better reflexes to educate children with disabilities. Proof of this is notably the spectacular leap in the number of students with disabilities in CEGEP and university. This means that we diagnose them better or that we give them better services at the elementary and secondary levels.

But I wonder if the change is only positive. In 1978, the administration and the teachers of Victor-Doré had the audacity to want to integrate me into the ordinary class. It seems to me that the audacity of the 1970s gave way to a “collective resignation”. Today, would I have too many limitations? Are there too many services to organize? Would the context mean that I would go through the same “sausage machine” as other EHDAA (students with disabilities or social maladjustments or learning difficulties)? To that I have no answers!