The HRB has oversight of accessibility work at the WRDSB. We aim to enhance efforts to fulfill the Board’s ongoing obligation for non-discrimination of people with disabilities under AODA and the Code.

The HRB works closely with the Accessibility Committee to to track and report progress in:

  • The implementation of the WRDSB’s Multi-Year Accessibility Plan (MYAP)
  • The shared responsibility of championing accessibility awareness and leadership on all matters related to accessibility

Accessibility and Anti-Ableism Education

The HRB engages in ongoing professional development:

  • For compliance with the AODA
  • To improve organizational capacity in evolving accessibility work

Accessibility Awareness Training

The HRB continues to support the delivery and enhancement of training on how the Code and the AODA work together to promote equality and accessibility. The Accessibility Awareness training is mandatory for all WRDSB staff, volunteers, and third party providers.

During the 2024-2025 school year, a feedback question asking “Has this training helped improve your understanding of accessibility?” was added to the Accessibility Awareness training module. Of the total respondents (1912 new staff), 99.96% of people agreed that the training improved their understanding of accessibility.

Leading Equitable and Accessible Delivery (LEAD) Training

The HRB partnered with the Abilities Center to provide the Accessibility Consulting (formerly “LEAD”) training. This was offered to the WRDSB’s Accessibility Committee and senior leaders from the various at service departments including:

  • Communications
  • Facility Services
  • Finance
  • Human Resources and Equity Services
  • Information Technology Services (ITS)
  • Procurement
  • Research and Organizational Transformation

The training provided professional learning on building collective action in:

  1. Identifying and addressing barriers experienced by persons with disabilities at the WRDSB
  2. Identifying action items for inclusion or improvement in the next WRDSB MYAP

As a result of participating in the training, the WRDSB received an Accessibility Improvement Plan. It identified seven key areas:

  • Leadership
  • Governance and Strategy
  • People Resources
  • Supplier and Partnership Management
  • Programs and Services
  • Communication and Technology
  • Facility Support

Accessible Communication Training

In June, the HRB partnered with Dr. Farshid Sadatsharifi, an Accessibility Lead and Disability Inclusion Advocate in Waterloo Region to offer training on Accessible Communications. This session was made available to staff in:

  • Communications
  • Corporate Services
  • Research and Organizational Transformation
  • Planning

The training aimed to:

  • Build on participants’ knowledge on the development of accessible documents
  • Build participants’ knowledge of organizing accessible:
    • Meetings
    • Events
    • Community forums
  • Share best practice on plain and inclusive language, and accessible images

Feedback from participants at the Accessible Communications training indicated that:

  • 62.5% felt the session increased their knowledge of the subject matter
  • 87.5% felt that the session was relevant to their work
  • 62.5% felt more confident about integrating information gained to their work

Website Accessibility

The HRB has continued the website accessibility compliance work that was started in collaboration with ITS in 2023. This important initiative has a two-fold objective:

  • Improve accessibility of WRDSB website design
  • Improve accessibility of existing and future content on WRDSB websites

During the 2024-25 school year, the WRDSB website accessibility project built on previous gains to:

  • Fully implement a new accessibility interface that enables web users to dynamically select adjustments to the user interface, including fonts, font sizes, colours, etc.
  • Introduce a new audit software that collects, categorizes, and stores issues related to web accessibility for analysis and reporting.

Accessibility Reporting & Compliance

The HRB provides an annual report on the progress of the MYAP to the Board of Trustees every June to encourage accountability and transparency. The 2024 Accessibility Report highlights in detail the Board’s progress on each of the AODA standard area objectives that have been identified in the 2021-2026 MYAP. The 2025-2026 school year will be the final year of the current  MYAP. The HRB has started preparing action areas that will involve extensive stakeholder engagement for the next iteration of the MYAP.

This preparative work will involve:

  • Realignment of the work of the Accessibility Committee to guidelines provided in the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (IASR 191/11)
  • Identifying gaps and roll-over work from MYAP 2021-2026
  • Integrating the WRDSB Accessibility Improvement Plan received from the Abilities Centre