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Proud Mommy Moment - My son is fighting to save the high school he graduated from 7 years ago. Mainstream school campuses aren't always a safe option, but the Learning Centre turns lives around.

In my son's case, his anxiety, easy access to things sold out of lockers, and skipping classes was leading him to the DTES.

Today, my son spends time on the DTES, but not as an addict. For 10 years he has volunteered to help people who live on our streets. He started while at the Learning Centre by cooking meals for the homeless and now spends time walking with Narcan to save lives of those ODing. As a nursing student, he has worked in St. Pauls and Colony Farms with empathy and compassion for the street people he served within their walls.


Why can't the program be moved onto mainstream school campuses?

There are kids who are bullied at school to the point of wanting to commit suicide. When I think of the kids who didn't have the opportunity to go to a school like the Learning Centre and ended up either killing themselves, or like the recent event of a neurodiverse student having a mental health crisis that lead to his being shot and killed by police, it breaks my heart.

Having a place away from mainstream schools put distance between them and the harmful situations they experienced on larger campuses, some of which were traumatic.

My son was lucky.

In grade 9 the Vice Principal at his mainstream high school threatened to expel him for skipping. After 2 years of these threats, I told him to expel him because I was taking him out of his school to take courses online. If they couldn't keep track of him after I'd dropped him off, then my only other option was to follow him around to classes. At this point, the Vice Principal suggested the Learning Centre as an option.

Afterwards, I learned that my son was engaging in risky behaviours at school, yet no one noticed. Whereas, the Learning Centre employs teachers who are trained to deal with victims of trauma, addiction, and divergent learning. They can see the signs to know when a student is spiralling.


But they are promising individualized education plans, they'll work right?

My son had an individualized education plan since grade 2 and every parent teacher meeting was the same, "He's highly intelligent but he struggles." Each complaint a teacher had was due to not following his IEP.

IEPs don't work in an overcrowded school - BUT they do work at the Learning Centre where education is individualized.

My son graduated with grades over 90% and 1 year towards a Red Seal Apprenticeship. He went on to University, where in the first semester he was on the dean's list. He is currently finishing an enhanced nursing program.

He learned the skills to achieve educational success from his time at the Learning Centre, and so did 100s of other students.