Professional Collaboration to Support Students with Learning Disabilities

Translating Policy into Collaborative Classroom Practice

Educators support learners with diverse strengths and needs every day. For students with learning disabilities (LDs), success is most likely when classroom practice, collaboration, and a clear understanding of Ontario’s policy expectations work together.

Ontario’s education system includes specific policies and professional standards that guide how we identify and support students with LDs and ADHD. These policies influence the day-to-day work of teaching, assessment, and planning in classrooms, and they shape how educators collaborate with colleagues, families, and multidisciplinary partners.

This resource offers a practical overview of learning disabilities, highlights key Ontario policy documents that guide educator responsibilities, and explores how policy can be translated into collaborative, student-centred practices that strengthen learning outcomes.

Learning about Learning Disabilities

Learning about learning disabilities in the context of policy helps educators strengthen their practice. Policy outlines both our responsibilities and the rationale for supporting students with identified learning needs. When educators understand how LDs are defined and supported within the provincial framework, they are better equipped to plan instruction, assessment, and collaboration effectively.

Educators seeking additional information and classroom-ready resources can explore materials available through the Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario (LDAO) and its signature initiatives, LD@school and TA@l’école. LDAO’s local chapters across Ontario also provide community-based supports and connections for families and educators working to support students with LDs and ADHD.

Key Ontario Policies That Guide Our Work

Several Ontario policy documents directly inform educator practice when supporting students with learning disabilities. These policies shape how students are identified, how instruction is delivered, how progress is assessed, and how educators collaborate within schools.

Below are key policy documents that guide this work:

• PPM 8 – Identification of and Program Planning for Students with Learning Disabilities 
  Provides the Ministry’s definition of learning disability as a neurodevelopmental disorder that persistently and significantly impacts learning and academic skill development. The memorandum outlines requirements for identification and informs program planning for students with LDs.
• PPM 168 – Reading Instruction and Early Reading Screening   
  Requires the implementation of evidence-based reading instruction and early reading screening to support literacy development.
• Growing Success
  Guides assessment, evaluation, and reporting practices for Ontario Certified Teachers and clarifies how professional judgement is exercised.
• Learning for All
  Highlights Universal Design for Learning, assessment for learning, differentiated instruction, the Tiered Approach, and planning tools that include class and student profiles.  

• PPM 159 – Collaborative Professionalism
  Supports collaborative professional practice and outlines expectations for professional collaboration within schools.

Putting Policy into Practice

Understanding policy is only the first step. Effective support for students with learning disabilities happens in classrooms, through daily interactions, instructional planning, and professional collaboration. Translating policy into practice requires attention to relationships, shared responsibility, and reflective professional judgement.

Getting to Know Our Learners

Understanding students as learners and people is a critical starting point at the beginning of the school year and throughout the year. A quick verbal check-in or simple gesture, such as a smile, communicates to students that they are noticed, seen, valued, and welcomed into the learning space with both strengths and needs.

Understanding behaviour as communication allows educators to consider what may be contributing to a student’s actions, to observe without judgement, and to co-plan strategies that better support learning and engagement. These daily relational practices form the foundation for more responsive instructional planning and collaborative problem-solving throughout the year.

Working with Students and Families

Although some students may not live with their biological families, it is important to recognize that caregivers and family members are essential partners in the educational work we do. Those who are in daily contact with students often have deep insight into their strengths, needs, and lived experiences. They also understand the broader circumstances that shape students’ lives outside school and, as a result, influence their interactions, learning, and well-being within the school environment.

Collaborative Professionalism Within Schools

Among the policies highlighted above, PPM 159 warrants particular attention when considering collaborative professionalism in schools.  This memorandum outlines expectations for professional collaboration and clarifies how educators work together in service of student learning.

PPM 159 and PPM 8 can be referenced together when planning and implementing support for students with LDs, ensuring that collaboration is aligned with program planning responsibilities.

• Understanding one’s work within the context of school and district goals is an important starting point. Reviewing your District Action Plan or the School Improvement Plan helps clarify the broader vision and the role each educator plays in making policy expectations a reality for all students, including those with learning disabilities.
• Educational workers across employee groups share collective responsibility for implementing PPM 8 in service of students with LDs. As educators and support staff work closely together, role clarity and mutual respect are essential components of effective collaboration.
• Educators can engage with administrators to support constructive and solution-focused collaboration when differing viewpoints arise in a classroom space.
• Sharing task-focussed feedback that is connected to student outcomes and equitable access to learning helps keep attention centred on student success.
• Developing the capacity to receive feedback professionally is an important skill that can be strengthened through ongoing professional learning and trusted critical partnerships.

Power and Privilege in Educational Work

As teachers, we are an integral part of educational systems that influence students’ trajectories throughout their years of formal schooling. The work that we do each day unfolds within structures of institutional power. Throughout the school year, we generate reports, write referrals, and make recommendations for high school course selections and other decisions that shape future opportunities.

All educational workers are involved in formal and informal communication with one another and with our multidisciplinary partners in the school system. We also connect with professionals outside the school system, integrating information from medical reports and diagnoses into growth plans, Individual Education Plans (IEPs), and formal documentation. Students’ experiences are shaped not only by disability, but also by intersecting identities such as language background, race, culture, gender, and socioeconomic context, which can influence how behaviours are interpreted and supports are recommended.

The complexities of these interactions may not always be immediately visible. They become clearer when we pause to reflect on our role within the broader system and consider how institutional structures, processes, and expectations influence students’ outcomes.

Talk Becomes Texts That Influence Student Trajectories

Although we do not always see this clearly, our everyday conversations can shape the formal texts we produce. For example, when we discuss what may be happening at home, and share anecdotal observations during meetings, those narratives can find their way into formal documentation. 

Other professionals then read these reports, and the information that we include becomes part of their decision-making process. The next person who accesses this report, whether in print or through an online system, uses this documented history to interpret previous supports and to inform future actions.

For this reason, the language we use and the interpretations we record require careful consideration. Taking time to reflect before documenting can help ensure that descriptions focus on observable patterns and instructional needs rather than assumptions about motivation or home context.

Understanding Professional Judgement

As this term is often used in educational settings, it is important to understand what professional judgement means in the context of supporting students with learning disabilities. Professional judgement is strengthened when educators understand key policies and curriculum documents, reflect on how their decisions affect students and families, and remain aware of the institutional contexts in which they work. 

Professional judgement is defined as “judgement that is informed by professional knowledge of curriculum expectations, context, evidence of learning, methods of instruction and assessment, and the criteria and standards that indicate success in student learning.” (ETFO Voice, 2023).

The Ontario College of Teachers’ Standards of Practice and Ethical Standards of Teaching Practice also provide guidance that informs professional judgement in daily classroom work. Together, these standards reinforce educators’ responsibility to exercise judgement thoughtfully, ethically, and in ways that promote equity, inclusion, and student well-being.

In Conclusion

As institutional knowledge is held in high regard, educators are positioned as experts within the education system. At times, this positioning can unintentionally create distance between schools and families, particularly those from historically marginalized communities.

Classrooms do not exist in isolation. They are nested within schools, districts, and broader systems that shape how we understand students, assign roles, and define responsibility. When some educators are seen as the “teachers of students with LDs” and others are not, opportunities for shared ownership of student success can be limited. All educators share responsibility for creating environments in which students with learning disabilities can thrive.

Educational workers at all levels of the school need to remember that our everyday work unfolds in a system of power. When we intentionally recognize parents, guardians, and caregivers as experts in their children’s lives, we begin to move beyond an “us and them” mindset and toward authentic partnership.

Year-to-year decisions have long-term impacts on students and their families. Understanding aspirations without judgement is an important skill that can be learned and practised. Honouring the aspirations of families and students helps guide responsible and equitable decision-making.

When we bring a thoughtful and non-judgemental presence to stand with and walk beside students and their families, these connections contribute to a more just and inclusive educational experience in which students and their families can thrive.  

Resources

• Seeing the Whole Student: Addressing Bias in Special Education Supports | LD@school Educator Guide (2025)
  Provides a reflective framework for examining how bias, identity, and systemic processes may influence referral, identification, and support decisions in special education. The guide offers practical prompts and classroom-level strategies to strengthen equitable practice and ensure students’ strengths and needs are seen within their full social and cultural contexts.

• Diagnosed through Bias | LDAO Literature Review (2025)
  Analyzes how documentation practices, referral processes, and institutional decision-making can be influenced by bias. The review highlights how intersecting factors such as race, language background, gender, and socioeconomic context may shape identification processes and educational trajectories, reinforcing the need for reflective and equitable professional judgement.
• English Language Learners / ESL and ELD Programs and Services: Policies and Procedures for Ontario Elementary and Secondary School
  Provides guidance on supporting multilingual learners and understanding how language acquisition intersects with assessment and instructional decision-making. The document outlines provincial expectations and considerations that support responsive and culturally informed classroom practice.
• Teaching Professional Judgement is Essential for Student Learning | ETFO Voice
  Explores the central role of teacher professional judgement in assessment, instructional planning, and responsive decision-making. The article emphasizes that meaningful student learning is strengthened when educators are trusted to apply their professional knowledge of curriculum, context, evidence of learning, and student needs.

• Mothers and Teachers: Two Sides of the Same Coin? | ETFO Voice

  Explores how systemic structures, race, and gender intersect within school contexts and considers how educators can build more authentic, equitable partnerships with families. The article invites reflection on how educators can recognize family knowledge and lived experience as essential to collaborative and inclusive educational practice.

• The School Context Model: How School Environments Shape Students’ Opportunities to Learn | People for Education
  Examines how school environments function as dynamic systems that shape teaching, leadership, and student learning. The paper highlights how classroom practices, teacher communities, leadership decisions, and broader system structures interact to influence students’ opportunities to learn.

Note from the Author

Learning Disabilities and I met in Ontario almost a quarter of a century ago. It was 2002 and our family had just arrived in the GTA from Singapore where we had lived and worked. With children in school, and one well-paying job in the family, I had time to explore. I found out about the Learning Disabilities local chapter at my daughter’s school when I went to volunteer one day. For my volunteer training, I would take two buses and travel for two hours to get to the offices. In 2008, four years after I started working at the school board, I applied for and was invited to serve on the Board of Directors of the local Learning Disabilities Association chapter until 2015. At that time, I was wrapping up my Master of Education and starting my PhD. I continue to learn about LDs and advocacy and am sharing some key points that have helped me strengthen my practice.

Author Bio          

Dr. Rashmee Karnad-Jani
is a mother of two kind people, a poet, a policy scholar and an avid gardener. Through her intersectional feminist lens, she advocates courageously and fluently for authentic experiences of educational equity and social change in six languages, including Konkani, her mother language.