Community News & Updates

The Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) is excited to announce the 2024 Building Community: Advancing Anti-Ableism in Education Symposium. This one-day event will take place during National AccessAbility Week.

This inaugural event invites educators, community members, parents and caregivers, students, and local leaders to come together and learn more about ableism and how to dismantle it in education systems and throughout the community.

Save the Date

Date: Thursday, May 30, 2024
Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Location: Wilfrid Laurier University – Waterloo Campus – Bricker Building, 75 University Ave W, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5

Registration details will be shared closer to the date for those interested in attending.

Interested in Being a Presenter?

The planning committee wants to offer thoughtful and reflective workshops around the topic of ableism. We want our workshops to:

• raise awareness
• prompt conversations
• address ways we can dismantle ableism in education systems and across the community

We are looking for dynamic, interactive, and engaging speakers, facilitators or teams to lead a workshop for an audience of 15-25 people. The workshop must be 75 minutes and be connected to the theme: “Building Community: Advancing Anti-Ableism in Education.”

The workshop audience will include:

• educators
• community members
• parents and caregivers
• students
• local leaders

Examples of workshop topics:

• transition support and considerations
• mental health
• racism and ableism
• invisible disabilities
• caregiver barriers

If you are interested in presenting a workshop, click here for more information. 

For purposes of this symposium, we define ableism as:

“A culture that values able-bodied people more than disabled people, and views individuals with disabilities as less able to contribute and participate in society.”

Core Values

To ensure the best possible experience for all participants and presenters at this symposium, we value and are committed to:

• Beginning with ourselves and making intentional changes in spaces that we can grow, create, and sustain.
• Making small interruptions to daily practices, as well as engaging as a changemaker to eliminate large systemic challenges.
• Authentic, ongoing, and humble work that does not invite praise.
• Each person for who they are, for their humanness outside of their productivity.
• Thoughtful, collaborative, community-centered practices over one person’s ideas
• Lived experience over expertise or degrees.
• Honesty and accountability, even when it is hard to hear.