In 2020, the Ontario Ministry of Education announced that streaming for Grade 9 math would end in the 2021/22 school year. While Parents of Black Children is happy to see a step forward to end streaming, this is not enough. Streaming starts as early as kindergarten and these new regulations do not prevent streaming in other grades or subject areas.

In October 2020, funding was announced for 17 organizations to host Student and Family Advocates (SFA) that would sit within community groups and provide navigations services to Black families. This program was modeled after PoBC’s system navigation program. PoBC currently leads an SFA Community of Practice.

In November 2020, The Ontario College of Teachers announced that the regulation that underpins discipline in teaching now recognizes hatred as a form of professional misconduct. The Professional Misconduct regulation, made under the Ontario College of Teachers Act, now includes ‘making remarks or engaging in behaviours that expose any person or class of persons to hatred on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination under Part I of the Human Rights Code.’” Parents of Black Children is pleased to see the Ontario College of Teachers make these updates. Regardless, there is still much work to be done at the school and board level, as well as to ensure that teachers who demonstrate anti-Black racism are truly held accountable under these new regulations.