Parents who wanted to educate their children came together to form parent associations. They held classes in church basements because children with special needs were not educated in the regular school system.
In the 1950’s, parents pressured local school boards to provide funds for separate education programs and some funds were forthcoming from the Ministry of Education. At this time, a few school boards delivered their own programs for children with special needs, but there was little consistency and classes were not part of a regular school. Eventually the Ministry approached some associations supporting persons with disabilities to run pilot projects, supplying them with funds to develop educational programs.
