Raise the Hammer

Gee, Ted. You are a physician, an engineering student, & a parent & you write on a widely read web site....according to your bio. Do you think maybe there was some incentive here for teachers to listen to you?
Re the food allergy. Tomatoes in any form have always produced projectile vomiting in one child.(pasta with tomato sauce, pizza with anything more than a very small amount of sauce, tomato soup, tomatoes, ketchup & anything tomato based.)

Sometimes the vomiting continued for hours to the point of producing bile. I can't think of anything less fun than being in a tent (or sharing a tent), with a limited number of clothes & bedding with most of it covered in stinky barf for 3 days.

Food sensitivity or allergy? All I know is feeding this kid ( now over 20) anything with tomatoes is still a very very bad idea.

Private schools create 'pollution' because parents drive them there? Fine...are you in favour of a safe environment filled with Gr. 10 drop-outs?

There were probably 10 school buses picking up students at the local public high school plus about 30 parents picking up & dropping off kids each day (more in bad weather & on Fridays) plus the majority of kids over 16 who drove themselves.(usually trucks & muscle cars) Once you get out of Hamilton core, into rural areas, walking or cycling to school isn't an option, esp. in winter.

By simple arithmetic, there are few cars being driven to a small private school than a much large public one, & most private schools are located on a well serviced bus route because it's good business sense to do so.

Colin MacDonald School is located in N.W. Hamilton. It's one of the best private schools in Ontario, IMHO & also very reasonably priced.
I'm glad we found it, & do not regret anything about leaving the public elementary system, - except that we didn't leave it sooner.