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A Toronto woman says she is appalled by her futile attempts to find a school for her 12-year-old son, who is confined to a wheelchair, to attend this fall.

Set to enter Grade 6 next year, Jacob Trossman is like any other child his age. He has a typical sense of humour, and enjoys telling jokes through his communication device, says his mother Marcy White. Using specially designed equipment, he’s able to swim 200 metres and even goes skiing and horseshoeing in the winter.

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Born with Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease, an incurable neurodegenerative illness that prevents him from walking or talking, Jacob overcame the odds to graduate from Grade 5 at Elkhorn Public School, near Bayview Avenue and Sheppard Avenue E., on June 24, winning the principal’s award for leadership.

“Seeing him graduate, one of the children wheeled him to the front of the room to get his diploma. He was just one of the kids,” said Ms. White. “It just seems that the consensus is that as much as Jacob got out of his experience at Elkhorn, he gave just as much, if not more, to the community there… Jacob proved to everybody there that he can do it.”