BCEdAccess Society

Our mission is to ensure equitable access to education for students with disabilities and complex learners in British Columbia.

Author: Kim Block

  • Dear School District Leadership,

    This was posted by a parent in our Facebook group, and speaks to what so many other parents and children are struggling with in the education system.

    This letter needs to be read out loud in front of those decision makers who shape education.

    This is so spot on.

    Many thanks to the parent who wrote this and for allowing us to share this with all of you. Please share widely and feel free to send this to the Trustees in your school district.

    *******

    Another month, another email …

    Dear School District Leadership,

    I am writing as the parent of a child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD, and as someone who has spent years advocating for better understanding and support for students with neurodevelopmental differences.

    Throughout my son’s school career, I have repeatedly found myself educating educators about diagnoses that are both common and well-documented. While many teachers care deeply and want to help, there is too often a serious gap in training, practical knowledge, and understanding that directly affects children like my son.

    I am writing now because many of these concerns, despite being raised previously, continue to reappear in ways that negatively impact his educational experience. He left elementary school believing that he was useless and stupid, and the resource staff at (school name) are aware of the importance of ensuring those harmful messages are not reinforced. For his self-confidence and self-worth, he needs educators who truly see him, understand him, and help him grow, not those who inadvertently respond to disability-related challenges in ways that feel punitive or discouraging.

    Most recently, this concern was reinforced through report card comments stating that he needs to “stay on task,” alongside references to missed assignments. I ask you to consider how inappropriate and harmful this framing can be. Telling a child with AuDHD to “stay on task” is comparable to telling a child with a physical disability to “run faster.” It reduces a legitimate neurological challenge to a matter of effort, attitude, or compliance.

    Students with AuDHD are not struggling because they do not care or are unwilling to try. They are often struggling because executive functioning challenges create real barriers that require informed support.

    My son may be the chronological age of a Grade 8 student, but he does not consistently possess the executive functioning skills expected of a typical Grade 8 learner. Planning, organization, task initiation, time management, working memory, and sustained attention are all areas directly impacted by his diagnoses. These challenges are not excuses; they are realities that require understanding and proactive and appropriate support.

    When report cards list missed assignments after the fact, but there has been little or no communication with parents during the term, students are placed in a position where success becomes significantly more difficult. If parents are not informed when assignments are missing or when concerns first arise, we are denied the opportunity to support our child at home and work collaboratively with the school to help them succeed.

    While communication with my son’s resource teacher has been consistent and very much appreciated, this level of communication has not been consistently reflected across classroom educators, where a lack of timely outreach regarding missed assignments and emerging concerns continues to present a significant barrier to his ongoing success.

    This same issue arose during the previous reporting period. At that time, I addressed the concern directly with the classroom teacher and resource teacher, and it was resolved within the school. However, the recurrence of the same pattern suggests this is not an isolated incident, but an ongoing concern that requires broader attention and accountability.

    I believe there should be increased, structured, and timely communication between school staff and parents, not less. Families should be alerted early when a child is struggling academically, behaviourally, or organizationally, so that supports and interventions can be implemented before failure occurs. Of note, since receiving the report, I have already connected with his resource teacher to develop a shared tracking document for pending and completed assignments in an effort to help mitigate these concerns moving forward.

    When report cards become places of blame rather than tools for meaningful communication, the impact on students can be significant. Comments that oversimplify these challenges can:

    • Lower a child’s self-esteem
    • Reinforce shame and feelings of failure
    • Misrepresent disability-related needs as laziness or defiance
    • Increase tension between families and schools
    • Undermine trust in the education system
    • Miss opportunities for early intervention and support

    I am asking the district to take meaningful action by implementing mandatory professional development for all educators and staff on autism, ADHD, and other common neurodevelopmental conditions. This training should include:

    • Understanding executive functioning challenges
    • Trauma-informed and neurodiversity-affirming approaches
    • Effective (and consistently applied) classroom accommodations and supports
    • Appropriate expectations based on developmental functioning, not just chronological age
    • Strength-based communication with families
    • Timely parent contact regarding missing work or concerns
    • Clear communication expectations once an IEP is established
    • Appropriate language for report cards and student evaluations
    • Reducing bias and stigma in school settings

    Families should not have to carry the burden of teaching professionals how to understand students with common diagnoses. That responsibility belongs within the education system itself.

    The cost of bias, lack of education, and ineffective responses is high. It is paid by children who begin to internalize beliefs they are “bad,” “lazy,” or “not good enough.” It is paid by parents forced into constant advocacy. And it is paid by schools that lose the trust of the families they serve.

    Our children deserve better. They deserve educators who understand that disability-related challenges are not choices, that developmental readiness does not always match chronological age, and that consistent communication with families is essential to student success.

    I respectfully request a written response outlining the actions the district will take to address these concerns and how families will be informed of progress.

    Anonymous Parent

  • Does Your Bully Wear Pink?

    We reposted our important BCEdAccess blog written in 2023 by Tracy Humphreys and started a conversation in our Facebook group about people’s feelings about Pink Shirt Day.

    Many families expressed concerns about how Pink Shirt Day functions as a declaration that replaces the work it claims to represent: schools distribute shirts, take photos, post to social media, and generate the appearance of a community that takes bullying seriously, which is precisely what allows the deeper, ongoing harm to continue. It feels performative for many.

    “I think the idea of it started with good intent, its lost its meaning. We don’t need 1 day to practice kindness, when all the other days don’t matter. Teachers are exhausted with policing kids, and they turn a blind eye to bullying “as long as nobody is physically hurt, ignore it and move on”. As a mom with a child who is relentlessly bullied by specific children, and nothing happens, it actually angers me that people wear pink and pretend like they’re acknowledging something that is truly rampant.” – Anonymous

    Pink Shirt Day started out because of homophobia. Teens rallied with solidarity to show support for a younger male teen who was being bullied with homophobic insults for wearing a pink shirt. The two older grade 12 teens bought multiple pink shirts and distributed them for many others to wear as a sign of solidarity.  Pink Shirt Day has evolved into a day about kindness, and many schools have erased the original discrimination the day stands for that required a call to action. 

    Bullying someone who is connected to a protected ground under the Human Rights Code is discrimination.  Parents/caregivers and students can file a human rights complaint for bullying. The most noteworthy case of this is Jubran v. Board of Trustees, 2002 BCHRT 10 (CanLII).

    From this case:

    [109]      The Court held that schools are:

    …an arena for the exchange of ideas and must, therefore, be premised upon principles of tolerance and impartiality so that all persons within the school environment feel equally free to participate. As the board of inquiry stated, a school board has a duty to maintain a positive school environment for all persons served by it. (at para. 42)

    [116]      As a matter of legislation and case authority, there is a legitimate state interest in the education of the young, that students are especially vulnerable, that the School Board may make rules establishing a code of conduct for students attending those schools as part of its responsibility to manage those schools.  Given this, and the quasi-constitutional nature of the Code, I find that the School Board has the duty to provide students with an educational environment that does not expose them to discriminatory harassment.

    [118]      Having found that the School Board contravened s. 8 by failing to provide a learning environment free of discrimination, the burden then shifts to the Board to establish that the measures it took constitute a bona fide and reasonable justification.  Once the harassment is made known to the school, the administration had an obligation to act on the specific complaints.  Although the School Board argued that there was no evidence that indicated which steps it had taken were insufficient, it has the burden of showing that the steps it took were appropriate. 

    ********

    The courts have already been clear about this. BC’s Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that when harassment is connected to a protected ground, it is discrimination, and schools have a duty to act — specifically, demonstrably, once they are aware. A pink shirt does not meet that duty.

    Here are parents’ feelings and experiences around Pink Shirt Day:

    ********

    One parent reports their child says, “They say it’s useless and just something they’re “told” to do by the school. No difference at all in who gets bullied.” – Anonymous

    “In my experience, bullying is very much tolerated in public school and there is no actionable recourse for the parents of the bullied child.” – Anonymous

    “Pink Shirt Day is part of a larger marketing apparatus that schools deploy to invoke a patina of inclusion while structurally excluding children by trampling their human rights.” – Anonymous

    “Kids just don’t get bullied by others kids. They also get bullied by educators , and others in position of power . This happens from early level of education to post secondary.” – Anonymous

    “My biggest beef with Pink Shirt Day programming is that it only addresses students as being in the roles of victim or bystander. They never address students as if they might be in the role of the bully. This leads to all students seeing themselves as victims/bystanders and never gives anyone the tools to recognize bullying behaviours in themselves or how to change or get help. Bullies are always framed as the “other”, as the “bad guy”, and nobody wants to see themselves that way, so there is never an opportunity or support given to those who might need to change their path. We will never solve bullying with this approach.” – Anonymous

    “I used to be behind pink shirt day but not anymore. The same kids wearing the pink shirts were the same kids telling my kid it was better if he killed himself. Also as another parent said ‘my kids got bullied for not wearing a pink shirt.” – Anonymous

    “Bullies (of all ages and roles in the school) wear the pink shirt, high-five each other, and keep on bullying.” – Anonymous

    “My son was bullied (physically) on a pink shirt day one year in high school. The principal and I had a VERY interesting discussion. This was not the first time he was bullied. He loved learning at school but was often a target of bullying due to his additional needs. Kids in class would intentionally make noise, tapping on desks, tapping feet on table legs. Then there were the students like this kid shoving him purposely into lockers etc. This was all compounded by his physical sensitivity so getting brushed by someone accidentally in the hallway triggered a response in him.” – Anonymous

    “Bottom line – the kid was still at school the next day and was a regular bully to kids and seemed to get little or no consequences. So what message does this send to a kid being bullied, we don pink shirts one day of year but kids being bullied don’t truly feel supported.” – Anonymous

    “Bullying is rampant. Violent incidents are not adequately addressed..no safety plans made for victims of assault etc. Schools only make safety plans for staff, is what I have been told. Kindness needs to be the focus every day.” – Anonymous 

    “One thing that I have heard countless times from parents reporting bullying to schools, parents sharing this on social media platforms connected to a school, and me approaching the school directly is that “we don’t really like to use the word bullying” as it is very strong word that is typically not applicable, but parents like to use it to raise alarm bells. This is systemic gaslighting. I always ask why this is the case because when it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, should it not be called a duck? The response is gaslighting version of this: children don’t typically intend to bully, so we don’t use that word to identify children. Similarly, when I question resistance to naming racism, I am often told: it was not the intent of the child to be racist (which is clearly a way to gaslight me and suggest that I am over reacting when intent is present when someone uses the N word, tells a child they are dirty because their skin is dark, mocks their name (associated with their ancestral community), told that this school isn’t for racialzed kids, go back to where you came from, racial slurs, using stereotypes, obvious exclusion, etc).  One of my child’s earliest observations about social dynamics were about how she and one of her friends were always put into their ancestral communities. Both children are non-European. Often this led to a host of stereotypes being applied to these 2 children. My child’s friend left the school because of the ongoing racist bullying. Bullying often incorporates any vulnerability to oppress. And when children have more than one vulnerability, the bullying is often compounded. For kids who are differently abled, and are queer or belong to IBPOC communities, there are more ways to oppress, and bully.” – Anonymous

    “My kid got bullied for not wearing a pink shirt… it doesn’t change anything.” – Anonymous

    “I was an educator working in schools when the pink shirt phenomenon started. I think it felt very different in the early days when we knew the origins very clearly and it was on the news – the kid that was bullied and the grade 12s that stood up for him. I was a grade 12 Vice Principal at the time and it was very much a conversation starter for the responsibilities they had. Then I moved to be an elementary school principal and although my staff had creative ways for kids to be involved in the day, it just felt like one of those days we did, even at the start. All of these things people have said here are true – the bullies are wearing pink shirts, some students, some staff.” – Anonymous

    “Pink shirt day isn’t supposed to be blanket be kind / anti bullying. It’s actually about combating homophobia and misogyny….so ya.” – Anonymous

    “We refuse to Acknowledge PINK TSHIRT DAY. If you need a day once a year to be nice there is something wrong. It’s a money making BS.” – Anonymous

    “My ASD son said pink shirt day is BS and it just makes the bullies feel like they are good people by wearing a pink shirt. – Anonymous

    “I refused to buy my kids pink shirts and the school actually had some “extras” they sent my kids home with.” – Anonymous

    “Pink shirt day is simply a day so school boards can say they are addressing the bullying issue…” – Anonymous

    *******

    What families describe in this piece is not a kindness problem. It is discrimination. Harassment connected to ableism, racism, to sexuality, to gender expression — each one is tied to a protected ground under BC’s Human Rights Code, and each one triggers a legal duty that schools are required to meet.

    Being safe, both physically safe and psychologically safe, is paramount for any kind of learning to take place. Feelings of safety need to be prioritized. Bullying is layered and a complex topic; talking to kids once a year about kindness isn’t enough.  We as a society need to do more to figure out how bullying can be addressed in a way that is fair and healing for all involved. Surely, this is an area that requires more attention. Until this becomes more of a focus for schools, Pink Shirt Day will continue to feel nothing but performative for many of our families. What these families are describing is not a failure of kindness. It is a failure of duty, structural and sustained, and their testimonies are the evidence.

    (Permission to share) – Text below picture

    (Text on Picture above)

    Every year on #PinkShirtDay, I share this photo and our story and I have for years and will continue to do so to raise awareness.

    For those seeing it for the first time: this is my daughter in kindergarten. She was made to crawl on a school field like a dog by two staff members so she “wouldn’t run away”.

    She was six.

    This was not an isolated incident and it was not limited to what you see in those photo. It was one of many moments that showed me – clearly and painfully – that the school system was not built for children like my daughter and just how deeply an . This photo will always light a fire under me to keep going.
    This is where my advocacy began.

    It pushed me to remove her from a system that failed her and to take a completely different approach to learning and therapy. My focus shifted to communication so she would never again be unable to say no, to speak up, or to protect herself. She would never again be left isolated in a room or treated without dignity.

    Please don’t just buy a pink shirt and consider the work done. Bullying in schools takes many forms. It isn’t only peer-to-peer. Sometimes it comes from the very people entrusted with care. And far too many children with support needs experience this quietly, without witnesses, and without accountability.

    We can change this with education, ongoing training, real conversations, follow-through and accountability.

    If you’re a parent – talk about this at home.
    If you work in or with schools – ask what ongoing training is in place.
    If your child hasn’t experienced this – please remember that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

    She deserved better than this. And so do thousands of other children.

  • The Mother of all Battles

    This is a blog about topics that people write large books about. Patriarchy, motherhood, disability, economy, and oppression.

    All of these topics intersect when we talk about employment —specifically, when it’s mostly women giving up their jobs to fill a gap in government support. All of their stories show a pattern of a single story.

    “I work in healthcare and hold a master’s degree and currently only work part-time so I can support my child, whose lack of inclusion and supports in middle school makes attending school a significant daily hurdle” – Anonymous

    How is it that our education system is so poorly designed that it is driving families into poverty? With no end in sight. It is counterproductive for the education system to be designed to do that.

    “As a single mother, I tried to rely on the school system, but my children were not supported in a b&m setting, which forced me to homeschool them. Between homeschooling and the constant medical and specialist appointments, there is no realistic way for me to hold down a job. I am now on income assistance and struggling to survive.” – Anonymous

    “We lost a full income and had to close our business” – Anonymous

    “I ended up on LTD with extreme burnout” – Anonymous

    Families are reporting that they are losing needed income with devastating effects, and mothers are losing themselves. Lost in a sea of advocacy organization and tasks. 

    “The isolation and loneliness is real and I eventually began to think of the fighting and advocating that I had to do to get what he needed as my job… Keeping track of meetings commitments and nagging people when they didn’t follow through became my work.” – Anonymous  

    “It sucks to feel like my degree in education and my ability to be just me is gone.” – Anonymous

    What our society expects from mothers, what we expect from motherhood, is fluid. It reflects culture, generational time periods, gender expectations, and economics. Let us acknowledge the unpaid labour hours and emotional labour that typically fall on mothers, which is expected and just assumed. Mothers are society’s safety net.  

    The Parent v. The School District, 2024 BCHRT 113

    [11]           On June 6, 2018, the Parent alleges she “resigned” from her secretary position to avoid an “emotional breakdown” related to issues with the Child at school.

    [38]           The Parent states she is clearly not the only parent who needs to go on leave when their children with disabilities are not properly able to access their education and are not being supported. She submits that “the system” needs to start recognizing the toll and impacts on parents’ employment when disabled children are not getting what they need. 

    This timeliness decision by the BC Human Rights Tribunal, didn’t consider this mother’s loss of employment a public interest to have the complaint proceed. “I do not find this Complaint attracts the public interest in allowing it to proceed late filed.” Mothers of disabled children, their loss of employment due to educational failure, is not of public interest!?! Are we ever in some serious trouble!

    We can see from our laws and the actual rollout of government resources that we don’t prioritize children. Many gestures towards equity are performative. Equity for women is a constant fight. As we will read below from the testimonials, we really aren’t ready to accommodate everyone either. At least not through systemic design. 

    “I cannot believe this is now my life, but I simply had no other option”  – Anonymous

    The results are devastating to families with lifelong consequences, and it is devastating to us as a society. It is illogical to think that by oppressing one group of people, pain from that oppression is not shared. No loss. No cost. That we can compartmentalize their harm, to only them. In fact, the ripple effects are far-reaching for the whole family and our community as a whole.  

    “I have lived off of my savings which are now completely gone. I have depleted the meagre investments I was hoping to continually contribute towards to eventually retire. I worry about the future, and the impact that all of this has on my children and me; it feels unbearable at times.” – Anonymous

    Our education system is designed to be a preventative system, preparing people for a successful life. However, when the education system falls short, the dependency and costs that trickle down the line are incredibly expensive and impact our health system, mental health systems, government supports, housing, and our three-billion-dollar prison systems—all of them. There is no system out there that is not absorbing the failure of the education system. 

    Independent School Authority v Parent, 2022 BCSC 570

    [12]      The parent alleges that she has had to witness her child’s struggles as a result of the School’s conduct, including the child’s distress and anxiety on a daily basis. This was extremely difficult, exhausting and traumatic for the parent. The parent required counselling to address her trauma, and has been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome as a result of the stress. In addition, the parent alleges that she had to take a leave from work to assist with the child, and has suffered various financial impacts.

    I feel ridiculous writing this. I certainly wouldn’t feel compelled to write this if I were writing about fathers, yet I feel the need to remind people reading this that mothers are people too. Whole and complete people with their own dreams, creativity, goals, gifts, and vision for life. Yet mothers are often the ones who are more likely to be forced to give up their employment. And when fathers do it, as a society, we are impressed.

    “With my resignation, I not only lost my seniority, making the job more difficult to one day return to, I also lost any resemblance of a personal identity outside of being the parent of a high needs child.” – Anonymous

    Here are the 20 testimonials we received from our Facebook members. 90% of them are from mothers. I didn’t ask for only mothers to respond. What are we expecting from mothers when the education system doesn’t provide support for all children? Not providing school employees with the time, resources, training and education to do their jobs is a decision. 

    We can and need to re-examine what community means. What society means. We lose when we decide that it’s acceptable to push some people into the shadows. So, we don’t see. 

    This is shine-the-light-time. 

    Here is the mic. 

    Thank you to everyone who offered a testimonial for this blog. We appreciate and acknowledge your emotional labour and continued advocacy. Again.

    ************

    “I can’t get/keep a job, for the first 2 years of my son being in school they asked me to keep him home because of staff shortages. In all five years of him being in brick and mortar school his schedule was always 9-11:30. With no path to adding more time. It sucks to feel like my degree in education and my ability to be just me is gone.” – Anonymous

    “I often look at academic postings I could/should hold and think “how nice that would be to be doing even a little bit of that”. For mothers, it isn’t just about stepping in to raise children for a bit but it is fully giving up their careers and the trajectory it would have taken, the loss of wages, promotions, the years of work needed to get to the next career step, the networking, adding expertise/experience and workshops/training that happens along the way, and wage level. All that disappears. The intersection of sexism, ableism and anti-motherhood in our society creates a very complex web of oppression for us to constantly navigate.  I often feel like I am hanging by a very thin rope over a blazing fire, holding my children above me so they don’t fall in, and knowing all to well that if I fall in, they are doomed.” – Anonymous

    “I work in healthcare and hold a master’s degree and currently only work part-time so I can support my child, whose lack of inclusion and supports in middle school makes attending school a significant daily hurdle. Despite reducing my hours, I am frequently pulled away from work to manage school-related crises and attendance issues. I am now considering transitioning to casual, not by choice, but because the current system leaves me no other way to support my child and protect mine and my family’s mental health. If appropriate supports were reliably in place at school, I could work more consistently and contribute more fully to an already strained healthcare system. I am burned out from both ends, with some days having nothing left to give at home or at work. When forced to choose, work has to give because my child and family cannot. This is a systemic failure impacting other systems” – Anonymous

    “I stayed home after the birth of my twins, and when they were diagnosed at 4, it became impossible for me to return to work. Their diagnosis changed the course of my life and ultimately broke my marriage. As a single mother, I tried to rely on the school system, but my children were not supported in a b&m setting, which forced me to homeschool them. Between homeschooling and the constant medical and specialist appointments, there is no realistic way for me to hold down a job. I am now on income assistance and struggling to survive.” – Anonymous

    “I have two children who have been pushed out of school because of their chronic health issues. We make do with online school and one part-time income. I never aspired to homeschooling but was forced into the role because regular school excluded my kids by not providing the support they needed. To add icing, I work in the school system promoting inclusion of other people’s children. It’s causing a bit of an existential crisis.” – Anonymous

    “I was working full time as a diplomat with UNICEF until the birth of my twins: I have 3 Autistic kiddos, 17 months apart. I ended up giving up my dream career due to my partners mental health (among some other things), and tried to relocate to a small town to work as we couldn’t get daycare in the lower mainland. I then quit my new job because my kids were so dysregulated, and always sick (ages 0-2). By the time my eldest started preschool, it was clear it wasn’t going to work. I’ve now been a full time PhD student to make it work, while my 3 kids (now aged 5, 5 and 7) are all homeschooled. I am a single parent and Autistic myself. It is HARD GOING. I have the option (I suppose) to get a full time job that pays $100k plus, but still can’t support the 6 people in my house on this salary, plus then I have no where for my kids to go, as b&m isn’t an option. So I’m looking at a move out of province, for a job in a school where I can be with them, and I will earn $1900 a month, but at least I can co-regulate and support them in a rural setting. I cannot believe this is now my life, but I simply had no other option, I just can’t make it work with their unique needs, and the local school was not willing to support.” – Anonymous

    “We lost a full income and had to close our business. My spouse and I have no family in the country/province. Income of >75k loss per year, I also had to take a demotion at work. The impact is not just immediate but will be for years to come. Less savings, no retirement fund, huge gap in employment for my spouse. The school day is short enough that most employers wont work around it nvm the constant calls or exclusion from field trips etc. We are genuinely contemplating relocating to the UK where we will have support and specialized schooling.” – Anonymous

    “When my youngest was a toddler I gave up a senior administrative position in a school district. We were fortunate we could get by on one salary, but I loved my work and missed the challenge it offered. But my toddler didn’t get diagnosed until he was in his late teens and the time and effort it took to get him to medical appointments and follow through on all the therapy recommendations left not enough time for my elder child and there was just no option for me to work. As I said, I was devastated and at times resentful, but traveling from a suburb to children’s hospital, and travelling to therapy appointments was not something I could delegate. The isolation and loneliness is real and I eventually began to think of the fighting and advocating that I had to do to get what he needed as my job… Keeping track of meetings commitments and nagging people when they didn’t follow through became my work.” – Anonymous

    So I work for the district my son attends. 2 years ago I got called into hr about the number of emergency days I was taking. I explained that I was taking them as the school was struggling to support my son and kept calling me to pick him up and if they’d like to improve his supports so he isn’t being sent home I’d be more than happy to stay at work. Can’t lie. I really enjoyed that. That said I can’t work full time as we can’t find childcare and I can’t take on roles I’d like but we’re better off than most as I have union protection. – Anonymous

    “I have an MFA in Writing and years of experience in Arts Administration. In theory, I should be able to write/edit/organize in addition to managing my AuDHD PDAers’ home-based education, but that’s a big stretch for me these days. I am fortunate to have various sources of support and access to alternatives, because public school proved inaccessible for my kids despite a concerted effort made toward effective advocacy on my part.” – Anonymous

    “My daughter and her husband each work part time so they can be there for my granddaughter and still earn a wage between them. As I’ve posted elsewhere she’s currently at school an hour a day or less.” – Anonymous

    “For the past year my child has been on a reduced schedule, only allowed to attend school between 30, and the newly increased 90 mins a day. I often get calls to pick up early.” “The allocated time at school is mid morning, because the schedule includes outdoor recess. It is impossible to work around this schedule, especially with the constant calls. If I could somehow work, will never make enough to cover childcare expenses of having a nanny and have anything left to take home. I am a single parent, with no involvement from a co-parent. I had to take a personal leave from my position last year when this first started. There haven’t been substantial increases in the amount of time my child is allowed to attend school, I was just recently forced to resign from my position as my leave could not be extended beyond a year.” With my resignation, I not only lost my seniority, making the job more difficult to one day return to, I also lost any resemblance of a personal identity outside of being the parent of a high needs child. The school teams continue to tell me that they are hopeful for building up my child’s time, and yet the goals that my child must meet, and their system for measuring success, seem to be shrouded in secrecy. My direct questions are met with indirect answers, filled with buzzwords and metaphors. While the school teams remain ‘hopeful,’ I truly think I have lost my capacity for optimism. I can’t continue to be set up and dropped, forced to grieve the same losses over and over.I have lived off of my savings which are now completely gone. I have depleted the meagre investments I was hoping to continually contribute towards to eventually retire. I worry about the future, and the impact that all of this has on my children and me; it feels unbearable at times.” – Anonymous

    “I am a professional engineer. Through the course of my child’s education journey I have nearly quit my job/career on three occasions due to lack of support for my child in the school system. Twice, I took full year-long leave of absences. Once, due to the COVID pandemic my job structure changed and the new pandemic-forced hybrid work model strangely allowed me to maintain my career (e.g. work from home while still being available and on-call close to the school). It should not have taken a global pandemic for me to be able to work. So many jobs are not as flexible as mine, and the impact the lack of support in the school system has on the availability of so many female workers in our Province is significant and needs to be addressed.” Anonymous

    “After having to leave my job to support my kid’s, education, I tried working as a contractor, but the contracts keep turning into full time positions which I can’t keep up with so I have to decline the positions and then the contract gets terminated.” – Anonymous

    “I used to love my work so much. And I got conscripted into this role of advocating for my kids and it stole my capacity to care about work anymore. Now I just feel like I’m in this weird limbo zone, where I still hope that one day I’ll like my work again. Watching your children be hurt over and over is a kind of torture that steals so much from you.” – Anonymous

    “I work as an EA in the same district as my child and am constantly getting phone calls to pick them up early. I have only been able to work part-time for the last 3+ years. I’ve already taken a 5 month medical leave due to the stress and how it affects my mental health. My 8 year old was suspended twice in the first month of school due to extreme dysregulation, and lack of adequately trained support. We had to pull them out of their school and switch to a different school that offers a hybrid program of part in-school and part home learning. I couldn’t return full-time if I wanted as I’m home schooling my child on my days ‘off’.” – Anonymous

    “I’m a single mom of two wonderful autistic kiddos. I am a professional with a degree. I used to work in healthcare and the school system. Initially I had to go down to part time (about 10 years ago) due to my kids needs and the lack of support (and lack of diagnosis, which took advocating and then years of waitlist to get). I went off on stress leave multiple times, even working half time, due to my kids unmet needs and regular calls from the school for another meeting or to pick them up early (again) or similar. I spent so much time, energy, etc., advocating, attending meetings, responding to emails, driving to therapy appointments, begging for supports that never came. I watched my eldest love school for the first 2 years become someone who hated it, was bullied, and was blamed for his struggles. Both kids were often sent home or told not to attend. All of this was “unofficial” suspension and we received no schooling support while we were off (with the longest stretch being 4 consecutive months off). My kids and I were well and truly burnt out dealing with all of these challenges.I ended up on LTD with extreme burnout, and my kids were similarly exhausted (and demonstrated more and more negative consequences…including self harming). I dont know what to do. I want to return to work, but don’t how to without sacrficing all of our mental health. Even part time work is daunting (and I burnt out on half time before). As a single parent this has been economically devastating. Not only am I missing out on wages I could be earning, but I’m also missing out on pension contributions or other ways to save. Retirement is looking bleak, and my kids are likely to need support longer than typically developing kids. Proper support would be life changing.” – Anonymous

    “We have been on the Supported Child Development Waitlist for almost 8 years. Without SCD support, I would have to pay regular daycare fees (fine) plus hire my own support worker (or two, if daycare requires 1:1 as I have two children with support needs) at a rate of $30-45 per HOUR. Obviously this isn’t feasible. Because we cannot access any childcare, I had to quit my job after maternity leave in 2019 and have been freelancing ever since. My income is unpredictable, stressful with the ever changing economy, contractor based with no security or benefits, and I work 7 days a week, including at night. The impact of this on our family is immense: negative health effects for me physically and mentally, lost income and career advancement, and ever present stress on affording basic bills, yet earn too much to qualify for any help. I don’t even feel like a citizen of this country anymore.” – Anonymous

    At first I passed up leadership opportunities in public health. Then I went down to 0.8FTE to avoid total burnout given all the coregulation my eldest required. We had to join distributed learning when kiddo’s nervous system could not tolerate bricks and mortar. Now working 0.8FTE, online schooling one (which means mostly I am the teacher or my partner or I are hiring people, scheduling people, driving kiddo places) and kiddo is only 8 so we’re in the ‘light years’. If I didn’t have a flexible workplace, this would not happen. I would lose pensionable years, health benefits. I am terrified this will all take a toll on me and burn me out then I’m no good to anyone. I am not being offered career level up opportunities which also gets at me sometimes but I know I simply cannot take a job with more responsibility – I am already so responsible for everything at home. Oh, second child has a significant feeding issue that also makes life hard. Not sure how long this precarious balance of it all will hold. Feeling my privilege to be able to continue work but I do so because there really is not other viable way. Reading the stories here makes me feel very very heavy about it all. Compassion for all who have shared and aware that the financial stress, the daily responsibility, the grief …we all carry is so very significant. And of course we love our kids and will always do the best we can. But it will hard us one way or another over time because it’s all too much. – Anonymous

    “I had to quit my work due to my child not being supported. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown trying to advocate and explain things to the school. I was burnt out and couldn’t pretend any more at work I was functioning. There was a significant delay in internal assessments within the school. Later, we found out through a psych-assessment, not provided by the school, that he had common learning disabilities that the teachers weren’t able to recognize. Advocacy became my profession. On stand-by. We lost 6 years of a salary before I was able to return to full-time work.” – Anonymous

    **************

    This is the same story, told so many times. The education system knows this story. And yet nothing changes—and now, instead of fixing what is broken, we are facing cutbacks. We can’t take anymore. Many of us are already drowning.

    We want to be a fair and just society where people have the same opportunities. The government talk about historic investments in education, but those investments have not reached the children who need support most. They have not reached the mothers who have been forced out of their careers. They have not created the inclusive classrooms that would allow families to survive without choosing between income and survival. And ending up with barely any income and barely surviving.

    And to add, this is happening “…many BC public school districts are underspending the Inclusive Education budgets that are approved by trustees” – BLOG:  An Open Letter to Trustees and Advocates in the BC Public School System in Advance of the Upcoming Budget Season

    So much more is needed for there to be real gender equity in BC. So much more is needed for there to be real inclusion in our schools. Until the government funds and school districts distribute what is required, until schools stop pushing children out, until mothers can work without being called to pick up their struggling child for the third time that week—this pattern will continue. The same story, told again and again, while the people with the power to change it look away.

    We need people speaking up. The work can’t just fall on our shoulders when our resources are so depleted and so many of us are just struggling to keep our families barely afloat.

    BLOG:  Year in Review – A Collective Scream

    BLOG: Is this Systemic Oppression or Systemic Abuse?

    BLOG: Failure by Design – School Start up

    BLOG: EAs Are Essential for Equitable Education

    BLOG: Scarcity in Education = Harmful Work & Learning Environments

  • An Open Letter to Trustees and Advocates in the BC Public School System in Advance of the Upcoming Budget Season

    NOTE: This guest blog is written by a fellow parent, advocate and member of BCEdAccess. THANK YOU!!

    Dear Trustees and Fellow Advocates,

    We’ve all been told that participation in the district’s budget process is a great way to advocate for more support for students with disabilities, but what exactly does that mean and how can we do that in a meaningful way? As we approach the upcoming budget season, I want to share with you some things I have learned and observed over the past few years while I’ve been following the BC Education system budget process. These observations are related to districts underspending inclusion and educational assistant budgets, and the requirements of each district for submitting their annual budgets to the provincial government. I also share some specific questions you can consider asking your district to help to improve transparency and accountability in the annual budget process and to support inclusive education.

    BC’s Education Minister Lisa Beare recently declared that the provincial government has “provided record levels of funding for districts”, implying that the concerns around underfunding were occurring because of budgeting choices made by individual school districts (e.g. Surrey DPAC launches Room Clear Tracker to monitor classroom disruptions, clearings).

    B.C’s Education Minsiter Lisa Beare said the goals is to make sure every child is safe and can learn.

    “We all wanna keep kids safe in classrooms, this is why we at the Ministry have provided record levels of finding for districts, including Surrey. Year over year, they get over a billion dollars in funding this year, along, we wexpect districts to saff their classrooms accordingly,” she said. Bear said the School District ended up with a surplus last year and the district has to make those choices accordingly. “We want to make sure everyone is staffed at the appropriate leavel to provide those supports,: she added.

    Source:  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/surrey-school-board-surplus-2025-1.7637996

    In making the above statement, the minister deflected provincial government accountability for challenges reported in the article that are also commonly reported in other school districts across the province. So why can she make this claim? Well, from the ministry’s perspective, financial reports from the Surrey School District at the end of the 2024/2025 school year showed that:

    This is not to say that the ministry is not also part of the problem. Her statement about “record levels of funding” also requires more scrutiny since funding increases in 2025/2026 were simply related to student headcounts and inflation rather than substantial grant amount increases, but that’s a topic for another day.

    While Surrey is used in the specific example above, the fact is that many BC public school districts are underspending the Inclusive Education budgets that are approved by trustees and submitted to the provincial government during annual budget cycles. To show this, I have prepared Table 1 , which shows a comparison of the planned, amended, and spent budget amounts for the 2024/2025 school year for Inclusive Education for each school district and for the province as a whole. The table also includes a calculation to show the difference between the finalized (‘Amended’) Inclusive Education budgets compared to the Actual (spent) Inclusive Education budgets. The calculations indicate that some districts spent more than their Amended Inclusive Education budgets, while others spent less.

    The top row of the table summarizes the total values in each category from across all districts in BC, indicating that a remainder of 25.4 million dollars of money planned to go towards Inclusive Education remained unused at the end of the 2024/2025 school year. This money may have instead either been spent on alternative district uses, or ended up as a budget surplus at year end rather than being put towards inclusive education.

    The concern this raises is that when districts significantly underspend their budgets (e.g. by more than ~2%) this does not support a message to the provincial government that districts do not have enough money to better support inclusive education practices. This in turn makes it hard for trustees to advocate to the provincial government for more money towards inclusive education, when year after year the Inclusive Education budgets of many school districts typically remain underused in their own accounting records, while other budget line items are often shown to be over budget.

    Within the Inclusive Education budget, the specific item that districts appear to be falling short on spending typically relates to how many educational assistants, or ‘EAs’, they are hiring. Staffing has been a significant challenge across the province in recent years, and in many districts it may simply not even be possible to hire and/or retain as many EAs as was planned in the budget and approved by the trustees. Hiring enough EAs may be partly a district-level choice, but it’s also shaped by supply-and-demand challenges, issues that often extend beyond what school districts can solve on their own.

    To show this, I have prepared  Table 2 , which shows a comparison of the planned, amended, and spent amounts of the 2024/2025 school year budgets for educational assistant salaries for each district and for the province as a whole, along with a calculation to show the difference between the finalized (‘Amended’) EA salary budget compared to the Actual (spent) EA salaries budget. Again, the table shows that some districts spent more than their finalized EA salary budgets, while others spent less. In the top row of Table 2 the total values from all districts across BC show that a remainder of 19.5 million dollars of the 2024/2045 EA salary budget was unspent.

    Note that much of the EA budget overlaps with money set aside for Inclusive Education. In preparing  Table 2, I used the EA salaries values for all students because it gives a more reliable picture of overall spending. This is important because EAs do not work only with students who have inclusive education designations. They also support students in other areas like Regular Instruction, English Language Learners, Indigenous Education, and Summer School. In addition, many districts don’t track exactly which students an EA works with each day, making it difficult to separate EA spending by specific program categories.

    Something new I learned last year while following the budget process in my local school district more closely, is that the way some district staff plan and discuss budgets with trustees doesn’t directly align directly with the format/template for budgets that are reported back to and reviewed by the provincial government. As such, the reported Inclusive Education budget line item of the budget for some districts may lack significant transparency and accountability. When submitting the budget to the provincial government, there is a legal requirement for the budget to be presented under the specific directions on their website (School District Budget Reporting) and through the use of specific Word and Excel Template documents, with specific rows and columns (also found on their website). This process allows the provincial government to review similar looking budget submissions from all districts and compare and evaluate how that money is being spent as I have done in preparing Table 1 and 2 presented above.

    However, what I observed last year, was that the Financial Plan summary document prepared for and reviewed at length by the district with trustees was notably different than the format that was later submitted to the provincial government (e.g. with no attached detailed spreadsheets in the format that the province requires; some dissimilar in-text tables and figures).

    A great deal of debate focused on how to spend small amounts of the operating budget money that district staff determined trustees could potentially reallocate through motions. In reality, this discretionary amount was less than 1% of the overall operating budget that trustees were required to approve in the final Excel template submission. After watching the process, I was disappointed to see how little real control the trustees in my district seemed to have over the broader budget decisions, which were largely determined by the district administration staff.

    Below are a couple other things I learned in following the process last year that may be helpful to others who are interested in following district budgets and just learning about this process:

    1) ‘Schedule 2C’ of budget bylaw template format provides a 2-page summary of budget allocations. This can be useful from the perspective of budget advocacy and for tracking changes made to the budget over time. This page of the budget can easily be found on all school districts financial reporting pages and compared year to year and as the budget is amended over the school year. Look for the pdf document of the Audited Annual Financial Statement – then find the two pages labelled Schedule 2C in the top righthand corner; example here: link. – pg 34.

    2) In completing the required spring budget submission format, the districts’ accounting teams need to follow specific requirements from a document referred to as the Operating Fund Account Descriptions, which was last updated in 2006 ( https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/administration/resource- management/school-district-financial-reporting/operating-fund-account- descriptions2.pdf). This was interesting information for me to learn and perhaps is something that could use some more provincial advocacy around. For example, why are districts being asked to report on Inclusive Education budgets based on descriptions and a format that has not been significantly updated since 2006 and still uses the terminology ‘Special Education’?

    Overall, many of us can agree that the current provincial school system’s funding levels and model are not meeting the needs of many students with diverse needs and disabilities and in general are long overdue for an update/overhaul. In the meantime, however, it’s hard to put sufficient pressure on the provincial government to make changes when individual districts continue presenting budgets with limited transparency and then leave budget allotments for Inclusive Education and educational assistant salaries unspent at year end. I can’t help but think that year after year, school districts are simply updating the same internal spreadsheets with a handful of new variables related to student headcounts and the updated provincial government grant amounts with little to no actual thought about the support needs of today’s students, all with limited oversight and input from trustees. This repeated pattern annually leaves the provincial government with the wiggle room to deny their overall responsibility to increase funding in a meaningful way that creates change and meets the needs of all students.

    So what can you do about it? As the upcoming budget season approaches, below is a list of some key points and questions that can be raised with your school district during the upcoming budget season to support improvements on transparency and responsibility in budget development and tracking moving forwards.

    Also below are some links to references to keep an eye on the budgets as they are reported directly to the provincial government annually. If you happen to be a trustee reading this, please use your voice and make sure that: a) your district is transparent in the decisions being made and that proposed budgets are based on current student needs; b) the proposed budget details you review and approval align with the submission format that is submitted to and monitored by the provincial government; and c) over the course of each school year, your school district is actually using the budget allocations you fought hard for and that the funding is intended to go to Inclusive Education and educational assistant salaries is in fact going towards these. Every dollar unused in these areas of the budget at the end of the school year is fuel for the provincial government to deflect responsibility back to the districts and removes your ability as a trustee to advocate for more provincial government support.

    Sincerely, Anonymous member of BCED Access

    Suggested Questions to ask During Upcoming Budgets Cycles

    • How do the budget documents presented align with the BC Bylaw Submission Format that trustees will ultimately be approving? This question is applicable if the district’s budget information is not shown in the same format as the BC Bylaw Template submission.
    • What assumptions were used in the development of the annual budget for Inclusive Education?
    • What assumptions were used in the development of the annual budget for other diverse student populations (e.g. English Language Learners, Indigenous Learners, and Children and Youth in Care)?
    • What assumptions were used in the development of the annual budget for Educational Assistants?
    • What are the staffing levels of the current school year and what changes are proposed for the upcoming year? What assumptions were used to account for any proposed changes?
    • What plans does the district have to make sure they can hire and retain sufficient staffing levels in the upcoming school year to support all students?
    • In this year’s budget how do actual educational assistant and resource staffing levels compare to planned/budgeted staffing levels?
    • How does the 2026/2027 proposed budget for Inclusive Education and educational assistant salaries compare to the 2025/2026 budget for these items?
    • What budget tracking and reporting tools are used by the school district over the course of the school year and how often does the school plan to share this information with trustees so they can confirm that allotted budgets for Inclusive Education and educational assistant salaries are being fully utilized (e.g. Do trustees see quarterly budget/staff tracking reports?). Where applicable reference information in Tables 1 and 2 presented above if it will strengthen your point (e.g. if your district underspent significantly on these items last year).
    • In the event of staffing limitations on the district’s ability to use all of the planned Inclusive Education budget, how will any potential funds remaining at year end be spent to ensure that they still go towards supporting inclusive education?
    • Does the annual Inclusive Education budget include administration time, and if so, why?
    • What is the anticipated budget for legal fees in the 2026/2027 school year budget and where in the budget is that cost accounted for? (This question has been included as some districts have been observed to have very high legal fees in the past two years.)
    • Advocate to the provincial government to update their outdated funding model, including budget templates and documents, to better meet the needs of a more inclusive model for education in BC.

    Additional information on BC Provincial Budgets

  • Year in Review – A Collective Scream

    While we are nearing the end of 2025, we are still not even halfway through the 2025-2026 school year. 

    In the upcoming year, it won’t be long until we reach spring, and there will be even more talks on how to cut from the budget, which has already been cut so much. 

    For this blog, we wanted to focus on the voices and experiences of our community. Your labour, advocacy and contributions that push for change. 

    Here are parent testimonials from our previous 3 community blogs from 2025, along with additional testimonials and wishes for the education system. To read the full previous blogs, click these links: EAs are Essential for Equitable Education, Failure by Design – School Start Up, and Is this Systemic Oppression or Systemic Abuse. To our families, thank you for doing all that you do, every single day. We honor you. We see you.

    This is Our Collective Scream. From the Mountain Top.

    *******

    “A lack of resources landed my child alone in a locked storage closet (without my knowledge or consent!).” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My son is in grade 10, the school is enjoying use of the funding, but doing nothing to set him up for success. He has attended 4 hrs this year and the counselor has checked in once and the autism-program-specific-teacher has checked in once. We’ve never had an IEP meeting in 3 years. Backdated IEP-like documents and literally blank progress reports were nefariously uploaded to parent connect after an audit, but the substance of them did not apply to my son and also included an incorrect diagnosis. The very basic common sense best practices for working with neurodivergent people are absent in the autism-specific program in our district. My son has become so anxious and depressed that he’s nearly stopped eating and has lost 10lbs this month – he was slender and had fallen off his growth curve in the first place. The doctors keep asking us “what is the school doing??” —nothing!“– Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Our school has not placed children in their permanent class assignments. The first 4 weeks are spent rotating in cohorts, which is chaotic, dysregulating and overwhelming for everyone.

    Not enough EA support my child, who requires toileting support, has sat in wet pull-ups all day because no one has reminded him to use the toilet or supported him in changing his pull-up. Again, contrary to his IEP.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “I am an EA and some classes have as many as 7 IEPs with multiple 1:1. students and only 1 EA” – Staff and anonymous parent

    ******

    “My daughter is quiet and non behavioural. She has never received support. She is diagnosed asd and LD. After grade 6 her confidence continued to drop and anxiety got worse. She turned to self harm and school refusal. Currently in grade 11 and 5 years of fighting the system only to continue to hear “we have kids throwing desks and our supports are thin.” I finally gave up and decided to home school.” – Anonymous parent

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    “EA support was pulled in January 2025 when EA left the district and has not been replaced. My son requires access scribe support. It’s in his IEP. Teacher is unable to accommodate being regular scribe and there is no EA available for his classroom. This means he cannot complete or participate in classroom work.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Transition to high school. I learned at my child’s 15 minute iep meeting this week that none of his teachers are even aware he has a designation, and that it is up to me to tell them.

     My son harmed himself for the first time due to the stress school start up has caused. He also wants to drop out and is in distress daily. So am I. We both feel exhausted and lost. The support block as mentioned above is not working for the same reasons. It is so frustrating. I told the learning suppprt staff this at the IEP meeting and they said we might have to enforce it? But how? No one has followed up since. It’s just so frustrating and exhausting. We seem to slip between the cracks deeper and deeper each year. A psych ed was recommended for last year but I continue to be told he is “low priority” and it’s pretty clear it isn’t gonna happen.” – Anonymous parent 

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    “Start school? They won’t be ready for my daughter till October.” – Anonymous Parent

    ******

    “September start up was one of the worst we have had so far. My daughter had lost all of her trusted adults at school due to layoffs and was expected to start with all new staff as our district believes that students should be able to work with anyone. This was so stressful and triggered some of the worst anxiety of have ever seen in my child and zero support from out district, we had no other choice but to enrol in online learning . Since our district doesn’t even offer online learning anymore, we had to switch out of our district completely so my child could receive proper adaptations and support supports. Not only has this affected her mental health, but it has taken a toll on our family in general as I have had to leave my job so I can support her with online learning, leaving us with only one income.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “My 5-year-old son has Type 1 diabetes and has been asked by school not to attend school for more than two hours a day because there’s no one trained or available to safely support his medical needs. The isolation has been devastating for him and for us. Every day he’s reminded that his disability means exclusion, not inclusion. We’ve been told his safety can’t be guaranteed, so access to education has become conditional. It’s exhausting to keep explaining that my child’s right to be at school safely, equitably, and fully included is a human right, not an optional service.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “My five-year-old son is receiving 3–4 different EA supports in a single day because the school hasn’t been able to figure out consistent support. When he does have assistance in class, that support is shared with two other children who require more intensive help, leaving my son with even less support. At lunch and recess, he has no supervision at all — which has already resulted in him running off the field once. I later found out that, instead of addressing this properly, the school placed him in a sectioned-off area where he couldn’t access the rest of the playground. To me, this feels like segregation rather than inclusion — the opposite of what schools are supposed to practice. Thinking that this might be our journey for the next 12 years is overwhelming.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My child has suffered in self-esteem, self-determinism, and mental health concerns. They also hate school. Because of teacher attitudes, they now think that they won’t be able to have a good, well-paying career and also feel very ashamed of their diagnosis. They’re also a lot more cynical towards thinking people will help them and not judge them. The insistence on having Grade 9’a immediately start to self-advocate, when they already have school-related anxiety, is ridiculous. My child feels embarrassed every time they have to remind teachers in front of other students of their accommodations, which is quite frequent, and many times they just give up. My child (and I) has had to battle with teachers to get their accommodations allowed, and the accommodations are quite simple (more time on tests, able to work in quiet space if needed, body breaks, etc). I’m worried that my child may hurt themselves, might drop out of school, and/or never be motivated to find work that they are good and enjoy, BECAUSE of how the school system, high school in particular, has treated them.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “I’m an inclusion district specialist teacher, and I am exhausted, sad, angry and disappointed in this system I am a part of. I try very hard to make a difference, but it feels insurmountable most days. I am also a mom of a student with multiple designations in this system. I don’t have any answers. I am sorry.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “‘They misplaced my son’s entire file and “forgot” he’s autistic” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Transitioning into middle school, the model is completely different. The support we had access to in elementary school for sensory regulation for my G designated child with learning disability doesn’t exist in his current school. They have an academic support block that doesn’t work for a demand avoidant kiddo with ADHD. We had an early IEP meeting with the school counsellor, but so far none of our requests have been supported due to our child not needing “intensive supports”, but he’s at high risk for dropping out of school already– he missed all last week and now we’ve found out the one contact we had that my son felt connected to, this specific counsellor is leaving and I have to meet again with his new case manager and get everything going again and repeat all advocacy- but nothing has been put into place anyways due to lack of supports. It’s so frustrating- around and around just to be told there’s no access/support/body to help.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “A 16 year old child who was non-behavioural with learning disabilities received little to no support in middle school and is now majorly struggling with school, has about a grade 4 math level, has major anxiety and easily overwhelmed. Is struggling with mental health issues and on the verge of being a drop out due to school avoidance. Due to them being non-behavioural, no addiction issues, they don’t qualify for an alt school and can’t handle regular school.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My child has zero supports in the classroom. Unable to read and write, there is no support for him to even write his name on his paper in grade 2. I collect his papers and work through them with him in the evening. We are exhausted, we are stretched so thin. My child is aware he is behind, and his confidence and self esteem is non existent and is now refusing school because of the lack of support and connection. Designation, flight risk, and psych ed incoming.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    “My son started high school, gr. 9 last Sept. He was only allowed to attend a total of 19 full days between Sept-Jan. Because of his needs, specifically his learning disabilities, that were not being met-they refused any support or accommodations unless he was confined to the Learning Resource Room for his allowed 2-3 hours a day. No class time or instruction allowed. In late January after an incident with another student who was bullying him, he was not allowed to return at all. We were given the option of online which is not realistic for him, or to attend an alternative school for troubled youth. My son now works full time at 15 and says he lost his childhood because of not being allowed to go to school like other kids-this was his school story for the last 4yrs. He knows he will likely have to wait until he’s 18 to do any schooling now. Our child not being allowed to attend and everything else that has gone into trying to work with people who don’t seem to care at school has caused significant trauma, impacted our mental health, emotional health, my physical health has taken a hit due to the stress and financially…Well can’t make money to support your family when your constantly called away from work or have to be available to pick up/drop off for the couple hours a day your child is allowed to attend.

    It’s ruined my faith in systems meant to support our children.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    “Transition into grade 8 from elementary school. No breaks were given for the first week, and there were no teacher check-ins. I had to send all About Me and IEP over the weekend with no follow-up. Not providing accommodations listed.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “We had a huge cuts last year in our district and the school I primarily work at has 90 IEP‘s and eight education assistance. My son who is one to one was not getting his work done at school because of “staffing breaks, and not enough coverage“ the shortage also resulted in the school, not loading his AAC device with appropriate vocabulary so he could participate in all his classes. So now we are doing academics at home and he is only going to brick and mortar part time. this week because of further shortages and looking into the future with more EA cuts, LRT‘s are actually giving children who are neurodivergent the choice of support or suggesting to the students they can do it on their own. these students technically are given the choice of whether or not they won’t support if they choose not to have support. These are kids that will do nothing and likely learn nothing without having support.” – Anonymous Parent

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    “My guy went from bell to bell support g designation in grade 8 to 0 support in grade 9. Nothing academic is done with him anymore.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    I wish that supports were just in place. I’m so tired of having to prove we need things over and over.

    I wish that so much did not depend on the individual support teacher you are assigned.

    I wish there were more robust supports for after school care. We HAVE scd and I still can’t access after school care as no one wants him and in 2 years he’ll age out but still need care.

    ********

    “No functioning laptop at school has prevented my son from familiarizing himself with Google classroom materials when he’s at home (where he feels safe). I’ve had to purchase a laptop for him. Note: my son is at home doing online courses. He cannot do this without supervision so I can’t work.” – Anonymous parent

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    “We have many supports, BUT they require me to be at home…homeschooling is working, but being a single-income family is hard.” – Anonymous parent

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    “Never having the proper EA support, has resulted in a kid that lacks confidence, thinks they’re stupid, and hates school. Major anxiety around school.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “My Grade 6 daughter’s mild diagnosis has escalated to fight-or-flight violence due to accomodations not being used. Daily exclusion in sensory room or back room. I am not sure she is learning anything. She has been sent home causing financial loss to me as a single working mom.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “……an undiagnosed invisible disability for my youngest and more lack of support, three years behind at school, accused of being lazy and not trying hard enough, resulted in unjustly removed and attempted suicide in effort to get help.

    ********

    “In our school district, elementary school students are not given class until the numbers have been settled, and the school knows how many teachers they will have, and how many EA’s they can get. This is especially true at the local small school that fluctuates around 100 students. My kids are no longer in elementary, but students with Disabilities and anxiety were recommended to stay home for the first 2weeks of school, because they were unable to support them during that time, and it would set them back for the beginning of the school year.

    In other words, “sorry, we can’t get our act together so your kid cannot attend school for the first two weeks”. No, not the individual school’s fault, as one of the principals (frequent changes), would try to assign EAs and students with known supports to know teachers before the school year, but frequently, things would still require big changes.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Transportation not aligned with school timing. No assistance for driver on the bus with 3 wheelchair kids so first week’s driver quit.

    No training for toileting in the first 2 weeks. Trained staff change each year. No EA in high school classes to support a kid in a wheelchair.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    Once again, we have no plans to subject our son to B&M school.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “This year, specific supports were removed from my child with a disability, which has impacted his access to education, mental health, and safety at school as a result of putting policies and procedures before student needs and rights” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “I work in education, and I’m very disappointed with the lack of training and time available to discuss students. If you’re new to working with a student and you need to know what works for the student, there is no time to shadow or ask the important questions. If you have a good admin, they might be able to find the time somewhere.

    Where is the consistency for our students? They are nearly all dysregulated and having a hard time adjusting to being back at school.

    The second week in I had a class teacher ask if the student I was supporting had an IEP.

    It should be mandatory and signed off that class teachers have seen the list of designated kiddos, their in-class designation, diagnosis, and read their IEP.” – Anonymous staff and parent

    ********

    “Gr. 12 English teacher clearly didn’t bother to read the IEP. He made my very dyslexic child read Hamlet out loud one week into the school year. When my kid said he can’t read it, the teacher said, “If you can’t read, you should be in the special ed class.” First, the whole thing is discriminatory. And second, a week in, you should have time to glance through the IEP. And third, even if the teacher had not read the IEP, do they not know that 10-20% of kids are dyslexic? Why are you making all the kids read out loud?

    This is a systemic issue because this is not an isolated incident. Usually, I send an email at the beginning of the year for teachers to check the IEP. I hadn’t had time to do that yet because i was busy with work. But it’s actually not my responsibility.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    I wish there was a communication guide for school staff so that they didn’t continue to reinforce parents’ trauma when they email or phone us. The “what’s changed at home” email is especially triggering when you find out that the reason your child is having a hard time at school is because they’ve had 4 different subs this week or their EA is away or the school removed supports that were working because “the child doesn’t need them any more”. I wish the default wasn’t to blame home. – Anonymous Parent

    *******

    Why hold year-end IEP meetings to prepare supports for next teachers if they don’t even receive the IEP before school starts? The result has been repeated violations of the plan, leading to stress, heightened anxiety, and self-harm. – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “We have students who might be regulated but will do zero academics…2-4 in a class and lucky if an EA can even go to that class and bounce around for an hour a day. And, we have 2 full time kids away until mid Oct, another m/w/f from 9-12 (parents support and want this so year can start successfully), another two kids who do just 9-12 (parents are advocating for this knowing that their kids can only handle this but hope time can increase), another who is just coming for an hour.”- Anonymous education staff and parent

    ******

    “Recent cuts have resulted in loss of programs for category H&R students who are now left with no support and often don’t attend class” – Anonymous

    *******

    My kids have stopped attending school but the only way they were able to attend was with one-to-one EA support. They needed someone to greet them and help them find their way in and get settled, and they needed the co-regulation and the option to leave the room as needed with a safe and trusted adult.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    I wish every gender non conforming student had free, easy and unencumbered access to a single stall washroom that met their needs.

    -no key or permission required (students shouldn’t have to out themselves to admin or anyone to be able to pee)

    – not in another building, on another floor or across the school

    – safe, well maintained, clean, free from harmful graffiti – Anonymous Parent

    *******

    “My son missed out on 2 weeks of football camp because of his Tourette’s and the school wanting an in-service from Tourette’s Canada. This was done on day 4 of back to school with the whole football team as well as the principal and both vice principals. He was immediately included until parents went to the superintendent to complain. Now he’s excluded again because of his medical condition. Complete discrimination” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “This year, specific supports were removed from my child with a disability, which has impacted his access to education, mental health, and safety at school as a result of putting policies and procedures before student needs and rights” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    Our school prohibited in-person access for students to our counsellors during the first week of school and only allowed communication through email to fix course schedules.

    *******

    My wish for education is

    1. for those in higher up positions in the Ministry of Education and CC AND the Ministry of Finance realize that this isn’t charity.

    That it’s pay now or pay more later.

    2. That the Accessibility legislation be updated to strengthen education and enact accountability and transparency mandates.

    3. That MCFD increase SCD or whatever they’re calling it now so that our kids can go to daycare like other kids.

    *******

    “Our school in SD 36 was intended to have 27 Divisions and only got approved for 25. One teacher was told he had to leave the school 3 days after it started. One was delegated to an empty position within the school. There was lots of shuffling. A Grade 2 teacher is now teaching Kindergarten.

    My child is in a portable and told me they don’t have individual desks. They are using bins to store school supplies. Basically they cramped more kids into each class.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My son requires access to sensory room daily. It is in his IEP. This year it took until November to get an EA available to be able to give him and another student in his class access to sensory room daily.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Son was referred to Gifted enrichment program. He requires EA support to attend. Including access to scribe. There is no EA support available for this program and so he could not participate this year.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “If my kiddo didn’t have his full time EA’s he wouldn’t be going to public school period. They help him achieve his best every day he’s at school, through good and difficult times. They help with him being able to stay in the classroom, they help with scribing , helping with social situations on the playground, so much that they do.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My son is in gr 5 and at a gr 1 reading / writing level.. EAs are essential in assisting with academics, breaking down the questions, scribing. Helping organize thoughts with and putting it onto paper, clarifying instruction, engaging/ encouraging social encounters with peers.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My son grade 6, has a lot of safety concerns, Constantly needs reminders as he likes to feel certain texture in his mouth, he forget to wash his hands after using the washroom, He has few words, but he doesn’t ask for help, or request for food and water, without 1:1 support, he will be completely lost.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “Our morning transition can be very challenging, with heightened anxiety and often school refusal. EA support for transition help from the parking lot into the school can mean the difference between attending or not”. – Anonymous parent

    ********

    For those of you who made it through till the end,
    who else is terrified at the state of our education system?

    This is our collective scream.

    Will the system respond?

    We need action.

  • Attitudinal Barriers to Equity

    There is one key belief system in the general public that people with disabilities have to navigate. 

    Deep down, the general public believes that accommodations are a form of cheating. That we are lying. We are often not believed. This goes beyond just the education system. This involves health care, employment, etc. The underlying belief is that we are getting away with something. We are taking advantage of them or the system. To fight us and our wrongdoing, they must catch us in our lies. “But, you didn’t need this last time.” Like it’s some gotcha moment. 

    I am a person who stutters. My stuttering changes day to day, month to month, and year to year. Even 5 min from now. I could be speaking fluently, and then suddenly I can’t get anything out of my mouth. To the point that people think I am acting and joking around. Then they imitate me, thinking this is part of the joke. Ummm. No. I am not pretending. 

    My stuttering is impacted by many things. How much sleep I get. My stress levels. Depends on what I am talking about. If I am passionate or angry about the topic, my words come flying out of me, very fluent. It’s like I don’t even stutter. When I speak in front of an audience, my stuttering can change. What my speech will be like on Friday 10 am for a work meeting, I have zero idea. I can’t predict. 

     For each disability, how capacity changes is going to be disability specific. Society really struggles with this concept.

    Disability is fluid. Capacity changes. What someone needs support with on one day will not be consistent every single minute of the day, for all days to come. We mask a lot. Trying to squeeze ourselves into society’s tiny measuring cup is exhausting. The result of chronic ableism. Masking occurs for a lot of people with invisible disabilities. We learn early on that it is not safe to stick out, and have all eyes on you. We learn that we will be under surveillance and held to unrealistic standards if we get your attention for the wrong reasons. 

    In the school context, as parents and caregivers we struggle with being believed when we advocate for our children. Our children struggle to be believed. Instead of having their disability-related needs acknowledged, they are accused of being lazy or unmotivated. A character flaw. A failure is their personality. Could not be further from the truth. We know how hard they work. How deflated they are when their needs are not met, and the expectations are impossible.

    Providing lived experience is a powerful way to share stories and teach people the reality of our lives. I want to provide you with an example of a free accommodation request. 

    When I was in high school, I had to give a speech. If we were 30 seconds under or over 30 seconds, marks were taken off. My stuttering as a teenager was more intense than now. There was no way I was going to be able to do that. I would not be able to predict how much stuttering I would be doing to aim at ending my pre-written, memorized speech in that narrow target of time. It was an impossible expectation. If my stuttering was more intense that day, then as I am talking, I would have to perform the mental gymnastics of figuring out what I was going to edit as I was talking and trying to remember my speech. 

    I asked for the 30 seconds to be one minute. I was told, “No, that wouldn’t be fair to everyone else.”

    This denial of accommodation then forced upon me a ridiculous amount of hours.Hour after hour, reciting my speech over and over in hopes to re-wire my brain and decreasing the amount of stuttering intensity, and also have the speech so completely memorized that I could do the required mental gymnastics. 

    Right. This was apparently fair to everyone else. 

    We live in a capitalist society that believes in competition. This leads to suspicion. As humans, our brains are also wired for fairness. We want everything to be fair. We want everyone to start at the same starting line to run the race of life. This is a problem. A neurotypical non disabled perspective on fairness for someone with a disability is going to be off the mark, because they don’t have the understanding of what it’s like to be in that person’s body. The lack of understanding creates disbelief. You don’t look disabled, so how can you be that different from me? Just because I am disabled doesn’t mean that I am aware of all disabilities. Disability also isn’t exactly the same in every single person, either. Society likes to put people in boxes. That’s where everything falls apart. We don’t work that way.

    Society’s understanding of disability needs to change. What has been so fantastic is that there are so many more disabled and neurodivergent bloggers and authors. Writing about their disabled experience. We need to elevate their voices. Read about people’s lived experiences and learn. Storytelling can be a powerful change mechanism.

    Even physical disabilities are fluid. Chronic pain, for example. Another example, I have a friend who has cerebral palsy. Her walking capacity changes depending on the day. Some days she needs her wheelchair, and other times she goes chunks of time without it. This really confuses people. They think she’s using her wheelchair to gain advantages in life. Because to them, she’s cheating. An accessible parking pass is cheating. Why didn’t we all just think of this? (Sarcasm). People actually approach her and are aggressive in their accusations.  

    Think about that for a second.  Our children are being accused of horrible things. Of lying. Trying to manipulate people. Let’s look at what you are accusing us of when we advocate for our children. Because I can tell you, when I am not believed, it feels like you’re punching me in the gut. A trigger from always being accused of making things up as a kid. The fact that I have to remain composed and have this conversation with you, defending such a core part of my children, and not turn into a werewolf, I think, is award-worthy. 

    What is ironic is that people with disabilities try and blend in with the wallpaper as much as possible. We don’t want to stick out. We know it’s not safe. Risky. We have no idea how people are going to respond to us, and typically, it’s not great. So when we gather all the courage we can to have these often uncomfortable accommodation conversations, to not be believed, is beyond a horrible experience. 

    For most disabilities, accommodations are a lifeline. Without them, our children have little hope. They need them. Otherwise, they are excluded from education, organized play and society. I encourage everyone to research and understand the concept of equity vs equality. Equity is fairness.

    Trust me. We are not gathering, having secret club meetings, high-fiving over the accommodations we got you all to give us, laughing up a storm. But we are gathering. We are gathering in support groups. Crying. Angry. Trying to figure out how to survive life. To advocate for our kids, when many of us have the same disability as our children. Now all of our childhood experiences are being kicked up again, played out in front of our eyes. But worst. This is our kids now. Take me. Do this to me. Just spare them.  

    Kids are having their self-esteem sucked out of them, are self-harming, and dropping out of school. In our previous blog, we questioned, Is this Systemic Oppression or Systemic Abuse? A lot of accommodation requests don’t cost any money. It’s an attitudinal barrier we are dealing with. Running a lap around the school so my child can sit for math work won’t cost you a cent. And yes, he needs this, and no, we aren’t lying. 

    Many of our parents in our Facebook group responded to a poll that a lot of people and their children are struggling to be believed. This isn’t a unique situation. This is part of the disabled experience.

    Learning to self-advocate for yourself as a kid, is HARD. Especially when the adults around you don’t believe you. Your trust in adults can change in a second. 

    Certain elements of self-advocacy need to be in place.

    1. The person on some level needs to be accepting of their disability AND be willing to talk about it.

    2. They have to be able to identify when they need help.

    3. They need to identify what they need help with and have the language to express it.

    4. They need a trusted adult who has proved their willingness to listen to them over time.

    5. The child needs to feel heard.

    6. The child needs to feel that this trusted adult will believe them when they say they need help.

    7. This needs to be repeated enough times and be predictable enough for the self-advocate to feel comfortable and safe to advocate for their needs.

    From a rights-based advocacy lens, here is a human rights case where the tribunal reflected on self-advocacy for children in an education setting. 

    Student (by Parent) v. School District, 2023 BCHRT 237

    [90]           Generally, it is the obligation of the person seeking accommodation to bring forward the relevant facts: Central Okanagan School District No. 23 v. Renaud, 1992 CanLII 81 (SCC), [1992] 2 SCR 970. This can be challenging for children, and especially challenging for children with invisible disabilities. I agree with the Parent that children who require accommodation in their school are in a different situation than adults seeking accommodation. Though they have a role to play in the process, that role will be age and ability-specific, and the burden cannot be on a child to identify and bring forward the facts necessary for their accommodation.

    Unlearning what we think we know about disability as a society is key. We need to desperately create an environment where disabled voices, no matter in what form they communicate, they are are all heard AND BELIEVED. Children’s voices, especially. Listening to children and believing them doesn’t cost us a thing. We can start doing more of that. Now. 

  • Our Consultation on the Room Clear Tracker

    There have been a lot of really important discussions happening on social media, outside of our parent and caregiver Facebook group as well as inside our group. Our first blog on this topic is called Moving the Needle – Needing Change in Education. We were asking for people to share with us their thoughts and concerns about this tracker.

    Here is a summary of the concerns parents are raising. Some parents were willing to provide their own statements to contribute to this blog. They are below the summary.

    1. Privacy & Ethics

    One of the top concerns we are hearing related to this tracker is privacy and how the information is collected. There are concerns that the questions in the survey are going to expose a child, with potential harmful effects. Students could be socially ostracized and further excluded, pushed out of school. The ethical foundation of the survey is questioned. Parents’ comments below speak more to this issue in detail.

    Questions around the legality of this collection tool have been raised by parents as well as by the Surrey School District.

    At the bottom of the tracker form, it states:

    “We have been advised by the Surrey School District that they have legal concerns regarding the 2 questions that were at the bottom of this survey. We have removed them for now, pending legal review.”

    2. Reliability of the Data

    The way the tracker is designed, it is very easy to have skewed data, making the data that is collected useless and over-exaggerated. There are concerns that this is providing data about the wrong information rather than what we should be focused on. It is not student-centred. This data, without context, is dangerous.

    As the tracker progresses, BCEdAccess will elevate the lived experience of our parents to guide our advocacy work. We have reached out to Surrey DPAC to engage in dialogue, and we have asked for a meeting.

    Please reach out to BCEdAccess if you have any concerns. We would love to hear from you. Consulting with our parents and caregivers is always ongoing. As advocacy tends to be. It’s never a one attempt and done. We will continue to consult and adjust our advocacy plan accordingly.

    Here are some comments that people have been willing to share with us to reflect on.

    ******

    “Details such as grade, or “unmet accommodations”, even without names, might subtly identify a child in smaller settings, inviting unintended exposure or stigma. Tracking “how often” a crisis occurs can subtly risk shift focus to struggles over strengths, potentially leaving families feeling vulnerable if privacy safeguards aren’t fully robust (like encrypted, consent-first platforms, private, insured secured hosting protecting Privacy Information and vulnerable persons), I make no assumptions of whether thec later is in tact or not, simply spotlight.”

    “This tracker has enough gaps in it that could cause harm as it stands.”

    “When room clears are tracked publicly (even aggregated), they could highlight a school’s “challenges” in reports or media. This might unintentionally label learning environments as “unsafe” or “disruptive,” prompting administrators to suggest alternatives like specialized programs, online learning, or even withdrawal from the public system (also known as exclusion). Families may feel forced out, seeking solace elsewhere to avoid the cycle of exposure and stigma. In BC, we’ve seen enrollment shifts in inclusive classrooms, many tied to crisis data (information released from Ministry or media for example), a quiet exodus that widens inequities, as public systems lose diverse voices and funding follows.”

    “There could be risk of resource misallocation without fullesome context. The tracker spotlights shortages (e.g., low staffing), but if data focuses mainly on incidents, it could unintentionally ignite a steer of funds toward reactive measures like more security or isolation protocols rather than preventive, affirming ones. Without balanced insights (e.g., “What prevented a clear today?”), risks could grow for mismatched supports, where students bear the brunt through increased removals or segregated placements.” – Suzanne Perreault

    ******

    “The tracker invites teachers, education assistants and others to enter information about classroom “room clears.” Even if no names are used, the combination of school, grade, and date can make individual students identifiable, particularly those with complex or behavioural disabilities. In some contexts, this may involve identifying or aggregating data about Indigenous and disabled students.” 

    “Because room clears disproportionately affect Indigenous and disabled students, the tracker also raises serious human rights and reconciliation implications.” 

    “Collecting classroom-level data outside the protections of the School Act, FIPPA, the Accessible BC Act, and DRIPA/UNDRIP may bypass required safeguards for privacy, Indigenous data sovereignty, and disability rights. The Surrey DPAC may legally operate under Board recognition and district infrastructure, not as an independent research body, so the Board seems to remain responsible for ensuring any data activity complies with law, rights and ethics.” – Andréa Coutu (Co-founding member of the original BCEdAccess taskforce and co-editor of the first exclusion tracker report)

    *******

    “I am a parent of AuDHD PDAers who are not attending brick and mortar precisely because staff lack the skills to support complex kids.

    One of my kids never spent more than two hours at school when we were attending, because staff didn’t know how to support him, even when I provided plenty of information and resources on how to do so.

    Had I been pushing for full days, there is no doubt in my mind that a room would have needed to be cleared at some point due my kid’s hypersensitive threat response and the propensity for staff to trigger him by raising their voices and getting in his face despite being asked not to do things like this.

    I continue to face public judgement and shame due to the nature of my child’s nervous system disability. We live in an ableist and behaviourist world that does not understand him and is reluctant to accommodate him.

    There is no doubt in my mind that the kids who are triggering room-clearing incidents are experiencing extreme stress in the classroom, in large part due to the ableism and behaviourism they experience in that environment.

    Data like this will then be used to further justify their exclusion, and marginalized families will have even less recourse than we already do.” – Anonymous Parent

    ********

    “Those impacted can easily identify when a room is cleared but much less identify what led up to it. As well, many involved don’t even know what triggered the incident until someone more informed and engaged can deconstruct events leading up to the room clearing. We are both trying to identify, learn, inform, educate, and address the problem.

    That’s a lot of aspects we need to understand in order to address to eliminate the problem.” – Anonymous Parent

    *******

    “This tracker was created by parents, teachers, and other school staff out of desperation for improved working conditions in our school where resources are scarce. However, those creating this tracker have either chosen to or are incapable of seeing the student voice in these situations and this tracker will ultimately result in harm and more exclusions. 

    Tracking hazardous situations in our schools is the duty of the school district as an employer under WorkSafe BC, and as such we would expect that school districts are internally tracking situations where individuals may be at risk of harm (e.g. room clears, children eloping, excessive emotional stress, etc.). It is also the duty of employees under WorkSafe to report hazardous situations to their employer. And ultimately, it is the duty of the employer to fix problems reported by workers. Once identified, these situations should be investigated to determine the root-cause of the hazard. Was there enough support staff? Was there an IEP in place and was it being followed? Were trauma-informed practices in place? Have administrative procedures for these types of situations been updated recently with the latest information on trauma-informed practices? These all need to be addressed in the proper manner, and with proper resources and staff available to make our schools both safe and inclusive. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

    Excluding students in 2025 is no longer an option and student safety is the responsibility of everyone working together in a culture of health and safety where honest conversations are occurring, safety concerns are being addressed, and adequate resources are available.” – Anonymous Parent

    *******

    We will be sending this blog with testimonies, as we have with other blogs, to the BC Human Rights Commissioner to share with them our members’ lived experiences and wisdom. If you and your children are being negatively impacted by the lack of resources in education, we encourage you to send them an email and share your experience.

  • Moving the Needle – Needing Change in Education

    There has been a lot of discussion about the Room Clear Tracker that was created by the Surrey District Parent Advisory Committee. A lot of disability advocates and parents/caregivers have been digesting the idea and sharing their opinions online. There is a mix of feelings. Very valid concerns and hope for change. It hasn’t been sitting well with a lot of people. Others are hopeful. 

    When we want to create social change, there is never one right way of doing it. We have no manual. As long as we are constantly trying to push the line and create change, we are walking into unknown territory. I have personally felt like I have been watching a social experiment unfold in front of me regarding this topic.  

    I do want to acknowledge that it takes a lot of courage to stick your neck out and try something new. Leadership is hard work. It’s scary sometimes. At least it is for me. We all want to create change, and we are desperate. Desperate for something big, because it has become this hard. It feels like nothing seems to be making any significant change, at least not enough, and we are trying absolutely everything. Screaming for people to pay attention to us. To see us. To be aware.  Desperately trying to move the needle. These are our kids, and we are personally witnessing the devastating effects. Real long-lasting harm is occurring. 

    We know that people in positions of power need data before they act. Without it, we don’t exist. How and what they have data on will paint the picture. Let’s be honest. People in positions of power will take data and manipulate it however they like. They will argue they don’t have enough of it, or the right kind of data. It’s ridiculous.  Every time we enter the maze, they move all of the walls, and we are trying to figure out a new maze. This isn’t by accident. It’s by design. 

    Some of the concerns about the data are well-founded. There are concerns about it not being student-centred. That families will feel even more ostracized and excluded. School districts will be creating segregated classrooms because of it, and we will all be moving backwards in the inclusion movement. 

    There is already a lot of discussion about the return of segregated classrooms, long before this tracker. Families are already excluded and ostracized by people in their communities when a room clear event occurs, long before this tracker was created. The question becomes, will this tracker intensify these situations already or be the flashlight on issues that people don’t want to discuss? Will this create the data that will force the government to step in and do something? 

    This is the social experiment part. We don’t know. 

    What we are experiencing is fear of the unknown. 

    There are multiple opinions about this tracker from many families. We may see different sides of the coin. But underneath all of it is the same desire for change. We may disagree with how we get there, but we all want to improve the lives and families of students who are neurodivergent and people with disabilities. Our roots are the same. 

    BCEdAccess is a parent-led organization. We listen to parents. All parents and caregivers. There are many people out there with hopes and fears around this tracker. Many people are angry and scared. We see the hope for change and we see the fear. We want to hear from all of you. We are asking parents to send us your thoughts and concerns and experiences as this tracker progresses. 

    While people’s views that this tracker is not in line with the “nothing about us, without us” and is not amplifying the students’ point of view, maybe that just tells us that we need to ask the questions, how do we make that so? 

    Public policy is always tested. There is a pilot project, and in a few years, it will be reviewed. Decisions are made on whether to continue or not. What needs to be tweaked or changed?  Feedback is analyzed. Changes are made. Tested again. More feedback. If it does well, the program expands. It grows, gets larger. Just like with our own exclusion tracker. It grew. It has developed and is now national. 

    It will be a natural progression of development, and this tracker will tweak or develop as they receive feedback. Nothing is perfect when it starts out. Ever. 

    There is always the tension between privacy and advocacy. That will always be a discussion of where that line is drawn. We don’t want to do more harm than good, in hopes that change will occur. Because, all of this, we can’t predict. We just don’t know. It’s a risk. Do we want to not risk trying new things? That is fine too. If we as a community don’t want to do that. 

    The point is, we want to to hear from all of you parents. Who are out there living this. We want to hear from the advocates who are going to be taking this data and doing something with it. 

    I encourage people to continue the discussion and share with us your views. This is new territory for all of us. What can we learn from this? We are all trying to move the needle and increase supports in a very scarce education climate. We want change in education!

  • Is this Systemic Oppression or Systemic Abuse?

    Trigger warning: Children’s Self-harm, mental and emotional distress.

    The division of resources in society is a political decision. When resources become scarce in education, students with disabilities and diverse abilities are severely impacted. Impacts that last a lifetime.

    The Ministry of Education and Child Care has the obligation to provide every child with a quality, equitable education. They defer this responsibility to school districts. School districts blame the Ministry for not providing them with the funding, policy structure, employment agreements and resources to be able to deliver quality, equitable education to all students.

    School districts are incredibly underfunded. Children with disabilities are being pushed out of schools because of a lack of appropriate resources to support them. Many children are resorting to self-harm. They are experiencing increased anxiety and depression. They are dropping out or moving to online options. Parents are being forced to quit their jobs. By underfunding schools, we are creating a situation that forces people to be more dependent on other government systems.

    BCEdAccess has already blogged about the impacts of scarcity in education titled “Scarcity in Education = Harmful Work & Learning Environments” .

    We have many reactive systems in society. To receive a service at a hospital, you need to be sick first. To enter our criminal system, you need to commit a crime first. But our education system is designed to be preventative. It’s the one system that doesn’t wait for there to be a person in need of help. It should automatically provide a quality education for all children. They just need to show up. The reality is, the education system is now a reactive system. There are not enough resources for all children. Only responding to students’ disability-related needs when complaints are being filed or when intense advocacy by parents is being done. When resources are not there, students with disabilities are forced to leave school out of self-preservation and survival.

    BCEdAccess has gathered testimonials from parents and guardians from our Facebook group. We thank the families for their emotional labour in sharing their experiences. I want to warn readers that these are heavy and intense experiences. What is consistent throughout these testimonials is that parents are overwhelmed by navigating a system that is harming their child. The impacts on their children are incredibly harmful. This is systemic oppression. When I read the testimonials and hear of the impacts, I wonder, how is this not emotional and mental abuse?

    Children are self-harming due to the school environment. If they were self-harming due to their family environment, MFCD would be involved. But if this kind of trauma is occurring at school, it’s government-approved.

    When these students become adults, their struggles with functioning in society will be blamed on them. Their struggles to find employment will be viewed as an individual character flaw. Not as society’s failure. Not as systemic oppression. Not as systemic abuse.

    *********

    “My daughter is quiet and non behavioural. She has never received support. She is diagnosed asd and LD. After grade 6 her confidence continued to drop and anxiety got worse. She turned to self harm and school refusal. Currently in grade 11 and 5 years of fighting the system only to continue to hear “we have kids throwing desks and our supports are thin.” I finally gave up and decided to home school.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “Transition to high school. I learned at my child’s 15 minute iep meeting this week that none of his teachers are even aware he has a designation, and that it is up to me to tell them.

    😳

     My son harmed himself for the first time due to the stress school start up has caused. He also wants to drop out and is in distress daily. So am I. We both feel exhausted and lost. The support block as mentioned above is not working for the same reasons. It is so frustrating. I told the learning suppprt staff this at the IEP meeting and they said we might have to enforce it? But how? No one has followed up since. It’s just so frustrating and exhausting. We seem to slip between the cracks deeper and deeper each year. A psych ed was recommended for last year but I continue to be told he is “low priority” and it’s pretty clear it isn’t gonna happen.” – Anonymous parent 

    😔

    ********

    “My son is in grade 10, the school is enjoying use of the funding, but doing nothing to set him up for success. He has attended 4 hrs this year and the counselor has checked in once and the autism-program-specific-teacher has checked in once. We’ve never had an IEP meeting in 3 years. Backdated IEP-like documents and literally blank progress reports were nefariously uploaded to parent connect after an audit, but the substance of them did not apply to my son and also included an incorrect diagnosis. The very basic common sense best practices for working with neurodivergent people are absent in the autism-specific program in our district. My son has become so anxious and depressed that he’s nearly stopped eating and has lost 10lbs this month – he was slender and had fallen off his growth curve in the first place. The doctors keep asking us “what is the school doing??” —nothing!“– Anonymous parent

    *********

    “September start up was one of the worst we have had so far. My daughter had lost all of her trusted adults at school due to layoffs and was expected to start with all new staff as our district believes that students should be able to work with anyone. This was so stressful and triggered some of the worst anxiety of have ever seen in my child and zero support from out district, we had no other choice but to enrol in online learning . Since our district doesn’t even offer online learning anymore, we had to switch out of our district completely so my child could receive proper adaptations and support supports. Not only has this affected her mental health, but it has taken a toll on our family in general as I have had to leave my job so I can support her with online learning, leaving us with only one income.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “My 5-year-old son has Type 1 diabetes and has been asked by school not to attend school for more than two hours a day because there’s no one trained or available to safely support his medical needs. The isolation has been devastating for him and for us. Every day he’s reminded that his disability means exclusion, not inclusion. We’ve been told his safety can’t be guaranteed, so access to education has become conditional. It’s exhausting to keep explaining that my child’s right to be at school safely, equitably, and fully included is a human right, not an optional service.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “My five-year-old son is receiving 3–4 different EA supports in a single day because the school hasn’t been able to figure out consistent support. When he does have assistance in class, that support is shared with two other children who require more intensive help, leaving my son with even less support. At lunch and recess, he has no supervision at all — which has already resulted in him running off the field once. I later found out that, instead of addressing this properly, the school placed him in a sectioned-off area where he couldn’t access the rest of the playground. To me, this feels like segregation rather than inclusion — the opposite of what schools are supposed to practice. Thinking that this might be our journey for the next 12 years is overwhelming.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My child has suffered in self-esteem, self-determinism, and mental health concerns. They also hate school. Because of teacher attitudes, they now think that they won’t be able to have a good, well-paying career and also feel very ashamed of their diagnosis. They’re also a lot more cynical towards thinking people will help them and not judge them. The insistence on having Grade 9’a immediately start to self-advocate, when they already have school-related anxiety, is ridiculous. My child feels embarrassed every time they have to remind teachers in front of other students of their accommodations, which is quite frequent, and many times they just give up. My child (and I) has had to battle with teachers to get their accommodations allowed, and the accommodations are quite simple (more time on tests, able to work in quiet space if needed, body breaks, etc). I’m worried that my child may hurt themselves, might drop out of school, and/or never be motivated to find work that they are good and enjoy, BECAUSE of how the school system, high school in particular, has treated them.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “A lack of resources landed my child alone in a locked storage closet (without my knowledge or consent!).” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Transitioning into middle school, the model is completely different. The support we had access to in elementary school for sensory regulation for my G designated child with learning disability doesn’t exist in his current school. They have an academic support block that doesn’t work for a demand avoidant kiddo with ADHD. We had an early IEP meeting with the school counsellor, but so far none of our requests have been supported due to our child not needing “intensive supports”, but he’s at high risk for dropping out of school already– he missed all last week and now we’ve found out the one contact we had that my son felt connected to, this specific counsellor is leaving and I have to meet again with his new case manager and get everything going again and repeat all advocacy- but nothing has been put into place anyways due to lack of supports. It’s so frustrating- around and around just to be told there’s no access/support/body to help.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “A 16 year old child who was non-behavioural with learning disabilities received little to no support in middle school and is now majorly struggling with school, has about a grade 4 math level, has major anxiety and easily overwhelmed. Is struggling with mental health issues and on the verge of being a drop out due to school avoidance. Due to them being non-behavioural, no addiction issues, they don’t qualify for an alt school and can’t handle regular school.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “My child has zero supports in the classroom. Unable to read and write, there is no support for him to even write his name on his paper in grade 2. I collect his papers and work through them with him in the evening. We are exhausted, we are stretched so thin. My child is aware he is behind, and his confidence and self esteem is non existent and is now refusing school because of the lack of support and connection. Designation, flight risk, and psych ed incoming.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    “My son started high school, gr. 9 last Sept. He was only allowed to attend a total of 19 full days between Sept-Jan. Because of his needs, specifically his learning disabilities, that were not being met-they refused any support or accommodations unless he was confined to the Learning Resource Room for his allowed 2-3 hours a day. No class time or instruction allowed. In late January after an incident with another student who was bullying him, he was not allowed to return at all. We were given the option of online which is not realistic for him, or to attend an alternative school for troubled youth. My son now works full time at 15 and says he lost his childhood because of not being allowed to go to school like other kids-this was his school story for the last 4yrs. He knows he will likely have to wait until he’s 18 to do any schooling now. Our child not being allowed to attend and everything else that has gone into trying to work with people who don’t seem to care at school has caused significant trauma, impacted our mental health, emotional health, my physical health has taken a hit due to the stress and financially…Well can’t make money to support your family when your constantly called away from work or have to be available to pick up/drop off for the couple hours a day your child is allowed to attend.

    It’s ruined my faith in systems meant to support our children.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    “My guy went from bell to bell support g designation in grade 8 to 0 support in grade 9. Nothing academic is done with him anymore.” – Anonymous parent

    *********

    “No functioning laptop at school has prevented my son from familiarizing himself with Google classroom materials when he’s at home (where he feels safe). I’ve had to purchase a laptop for him. Note: my son is at home doing online courses. He cannot do this without supervision so I can’t work.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “Never having the proper EA support, has resulted in a kid that lacks confidence, thinks they’re stupid, and hates school. Major anxiety around school.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “My Grade 6 daughter’s mild diagnosis has escalated to fight-or-flight violence due to accomodations not being used. Daily exclusion in sensory room or back room. I am not sure she is learning anything. She has been sent home causing financial loss to me as a single working mom.” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    “……an undiagnosed invisible disability for my youngest and more lack of support, three years behind at school, accused of being lazy and not trying hard enough, resulted in unjustly removed and attempted suicide in effort to get help.

    ********

    When is it going to be enough?

    These are innocent children. They haven’t done anything wrong. Disability is a natural part of human variation. They don’t deserve this. Their families don’t deserve this either.

    What has to happen for the government to realize that not properly funding an equitable education system is doing way more damage to society and creating more dependency on all systems in the future?

    Not funding an education system is systemic oppression for a chosen group of people. I think this is systemic abuse. These are human rights violations.

    We can change this.

    So what can we do?

    Parents, if your children are being negatively impacted by the lack of resources and support in the school system, I encourage you to tell your story to the BC Human Rights Commissioner. Their office welcomes with open arms the stories of people with lived experience. They use people’s experiences as a way to guide and shape their work.

    The reality is that advocacy will always fall on us to bring awareness to the issues we are facing. Like it or not, people with privilege wouldn’t be able to guess this stuff, even if they wanted to. It’s too far out of their scope.

    I cannot tell you the number of times people in government have told me, “Kim, if it’s as bad as what you say it is, we would see more people filing complaints.” We need to muster whatever energy we have left and write that email to the BC Human Rights Commissioner. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t worry about rambling. Just spill it all out. If you are aware of someone in your life who you think needs to have their story told, sit with them. Offer to type it out in an email while they talk it out. Be the ally. Support them in speaking their truth.

    Send it in. Subject heading: Speaking my truth – We need help.

    I can’t tell you how many parents are advocating and doing what they do because they never want anyone else’s child to experience what theirs did.

    You are powerful. And your children are worth it. And other people’s children are worth it too.

    If you are an ally, please write to your MLA. We need all the support we can get.

    “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” — Alice Walker

  • Failure by Design – School Start up

    School has been back in session for almost three weeks. We put out a call in our Facebook group for people to come forward and tell the public what is really going on inside schools. These stories are very upsetting.

    We have a school system in BC that is designed to fail students with disabilities and diverse abilities. Which is heartbreaking, as it doesn’t need to be designed this way. We can change it.

    The government needs a good dose of Whitney Houston, Can we blast this song from all of the schools?

    “I believe the children are our are future
    Teach them well and let them lead the way
    Show them all the beauty they possess inside
    Give them a sense of pride to make it easier”

    ******

    “If we just reduced the number of people experiencing a new mental illness in a given year by 10% –
    something that is very feasible in many illnesses among young people, after 10 years, we could be
    saving the economy at least $4 billion a year.” – Investing in Mental Health

    ******

    We are not reducing, we are increasing.

    Schools are becoming petri dishes that are intensifying current mental health issues and creating new ones. It’s not just teachers and EAs being pushed out of the system. The students are stressed out too!

    Chronic underfunding is causing more and more children with disabilities and neurodiversities to be pushed out of the classroom into online learning or homeschooling. This puts an incredible strain on families. To read more about exclusion from brick-and-mortar schools to online learning, here is a collection of stories of exclusion. Here is the link to the exclusion surveys for the Ombudsperson BC investigation.

    As you read through the list of stories, I ask that you keep in mind a few things.

    1. How schools are organized to welcome back students is designed by adults. How we organize our time and resources could change; if we wanted to, we could do something different. We aren’t dealing with the law of gravity. Different provinces and countries start their back-to-school session in different ways.
    2. You will notice how the system is designed to set teachers up to fail and lead to school exclusion.
    3. Our education system has a legal obligation to provide all students with a quality education. For students with disabilities, our education system is required to not discriminate. Students shouldn’t be harmed because of their disabilities. The reality is that the school system breaks that law every day. It is even more obvious at the start of school every year. To learn about rights-based advocacy, read our blog.

    So what is the design?

    Let us discuss this!

    Teachers and EAs don’t start back to work until the FIRST day of school. If teachers do start back during the last week of August (which many do), they are doing so of their own free will. It is unpaid work. 

    Even with classroom planning happening in the spring, most elementary school teachers do not know who their students are going to be until the second week of classes. EAs are often not assigned to students or classrooms until the second week of school.

    In some districts, high school counsellors may start back in the last week of August for course organization purposes only, and they may not even be able to meet with students till the second or third week of school, until courses are finalized.

    I grew up in Ontario. When I was a kid, in elementary school, we all went to our new class on the last day of school and spent the afternoon with our teacher and all the other students. There were slight differences in the fall, maybe a new teacher, but it wasn’t a complete surprise or a chaotic mess. We weren’t spending the first week or so playing games with our last year’s teacher. Why does BC do things this way?

    For the people who justify how our system is designed, what narrative are you telling yourself to justify the design of the most chaotic start to a school year possible?

    We can decide to do things differently. Because the Ministry and districts have structured school start-up the way that they have, children with disabilities and neurodiversities face exclusion. This is by design. This is what systemic oppression looks like. Children and families are harmed due to systemic decision-making that could be different, but isn’t.

    How would the system need to change to allow children with disabilities to not be excluded in the first month of September?

    How do we actually structure in IEP reading time?

    Here is the national exclusion tracker that parent(s)/guardians can fill out. This data is essential to bring this issue into public view and make school exclusion undeniable.

    Here are our stories:

    Testimonies:

    “Two crisis situations could have been prevented if they had read the IEP and documents I provided weeks before school started. Now my kid only attends for an hour, 3 days a week.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Our school has not placed children in their permanent class assignments. The first 4 weeks are spent rotating in cohorts, which is chaotic, dysregulating and overwhelming for everyone.

    Not enough EA support my child, who requires toileting support, has sat in wet pull-ups all day because no one has reminded him to use the toilet or supported him in changing his pull-up. Again, contrary to his IEP.” – Anonymous parent

    *****

    “Transportation not aligned with school timing. No assistance for driver on the bus with 3 wheelchair kids so first week’s driver quit.

    No training for toileting in the first 2 weeks. Trained staff change each year. No EA in high school classes to support a kid in a wheelchair.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Start school? They won’t be ready for my daughter till October.”

    ******

    “I am an EA and some classes have as many as 7 IEPs with multiple 1:1. students and only 1 EA” – Staff and anonymous parent

    *****

    “Transition into grade 8 from elementary school. No breaks were given for the first week, and there were no teacher check-ins. I had to send all About Me and IEP over the weekend with no follow-up. Not providing accommodations listed.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Once again, we have no plans to subject our son to B&M school.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “We have many supports, BUT they require me to be at home…homeschooling is working, but being a single-income family is hard.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “‘They misplaced my son’s entire file and “forgot” he’s autistic” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “I’m an inclusion district specialist teacher, and I am exhausted, sad, angry and disappointed in this system I am a part of. I try very hard to make a difference, but it feels insurmountable most days. I am also a mom of a student with multiple designations in this system. I don’t have any answers. I am sorry.” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “This year, specific supports were removed from my child with a disability, which has impacted his access to education, mental health, and safety at school as a result of putting policies and procedures before student needs and rights” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Gr. 12 English teacher clearly didn’t bother to read the IEP. He made my very dyslexic child read Hamlet out loud one week into the school year. When my kid said he can’t read it, the teacher said, “If you can’t read, you should be in the special ed class.” First, the whole thing is discriminatory. And second, a week in, you should have time to glance through the IEP. And third, even if the teacher had not read the IEP, do they not know that 10-20% of kids are dyslexic? Why are you making all the kids read out loud?

    This is a systemic issue because this is not an isolated incident. Usually, I send an email at the beginning of the year for teachers to check the IEP. I hadn’t had time to do that yet because i was busy with work. But it’s actually not my responsibility.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    Why hold year-end IEP meetings to prepare supports for next teachers if they don’t even receive the IEP before school starts? The result has been repeated violations of the plan, leading to stress, heightened anxiety, and self-harm. – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Recent cuts have resulted in loss of programs for category H&R students who are now left with no support and often don’t attend class” – Anonymous

    *******

    “My son missed out on 2 weeks of football camp because of his Tourette’s and the school wanting an in-service from Tourette’s Canada. This was done on day 4 of back to school with the whole football team as well as the principal and both vice principals. He was immediately included until parents went to the superintendent to complain. Now he’s excluded again because of his medical condition. Complete discrimination” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “I work in education, and I’m very disappointed with the lack of training and time available to discuss students. If you’re new to working with a student and you need to know what works for the student, there is no time to shadow or ask the important questions. If you have a good admin, they might be able to find the time somewhere.

    Where is the consistency for our students? They are nearly all dysregulated and having a hard time adjusting to being back at school.

    The second week in I had a class teacher ask if the student I was supporting had an IEP.

    It should be mandatory and signed off that class teachers have seen the list of designated kiddos, their in-class designation, diagnosis, and read their IEP.” – Anonymous staff and parent

    *******

    “This year specific supports were removed from my child with a disability, which has impacted his access to education, mental health, and safety at school as a result of putting policies and procedures before student needs and rights” – Anonymous parent

    ******

    “Staffing numbers and EA assignments still not established, making it difficult for our students to settle into the school year” – Anonymous parent

    ********

    Our school prohibited in-person access for students to our counsellors during the first week of school and only allowed communication through email to fix course schedules.

    *******

    “In our school district, elementary school students are not given class until the numbers have been settled, and the school knows how many teachers they will have, and how many EA’s they can get. This is especially true at the local small school that fluctuates around 100 students. My kids are no longer in elementary, but students with Disabilities and anxiety were recommended to stay home for the first 2weeks of school, because they were unable to support them during that time, and it would set them back for the beginning of the school year.

    In other words, “sorry, we can’t get our act together so your kid cannot attend school for the first two weeks”. No, not the individual school’s fault, as one of the principals (frequent changes), would try to assign EAs and students with known supports to know teachers before the school year, but frequently, things would still require big changes.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “Our school in SD 36 was intended to have 27 Divisions and only got approved for 25. One teacher was told he had to leave the school 3 days after it started. One was delegated to an empty position within the school. There was lots of shuffling. A Grade 2 teacher is now teaching Kindergarten.

    My child is in a portable and told me they don’t have individual desks. They are using bins to store school supplies. Basically they cramped more kids into each class.” – Anonymous parent

    *******

    “We have students who might be regulated but will do zero academics…2-4 in a class and lucky if an EA can even go to that class and bounce around for an hour a day. And, we have 2 full time kids away until mid Oct, another m/w/f from 9-12 (parents support and want this so year can start successfully), another two kids who do just 9-12 (parents are advocating for this knowing that their kids can only handle this but hope time can increase), another who is just coming for an hour.”- Anonymous education staff and parent

    *******

    The education system can do better.

    It starts with the Ministry of Education and Child Care.

    This blog will be sent to the Ministry of Education and Child Care and the BC Human Rights Commissioner’s Office.

    Thank you so much to all of the parents and education staff who were willing to provide us with their experience. This is advocacy.

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