School starts very soon, and what can we do to help our kids?
Communicate our kids’ needs. Don’t trust/rely on staff to do it.
This reality came from a human rights decision. Pay attention here to the wording. This is why it is so important that we make our own “All about me” pages or send our own information letters to teachers at schools. High school included.
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Student (by Parent) v. School District, 2023 BCHRT 237
[32] The Parent was proactive in trying to ensure the Student would be supported in high school. Before school started, she asked to be put in touch with the school counsellor. She reached out to the counsellor immediately on the first day of school and arranged a meeting within the first weeks. In that meeting, she did what she always did with the Student’s teachers: explained the Student’s history of anxiety and some examples of how it could manifest in school. She explained that the Student would not reach out for help when she needed it or show signs of distress. The Parent wanted the Student’s teachers to know about her diagnoses so that they could monitor her and identify if she needed further support. The counsellor recommended that the Student be involved in this messaging, as part of fostering her independence and self-advocacy. The Parent accepted this recommendation.
[33] The counsellor then met with the Student. She says that it is her practice to ask students “what they would like their teachers to know about their challenges and how their teachers can support them”. Together, the counsellor and Student crafted an email to the Student’s teachers, which said:
[The Student] would like you to know that sometimes she feels overwhelmed when the classroom environment is loud or distracting. It is hard for her to concentrate and she can sometimes feel anxious/panicky.
I have introduced [the Student] to the counselling space and the other counsellors. She would appreciate your understanding if she asks to leave class to take care of her needs and come up to student services. If [the Student] is unable to verbalize her feelings, she may write it down on a piece of paper.
[34] The Parent did not see this email at the time. From her perspective, the email was not adequate to appropriately communicate the scope of the Student’s school-related needs. It did not fully communicate what the Parent had told the counsellor, and what she had expected would be passed along to the teachers. She felt it was also not realistic to think that the Student would approach a teacher and ask to be excused; in fact, this was not an option that it seems the Student ever exercised. In the Parent’s view, the failure to identify the Student’s diagnoses perpetuated the silence and stigma of mental health and undermined the Student. The message contrasts, for example, with the communication that the Parent sent to the Student’s teachers at the start of her grade 9 year, which said:
My daughter has anxiety and Trichotillomania. She’s on medication and has been connected with a psychiatrist since she was 5 years old. If you ask [the Student] a question in class, she will sometimes panic and need more time to answer a question. Anything with time pressure and her mind will go blank. She will sometimes get overwhelmed if there is a lot of work. I have had discussions with her about testing and if she wants to be tested somewhere else. She has commented that the time pressure for tests, increase her anxiety and she is afraid of running out of time. I have asked her if she wants to be given more time and she says no. If you notice that she uses all of the time allowed for her tests, can you please let me know. I wonder if as her education increases in content if this will become more of an issue for her.
[35] Very shortly after these initial meetings with the Parent and Student, the counsellor took a leave of absence from work. No one else at the school took further steps to monitor or support the Student in her absence. The next time the counsellor would talk to the Student was in April 2019, again prompted by the Parent. I return to this below.
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Don’t assume the teacher has read the IEP.
Don’t assume the learning support teacher or anyone communicated anything to the classroom teacher.
September is a WILD month. It could be designed so much better, but as BCEDAccess has written, it is failure by design.
There are a lot of templates for an About Me letter online to create for your teacher. Many people will say, that they don’t feel they SHOULD have to do this. They don’t want to do staff’s work. Correct. You “shouldn’t” have to do it. But we must. Our dream world where everything works isn’t our reality. Not taking a proactive step in my mind, is a risk. Please don’t take it. I wrote letters all the way up to grade 12. Lesson learned.
I highly encourage you to write your own emails (Send a couple of days before day one) and send them to the teacher with the IEP attached. CC: the Vice Principal/Principal (VERY IMPORTANT) and, if you know the Learning Support Teacher/Case Manager, include them as well.
Give them no wiggle room, and if someone goes on a leave without you being informed, other people will be aware.
Communicate & Document.
I have also intentionally put my kids’ diagnoses on their IEP. Schools seem to think that diagnosis information is confidential and unnecessary. That is ridiculous in my mind and only increases the stigma and the lack of support and understanding from teachers.
For more information about this case, issues around masking, self-advocacy or meaningful inquiry you can read the blog.