It is a story as old as time.
Power. Control. Money.
How do you dominate and suppress a large number of people? How do you force them through a maze that they are going to fight every step of the way?
This story has actually already occurred in history before. People with disabilities were institutionalized. The goal was to move everyone into the community. However, the dream never came to fruition. It fell apart due to the support in the community never being developed. The training wasn’t there. The funding wasn’t provided. The attitudinal shift required from society never blossomed. People were moved from institutions to filling up prisons, surviving the streets, and families were left navigating and policed through scarce, tightly controlled community systems that have never been enough.
In education, disabled children previously were automatically separated in segregated classrooms and segregated schools. Inclusion became the dream, and disabled students were all moved into mainstream classrooms. But the training wasn’t there. Funding wasn’t provided. The attitudinal shift required from society never blossomed. Children started filling up online distant learning programs, escaped to independent schools, and families were left navigating and policed through scarce, tightly controlled public schools that have never been enough.
How do you control the masses of parents of disabled children trying to advocate for equitable access to education when the maze they are navigating isn’t currently designed for that?
It turns out.
Through insurance, risk management and litigation oppression.
All behind closed doors.
I am going to start right at the top.
The School Protection Program (SPP) is an insurance company. All school districts take taxpayers’ money and pool it together for insurance for all the districts. As explained in a BC Human Rights Tribunal (BC HRT) decision Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld (No.9), 2025 BCHRT 310 “The School Protection Program [SPP] is an insurance program that provides school districts protection against liability imposed by law for damages to third parties, and all costs and expenses incurred in defense of such claims.” (para 2). According to the SPP’s administrator handbook this includes human rights complaints (page11).
The insurance company pays the bills and can withdraw paying the legal fees from representing law firms when it’s not in their financial interest to continue. (1) They also will approve long fights when the big picture is justified. We all know how insurance companies work. It’s about money. Rejecting people to see if they appeal and fight back. Then give in. How many documentaries and news reports have we seen on this? Lots. Soulless entities. Parents are instructed by mediators in mediation meetings at the BC HRT that lawyers are making their settlement offers based on a cost-risk analysis.
The person who is waiting to receive compensation or accommodation supports at school is a disabled child. Not the parent. No one is going shoe shopping after this.
Let’s back track a bit. Before we even get to a mediation meeting. The cost-risk analysis is being done in the school district by administrators. They size up the parent. Take their education into consideration. Analyze their emotional capacity. Try to figure out their resources. They see how willing you are to please. How do you respond to authority? Marginalized parents and disabled parents are impacted the hardest. Polite racism and ableism form ability conclusions and risk assessments. They fit all parents through the maze in school meetings and emails. Will whip you back into your place during phone calls, and seemingly casual but potent last-minute conversations at drop-off and pick-up. They correct your behaviour, and remind you where you stand. They have the real power here, and they know it. Backed up by the School Act. For fear of retaliation and our children being unwanted, we fall in line.
Then harm has occurred. Sometimes slowly building over time or a serious event. Regardless, you have been pushed past your limit. You file a human rights complaint. You are entering an adversarial legal process. Another system that is underfunded and over capacity, and so will last years.
It comes down to money.
Is it cheaper for them to accommodate your child or to litigate? Do they think you have what it takes to make litigation more expensive than accommodating your child?
It’s an insurance payout decision.
The parents who have the capacity, the resources and the knowledge of how this system works are able to leverage it. They use the legal language in emails necessary and mark their territory. They are potentially expensive. The school district is more interested in providing. They know what they may have to justify to the tribunal if this doesn’t go well. For those that don’t, everyone else will be squeezed through the maze until they just can’t take it anymore. Our prisons are filled with kids who have jumped ship.
People talk about how to fix the education system. There is never one solution. No matter what that person’s idea is, the system is too complex. There are too many layers. There are too many people and stakeholders, and rights holders involved. Too many gears all locked together.
For this blog, I am focusing on the silent captain of the education system. The insurance company. We want transparency in the decision-making of the money that is spent on litigation matters.
School districts may have insurance to cover human rights complaints and other litigation, but according to school districts’ annual Statement of Financial Information (SOFI) reports, some districts are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and even millions on lawyers’ fees. What are they spending this on? Was this money originally intended for our children? Is it now being spent on litigation oppression strategies instead?
In the Surrey School District, a 2014 human rights complaint decision revealed that they were spending money on surveillance for a teacher who was on medical leave for depression and anxiety.
“Ms. Steele says that she believes the Board hired a private surveillance company to monitor her whereabouts and activities on her unpaid days off work during her GRTW. The Board agrees that they did so.” (2)
Is this what they are spending money on in their SOFI reports, or is this also insurance approved? Where is the budget line for surveillance of staff?
When school districts don’t have to explain what they spend their money on, there is an opportunity for litigation abuse, oppression, power and unethical decision-making.
Do you know that litigation is designed to be hard? It is to deter people from suing people or filing complaints that aren’t of great importance. Otherwise, it is believed that the floodgates would open and everyone would be filing complaints. Let that sink in. There are so many people with unmet needs, and this is how the system stops them from taking action. How you herd sheep through the maze and keep them quiet. Give them the appearance of a resolution avenue. Make them think it’s their own fault for not using it.
Is this part of the reason why the government isn’t too keen to fully fund the BC HRT? The Chair wrote a personal message on the BC HRT website stating she is leaving her position early out of pure frustration, as reported by The Tyee. Is this the intent of the government? Trying to widdle everyone out. Only leaving the ones with enough privilege, time, capacity and resources to navigate this other maze. Parents are calculating their own cost-risk analysis too.
Insurance, law firms, senior administrators, hidden budgets, hidden spending, all land on the backs of disabled children. Who have no choice. No say in how this system runs. And when they don’t squeeze themselves hard enough… it’s blamed on them. Their character flaw. Their deficit.
What. The. Fuck!
We want transparency. Can we start there? Come on, school districts, what on earth are you spending sooooooo much money on? Why are some school districts not spending any money on legal fees? What are you hiding?
If it is ethical spending that you think the public would understand, then why not explain it as part of your budget?
When the school district is so underfunded that there isn’t anything left, there should not be a secret hidden part of budget spending that isn’t explained. We don’t need a novel; a summary would be a great start.
So, parents, when we ask for accommodations, let me start the email for you.
Dear Insurance Company,
I hope you are well.
*********
(1) Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld (No. 8), 2025 BCHRT 64, para 6
(2) Steele v. School District No. 36, 2014 BCHRT 276, para 21