Good question.
There is strategy in this.
This is a worthy question to sit with and think about.
If you aren’t filing to fast-track your complaint, the current wait list is 2.5 years long. Just to find out if your complaint was accepted. (If it is not accepted, you won’t have to wait so long. The ones that are accepted sit in the queue longer until they have the case management capacity for them to proceed.)
The current wait time is long!
When you file a complaint, the school will be unaware unless you tell them. They will only find out if/when your complaint gets accepted.
So, the ball is in your court. What do you want to do?
Here are my reasons for you to consider telling them you filed a complaint. If you talk to other people, which I encourage you to do. They may have different lived experiences. But here are my reasons.
- Damage Period. Schools will always try to reduce their liability. In this case, this is good for us. They will try to reduce the harm your child is experiencing so that they won’t have to pay as much or reduce their risk in you being successful at a hearing. Supports that they previously said couldn’t happen will suddenly start to happen. Magic. (They will try to make it seem like it has nothing to do with your complaint.) So telling them they have a human rights complaint coming their way may get your kid more support. If they don’t think you have a case at all, they won’t be concerned. BUT, even still, it puts you in a different category. See reason #2. AND – If nothing else, you will get district eyes, and they will be investigating what is going on.
. - Parent advocacy. Parents threaten things all the time. All. The. Time. It’s a regular Tuesday for them when a frustrated parent threatens something. I have seen some of the emails. Folks are creative! A much smaller percentage of parents actually file complaints. So if they know you have crossed that line, your threat level just increased. Schools don’t care if you threaten a human rights complaint; they care if you do it. They analyze you by your behaviour. Do you follow through on what you say you will? How far are you willing to go to advocate for your kid? They focus on your behaviour, not your words. If the school thinks you are all bark and no bite, file a complaint. Keep in mind that certain behaviour can kick you out of the advocacy game. 5 Rules on How to be Untouchable. And yet, the school has the duty to provide your child an education regardless of what your advocacy is like.
. - Retaliation protection. There is retaliation protection built into the legislation of the Human Rights Code. They are not allowed to retaliate against you or your child, which public schools are well aware of that, and if they do, there is an avenue to address that. You can have extra costs given to your child just for the retaliation. People are often scared that filing a complaint will put their child at risk, however, in my experience, it is the opposite. My children got supports they never would have received otherwise, and I felt they were quite protected. The school district knew I could amend my complaint at any time and start adding to it. They knew if I was frustrated, I was more likely to fight and more likely they would then have to justify their behaviour and decisions to the tribunal. When they know external eyes could be looking at this, it can be very helpful.
. - Resolution time. Because the school is aware, you may wish to see if they want to resolve this sooner rather than later. They may be willing to do that. Some people have had their lawyers send a demand letter or you can even approach them on your own, looking for a solution. They may be interested in talking, as it will be the cheaper route. Or they may not want to take the early resolution route, knowing how long the system takes to process these things. Based on the context of everything, they are strategizing too. They often like to use delay in their favour, but sometimes they realize it’s in their best interest to resolve this now, then feel like they have this hanging over their heads.
. - Keep it hanging over their heads. It may take a really long time just to find out a complaint has been accepted, and if they are aware of it, they will be on their best behaviour. So use it. Tell them about the complaint, and just let it sit there. They will sit up straighter and just keep it hanging over their heads. Sadly, this is what we need to do just to get our kids their rights, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and that may mean filing external complaints and learning about avenues you never expected to need to have skills in. This is another example of using the system to get our kids an education. It sounds horrible that the wait time is long. But. Then again. They love to use delay on us and hope to exhaust us. We can flip it and use delay to keep them upholding our kids’ rights.
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Here are reasons you may not want to tell the school.
- Retaliation. Even if there is retaliation form to fill out to hold them accountable for their behaviour, it will still be sitting in the long queue, and it won’t help you in the present. Some people do experience really unusual retaliation because the person they are dealing with is unusually spiteful. (It will come back to bite this person later.) You just don’t know how the school is going to react. They might start to do little things that build over time, and your child is now refusing to go to school, and they have managed to weed you out. If they feel like they can’t control you or you are unmanageable, they have a history of knowing how to make people (or your child) so uncomfortable they “choose” to leave on their own. No one knows for sure how the school is going to respond. I can’t promise you anything or guarantee you any kind of response. You know the players on the field. I have never met these people at all. Districts differ. Some district admin have integrity and more of a moral compass than others.
. - Emotional readiness. Maybe you just aren’t emotionally ready to tell the school. There is no rush. Once you submit it, you can wait until you are ready and you have your plan thought out.
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If you do decide to tell them, I suggest you email the Superintendent and the Secretary-Treasurer together and don’t cc: anyone in your child’s school.
Let the school staff pretend that they don’t know what is going on, and build the relationship with the school staff as much as you can, until you think it is beneficial for it to be out in the open. I would suggest you let it play out a bit after you inform the senior administration and then make the call if and when you ever want to be open about it with school staff. That’s just my two cents.
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Sometimes filing a human rights complaint can be the move that gets you off the hamster wheel. The human rights tribunal is also not the only complaint avenue. There may be other avenues that are more suitable for your issue.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be filing complaints against the school when my kids started kindergarten. Never. Being in an adversarial position is a position no parent wants to be in. We aren’t entering these external complaint systems with glee. It’s heartbreaking when you think of it. But these systems are tools. This is Hunger Games. We are thrown in the pit by the system. We didn’t ask for this.
We are reacting to reality.
I have zero regrets. These systems kept my kids afloat in an education system that was never designed for them. It scares me to think what might have happened to them, and to me, if I never went this route.