Resolving School Conflict
Before you start filing external complaints, you will need to navigate the internal advocacy process. ALL external complaint avenues want to know the steps you took at the lower level to resolve it. That includes the Teachers’ Regulation Branch (TRB), Ombudsperson BC. Ombudsperson will only intervene if you genuinely tried to resolve the issues at a lower level, and the school was the one who shut the door on you. Even the duty to accommodate has a “collaborative” process and does allow time for people to work out accommodations. The TRB will ask you if you met with the Superintendent before filing your complaint. (You don’t need to though…). You will need to give the school a chance. There is a process to follow. Some districts have “conflict resolution” documents, and they outline the steps to take. This usually isn’t an issue, as parents are always giving the school the chance. It feels like chance after chance. External complaints can help elevate your advocacy and increase the school’s motivation when it feels like they aren’t doing enough or trying to avoid any accountability.
Steps of Advocacy
This is the process you follow.
- Speak to the teacher about your concerns
- Speak to the Principal about your concerns
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*** Yes, this is the part where many people feel the need to get permission to take their issues to the district. Give yourself permission to take up space. Keep going. If they aren’t resolved and you are witnessing harm, don’t stop.
- Speak to someone in the district about your concerns. For example, Learning support services.
- Assistant Superintendent
- Superintendent (TRB will want you to do this.)
- File a Section 11 appeal
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*** Depending on the seriousness of your issue or how horrendous the event was, you can jump ahead and start cc: senior administration in your email. You might as well include the principal in the email, as they will contact them before they respond to your email. The worst thing that will happen if you jump to high too fast, they will let you know who the correct person is that you should contact.
For internal advocacy here is a manual created by Inclusion BC. Also, resources from Family Support Institute.
As you move through the internal process, you may be dealing with delay strategies or not. But if you feel like you are just a hamster on a wheel and you are running and running and getting nowhere, you can also decide to file an external complaint at anytime. However, there is a one year time limit for a human rights complaint. That is very important to keep in mind. Sometimes they use delay strategies to push you past the one-year mark.
External Investigators
For the really big issues, especially if it involves other children being impacted, they will often tell you that they are going to hire an external investigator. This strategy does a few things.
- They are hoping to calm you down and make you feel like action is happening and it will be taken care of.
- They use this time in hopes it will give you the time to process everything and they are hoping in a couple months time, you will not be as reactive.
- They will want to use this as a way to gather information from you. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)
- It gives them a way to move staff around or encourages staff to take a leave or retire.
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They could be very responsive to you and address issues. I don’t want to raise this as a red flag that something bad is happening. BUT…. it could be. So there are just some things to look out for. And I speak from experience.
- They will use this to delay delay delay. A ridiculous amount of delay. Delay that doesn’t make any sense. For example, a 12-month delay.
- They will turn the investigation into something much larger and hide a needle in a haystack. The investigation will turn into something completely different than the original intent that was told to you.
- They use this as a strategy to reduce their liability. They investigate it as a way to not tell you the truth but to reduce their liability. Them spreading out the blame so it is not obvious that one person did something really bad is a strategy the schools and lawyers use. Ombudsperson will interpret fairness very differently as soon as more than one school staff member is involved.
- They will use this as a way to get the Ministry of Education off their backs. The Ministry won’t be able to do anything until the investigation is over. Again, they delay delay delay.
- When they are done, they won’t be able to tell you very much because of confidentiality or privacy reasons of the staff involved. So if they are investigating the wrongdoings of a staff member, you will not get any information about that.
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In summary, keep your eyes open for the red flags. I would be hopeful. Some good stuff can possibly come from this. Work with the investigator. Know that EVERYTHING you tell the investigator will be relayed to the district.
Board of Education
People have mixed experiences when contacting their Board of Education. Some have found it to be very helpful and other people feel that the Trustees side with the district too quickly and they aren’t being fair.
If your issue could potentially turn into a Section 11 appeal, they will not be able to talk to you. They will say that they have to remain neutral in case you file a Section 11 appeal.
Sometimes you will hear that they can’t help you because your issue is “operational”. – I take issue with that.
Sometimes, because of the issues that you raise, they will change bylaws, policies, and behind closed doors – things do happen. Knowing the Trustees are aware of your issues, does put pressure on the district. They like to be thought of positively by the Trustees so having their dirty laundry aired out to them is not something that they want to have happen.
If the Board is aware of REALLY bad stuff, that could put their own legal protections at risk, then they will be more liable. Sometimes, staff are encouraged to retire. If the Board knew that staff did things in the past and it was discovered that the same behaviour was repeated, they would be in serious trouble for not handling things the first time around. People can leave the district to reduce the legal risk for the Board and the district. Which is not a bad thing. Sometimes their own liability concerns can work for us.
I think school Trustees genuinely want to feel that their school district is a good district and they are helping their communities. When they find out some of the naughtiness that happens, I think it makes them feel uncomfortable, especially if they don’t know how to solve it. Some Trustees are more knowledgeable than others. Sometimes they just want to stick their head in the sand.
School Trustees seem to really differ from district to district. Some of the cultures, processes and how they interact with their families and the pubic that I have heard about are wild. You can find some of this on the news. It really depends on what district you are in, what kind of response you are going to get. Some of the Trustees that I have interacted with have huge hearts. They are trying so hard. The system they operate in, is oppressive and hard. They are doing the best they can with what they can do. And I am so thankful for that.
Ministry of Education
Contacting the Ministry of Education isn’t really an “internal” advocacy strategy. The school districts DO NOT like it when they are involved. But I thought I would put this under this section, as it’s not an official complaint avenue.
The Ministry of Education will not respond to help you with your individual child’s needs. If your child’s teacher isn’t following their IEP, the Ministry will not help. It doesn’t mean you can’t tell them about it. The more they hear from parents about what is actually happening, the better. (**I have heard of a couple of parents who sent an email and told the Ministry what they are dealing with – staff shenanigans – and they were surprised that the Ministry did contact the district. So you never know.) Independent schools ** there is an investigation department, so send in your emails when you see wrongness happening.
It may be hit or miss with individual complaints, BUT
If your complaint involves more students and is a systemic issue. THEN, they want to hear from you. They do get involved, you just won’t know the extent of it. But when they find out a district is up to some shenanigans and they aren’t doing their jobs and harming kids, THEN they jump in.
Regardless, the districts DO NOT like it when you pull in the Ministry. So, if you are running on anger, sending an email to the Ministry and cc: the Superintendent, will certainly communicate to the district that you have had enough.
The Unknown
There is going to be a lot of work happening behind the scenes that you will never know about or see. I have had a glimpse of the goings-on due to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, and seeing the trickle effects of things happening months or even years later.
Sometimes I have sent an email and literally the next day, action has happened. Sometimes, a few days later, a staff member is suddenly on leave. Weeks later, another clue will pop uo and change is seen. Months later, more signs of change.
No one is going to sit you down and lay everything out to you and tell you all of the work they are doing. But I can tell you that they always want to protect themselves. So if you are showing them there is some serious shit happening here and they see liability gaps. They will want to close them and not want these issues occurring again, if nothing else, to keep themselves safe. They don’t want horrid staff making huge mistakes. They will want them on a medical leave, or they will want them as a TOC. They will report to the Teachers Regulation Branch themselves because they want these people out and to reduce their own risk. But they will never tell you everything; they will not provide you with all the evidence. They will be reassuring you that they are taking care of it, and we need to hope they are actually doing that. We may not trust them, and that is valid. But do trust, every move they make, they do it to protect themselves. So if you are exposing a risk to them, they are going to want that risk to go away. Or at least minimize it as much as they can. Sometimes we will only get information later from someone else, or see clues of change that tell us, just the impact we did have.
Resources Pages
Here are some pieces of information that may be helpful.
Understanding the Role of Teachers, School Counsellors and EAs
Section 177 – Schools can ban you and remove you from school property
Section 11 – Appeal to the Board of Education – The ability to appeal a decision or inaction. You don’t need to do this BEFORE You file a human rights complaint. The complaint process takes 18months to get accepted anyway. You could file your complaint and if it does get resolved, you can just withdraw it.
How to Deal with Schools Giving you the Silent Treatment
Commonly Used Acronyms in Supportive Education – A list of many acronyms
Freedom of Information Request – How to get documents from your child’s school
Documents to Request
The Duty to Accommodate – Rights-based advocacy
Blogs on Communication
Communication
What is the Ask? Email writing for School Advocacy
5 Rules on how to be Untouchable
The Use of Delay
Defamation. You Said What?
Liability in Education
Email Q & A
How to Gather Evidence
Strong Advocacy = Written Authority
Get Help
***** The collaborative process can be VERY stressful for people, and getting help can be essential. Here is my GET HELP page with a lawyer referral. Check out the advocacy help directory.
I also encourage people to prioritize their own mental health and seek counselling/support groups as they navigate these processes. It can make a tremendous difference in how we approach and process what we are experiencing. We make different decisions when we are in survival mode. Our knee-jerk reactions aren’t always the best ones. And I can speak from experience on this.
