When submitting a Freedom of Information Request or an application for documents through the BC Human Rights Tribunal, here is a list of documents that may be relevant for you to request.
If you are filing an Ombudsperson complaint, they also have higher investigative powers and you may want to suggest to them to request certain documents.
If you are filing an OIPC complaint, and you feel they are not providing you specific documents, these are also documents that you can claim you are not getting for an “access complaint”
Document List
General Communications
- All staff emails
- Handwritten and typed meeting notes
.
Student Records
- Student profile page, medical alert page and designation page in MyEd database
- Student File (The office one, counselling file, LSS file)
- Attendance records with reasons for absence listed (many times being sent home is marked as “parent excused”)
- Suspension forms
.
Counselling & Student Support Documentation
- Counselling intake notes or intake form
- Counselling notes/log from the school counsellor. (Some of them keep a log noting when students where seen or when they contacted parents and what the topic was of the conversation.)
- Referral forms to Psychologist, SLP, OT or other itinerant staff
- School-Based Team Meeting Notes
- IEP meeting notes
- Threat/violence incident reports
- All communication between outside agencies and specialists
- Raw scores from any formal or informal assessments, including reading screeners
- Raw scores from all standardized assessments
- Principal incident logs (often maintained outside the student file)
- EA logs or daily support notes
- Behaviour tracking forms or data collection sheets
- Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA) reports
.
Administrative & Incident Documentation
- Union meeting notes. (When teachers are in trouble, they have a meeting with the principal and often a union representative)
- Work safe incident report form
- Employee file (paper and digital), letters of reprimand, letters of investigation – you’ll need a relevant reason possibly connected to credibility of the person through the BC HRT to possibly get access to this. The lawyers will fight you on it.
- Complaint file at the Teacher’s Regulation Branch – If you filed, I highly recommend you make an application for this through the BC HRT process. Currently, this is the only way you will get access to it.
- Board of Education notes (If you filed a Section 11 appeal – see if people are taking notes)
Independent Schools - FOI any policies or practices that are not posted publicly
- School investigations from Ministry of Education
.
Emails that include the following people - Classroom teacher
- EA
- Head teacher
- School counsellor
- LSS teacher
- Principal
- District (find out who is directly above the Principal)
- Superintendent
- Secretary-Treasurer (If this person is included in emails you know the lawyers are involved)
- Board of Education (the person connected to your school zone)
.
If your district has experience with human rights complaints, they will be more aware of what they should be and should not be putting in emails. You might not get a smoking gun. Not all districts are in the know. But it would be interesting to see if your child’s name is being circulated in emails that include the senior administrators or not.
