Tag: #Disability

Posted on

Cease and Desist Letters

There are parents who have received a cease and desist letter. I don’t hear this often, but it does happen. Or they will be threatened with being given one.

Here is one example that went public.

Mom threatened with legal action after questioning B.C. principal who’s now accused of misappropriation

2014 letter from school board lawyer warned against ‘defamatory statements’ about Tricia Rooney

CBC News · Posted: Jan 25, 2023 4:12 PM PST | Last Updated: January 25, 2023

Mom threatened with legal action after questioning B.C. principal who’s now accused of misappropriation | CBC News

This parent knew something was wrong, and when she was questioning the spending she was served with a cease and desist letter. Years later, Tricia Rooney is investigated for misappropriating funds.

From the article:

“Last week, Lee’s phone “blew up” with messages from fellow parents when news broke that Rooney, also known as Tricia Low, was accused of misappropriating about $170,000 from Britannia Elementary, where she was principal from 2017 to 2020.

Lee says she felt somewhat vindicated by the news, but she was also angry.

“I have to unpack all the feelings that I have,” she said.

The allegations about misappropriation at Britannia are contained in a notice of claim filed against Rooney earlier this month on behalf of the school board, alleging “conversion, theft and fraud” from the tiny east side school. It includes allegations that she stole donated gift cards intended for families in need.”

One parent whom I am aware of, in another province, was served a cease and desist order because they were on a public platform and they were crying over what was happening with their child. The school district wasn’t aware, but this parent had retained a lawyer for over a year and they were building their case. After the cease and desist order, the lawyer hit them with with something so severe, that they would have begged for a human rights complaint. I thought, oooohhhhh these school district lawyers have made a BIG mistake. They had no idea who they were messing with. It’s a risky move for them to send this to a parent. You are poking the bear.

If you get served a letter like this, I would highly suggest you consult a lawyer.

Depending on what they are wanting you to stop doing, if anything, it may be appropriate to use it in your human rights complaint.

Here is my lawyer referral list. There are paid and free options on this list.

Lawyer Referral – Parent Advocacy Tribunal Help (School Advocacy)

Posted on

Part 7 – Applying the Duty to Accommodate – Focus on Needs

Two years ago, in the month of July, I wrote a six-part series on the Duty to Accommodate.

Part 1 – The Power of the Human Rights Code
Part 2 (a) – The Discrimination Test
Part 2 (b) – The Reasonable Justification Test
Part 3 – Meaningful Inquiry
Part 4 – Duty to Consult
Part 5 – Duty to Facilitate
Part 6 – Pulling it All Together

My goal was to make it more accessible and show people, through the trail of case law/tribunal decisions and Human Rights legislation (written authority), the rights their child actually have. Not just what the school district tells them – which is more focused on their own administrative processes and how they compartmentalize students administratively.

Most people when interacting with tribunals and specialized courts are self-represented. Law is not for the highfalutin lawyers. Law is for everyone. Knowing, understanding and applying our rights is a part of life, like grocery shopping and laundry. When we expect people to uphold our rights it does not mean we will automatically be engaging with lawyers either. School employees are duty bearers. Students are rights holders. Schools have the obligation and responsibility to uphold the students rights. (They just may not realize this.)

The pros (+) of the Human Rights Code:

  • It supersedes all school legislation, school board of education policy, administrative procedures and teacher classroom autonomy, etc, when in conflict (discrimination occurs). It is above all laws and policy – so powerful.
  • Every child has the legal right to be accommodated and receive an education.
  • It can create movement sometimes when nothing else has because of the accountability mechanism – human rights complaint process – the damage period.
  • The school knows if you file a complaint, they will have to justify or prove with evidence that they have accommodated your child up to the point of undue hardship.

The cons (-):

  • It only goes up to reasonable accommodations, not ideal or preferred accommodations.
  • The school is considered the experts, and they get to decide the accommodations, not you. You are there for consultation, but you are not the final decision maker.
  • If you don’t want your human rights complaint dismissed, you will need to facilitate reasonable accommodations whether you agree or not.
  • They get to decide class placement in “the best interest of the child,” not the parents’ wishes.

Pro (+) & Con (-)

  • Your rights are defined by case law (this is both very good and challenging). It’s how your rights are defined.
  • You are co-parenting with the government. For some reasons, this is fabulous, like the case law examples in the Co-parenting blog. For other parents they are going to find this frustrating, especially when you feel that you know more about disability and your child’s disability than the educators who are sitting in front of you.

The Duty to Accommodate will get your child into the classroom with barriers removed, which is HUGE. However, the school, with limited training in disability, has a lot of decision-making power and their own ideas on how to assess the functioning level of your child’s disability and remove those barriers. Add in layers of ableism with myths & stereotypes about disability.

Many teachers are still not aware that:

  • Accommodations are not rewards. No child needs to earn their accommodations with good behaviour.
  • They must follow a child’s IEP. It’s not optional or a nice to have or when there is time.
  • The Human Rights Code supersedes teacher classroom autonomy.

Parents are also struggling with educators not following their child’s IEP. There is, after internal advocacy, an accountability mechanism for that. Teachers’ standards are also a very important tool.

BUT….as I digress….

An important part of applying the duty to accommodate, after learning the language for email communication, is knowing where to focus your energy and what to focus on. This is a marathon, not a sprint. If you start taking extra side trips along the running path that are unnecessary and will lead to no where, you will exhaust yourself and deplete your capacity faster. You will burnout constantly trying to scale walls that are unscalable.

What do you focus on?

NEEDS.

You start with their needs. What are they struggling with?

This is how we apply the duty to accommodate.

As a parent, you are witnessing your child’s behaviour and communication at home. Whether they are hiding in their room, crying, having meltdowns after school, what they say, what they don’t say. You feel the energy shifts. The mood changes. The person you knew morphing into someone else. Behaviour is communication. You know your kids in ways that no one else does.

This is where you begin.

Because, since you don’t get to pick the accommodations your child will receive, you focus on the “problem” to be resolved. Which is the area of frustration.

I saw this book online. I haven’t read it. “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.” It’s actually a book for entrepreneurs. I saw it on some book thread. It was talking about how people create products for life’s problems. An area of frustration. They will invent something that they make into a product and try to sell it to the public because it solves a problem. But if you really want to unleash your creativity, focus on the problem and not get overly attached to your solution.

I thought, wow, this really applies to advocacy, actually. We see the problem (what is not working), and we get attached to our solution. And if PAC, schools, Trustees or other people don’t adopt our solution, then we get incredibly frustrated. But if they don’t adopt our solution, we still have the problem. So toss it back to them. You don’t like my idea. Fine. Solve the problem – remove the barrier. And they need to make “the ramp” go all the way up the stairs, not just halfway.

We can’t tell schools what to do. We are here for consultation. But they are expected and responsible for solving the problem (removing the barrier). There may be multiple solutions. But they need to try and pick the best one (which is what we are here for) for our child and be willing to be flexible and try something else.

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution. In other words, focus on your child’s unmet needs.

Meaningful inquiry —–All you have to do is tell the school that your child is struggling, and this struggle is connected to their disability, and THEY have to investigate and figure this out.

While it is true…..

*******

Wells v. Manitoba (Human Rights Commission) et al., 2025 MBKB 86


 The school must be given some discretion with respect to the specific programming and supports it provided to its students based on medical documentation and ongoing assessments.  As subject matter experts in delivering education, it appears that the school would be in the best position to determine how to provide academic accommodation to students in accordance with its assessments and available medical documentations.

********

Ok, then people. You want to be the experts. Be the experts. I’ll be here to consult and provide you with information on my child to help you figure out what the best accommodations are. But the responsibility falls on you. It doesn’t matter how fiercely parents advocate or if they don’t advocate at all; the school is still legally required to provide your child with an accessible education.

A quick nod to self-advocacy when it comes to students.

********

 Student by Parent v. School District BCHRT 237.

[90]           Generally, it is the obligation of the person seeking accommodation to bring forward the relevant facts: Central Okanagan School District No. 23 v. Renaud, 1992 CanLII 81 (SCC), [1992] 2 SCR 970. This can be challenging for children, and especially challenging for children with invisible disabilities. I agree with the Parent that children who require accommodation in their school are in a different situation than adults seeking accommodation. Though they have a role to play in the process, that role will be age and ability-specific, and the burden cannot be on a child to identify and bring forward the facts necessary for their accommodation.

********

Note to educators: If you are an educator and you are feeling overwhelmed or that you are not trained or educated enough in the area of disability or science-based reading interventions, you are NOT alone. I am fully aware that the system is setting you up for failure, and you all feel squeezed between a rock and a hard place. Get it. A lot of times, educators don’t know what to do, and they blame the child as their escape hatch. Even kids as young as grade one! For a lot of people, this seems to be a knee-jerk reaction. Is someone telling you to do this? I don’t get it. Communicating with the child is great. Blaming the victim after the fact. Not great. I really hope conversations are happening at union levels, administration levels, and teacher post-secondary levels are having conversations about proper professional development in disability and reading. Nothing from the 1950’s please.

Parents, you don’t need to accept excuses from staff for all the reasons they cannot accommodate your child or their blaming your child for not advocating enough. Staffing issues aren’t your problem. They are responsible for figuring this out. They aren’t allowed to give up on your child. They have to keep revising, monitoring and adapting.

If I were to bestow upon you all of the riches from all of the lands, it would be a support system and the duty to accommodate. Using human rights language does not mean we are foaming at the mouth in attack mode. Advocating for your child’s legal rights can be right in line with being pleasantly persistent. Some parents feel that rights-based language is too aggressive and they don’t want to feel unwelcome at the school. Don’t wait until you are so raging mad you are ready to storm the fortress. Build it into your advocacy from the start. Rights-based language is only aggressive if you make it to be. It can be very preventative. It can be what keeps you out of the human rights complaint process.

The duty to accommodate and accessibility legislation all focus on a disability-related need and removing a barrier.

For example:

Student with ADHD. – Teacher is noticing that your child is continuously not handing in their homework and relays this concern to you.

Disability-related need: Executive function skills that involve planning and memory. Focus; may have missed the instructions. Homework isn’t coming home. When it does come home and is completed, it doesn’t get handed to the teacher in the morning. It’s not because of a personality flaw or a character defect. Always look for how the areas of frustration are connected to disability features. Our kids aren’t lazy or unmotivated. They have neurological reasons for their behaviour and they need accommodations.

Barriers (Physical, Attitudinal, Structural) – Attitudinal & Structural (rules) – teacher feels the students are old enough that they shouldn’t have to prompt kids at the end of the day to remember to bring their homework home. Teacher doesn’t want to specifically ask for homework at the start of the day. They want the kids to put it in the homework bin “independently”. Physical – lack of visual prompts for homework reminders. Child is handwriting down instructions, and the printing is illegible. Parent doesn’t know how to support the child in their homework at home.

Focus on the needs. How does the teacher plan on removing the barriers? How can you manage the classroom and make it more inclusive so everyone is being prompted to take homework home and hand it in?

A parent might jump to the solution and want an EA to check in on them at the beginning and end of the day and be very frustrated when told there is no EA time for their child.

Focus on the need: the teacher needs to remove the barriers and figure out how to get your child’s disability-related needs met. If an EA isn’t available for individual prompting, how can they apply prompts for the whole class and make the supports inclusive to everyone? Maybe the teacher uses their classroom website to post homework to assist with parent support for completion. It’s up to them to figure this out. Maybe the student takes a picture of the instructions with their phone.

They need to remove the barriers and resolve the disability-related unmet needs. They need to consult with you, as you know your child, and figure out what will work for your child.

A KEY part in how we uphold our child’s rights is we DOCUMENT. I won’t regurgitate my documentation blogs here, so take a look through the blog list category.

Applying the duty to accommodate means creating a document trail.

I would argue that you are not engaged with rights-based advocacy if you are not creating documented communication between you and the school. (TIP: you may want a separate email address just for school communication. Never delete anything.)

Applying the duty to accommodate means you are aware of all of the duties under the duty to accommodate, you understand that it’s reasonable accommodations, not ideal, what your role is and the responsibilities of the school. You focus on needs. Unmet needs and barriers.

Generally….

Your role:

  1. Documenting your consistent communication. Communicate, communicate, communicate.
  2. Expressing unmet disability-related needs
  3. Consultation through the IEP process/accommodation meetings
  4. Whatever excuses the school gives you – they are responsible for figuring this out and resolving the barriers to your child’s disability related needs. Human Rights supersede.
  5. Be persistent. It will show them that your eyes are on them. Document the progress. What is working and what isn’t.
  6. Communicating needs is also really important so later they can’t claim hindsight.

School’s role:

  1. Remove barriers and provide your child with what they need so they can “access their education”.
  2. They will need to have evidence that they are providing your child with reasonable accommodations and that they are reviewing, adapting and responding to the changing needs of your child, whether you are advocating or not.
  3. They need to offer an opportunity for meaningful consultation with parents/caregivers.

Key Takeaway

  1. The duty to accommodate is powerful. (Please read the six-part series as your foundation.)
  2. It’s not going to get you 100% of what you want – it’s how your child’s rights are defined. School gets final decision power. “Reasonable” accommodations. Are they making reasonable decisions?
  3. Focus on your child’s needs. It doesn’t matter if they get a designation or an IEP. The schools’ obligations and legal duties don’t change. They still have to accommodate a child with a disability no matter how they administratively process your child.
  4. Be persistent, consistent and document your communication. You need that document trail, and writing about your child’s unmet disability-related needs should trigger meaningful inquiry. Then you are ready to go!

Conclusion:

Learning about the duty to accommodate and learning how to advocate is a life skill every person should have. Disabled or not. I have met adults with privilege who have horrible advocacy skills and are terrified of advocating. Just think of this as free training. You’ll become so good at this, that it will assist you in other areas of your life. (We had a car dealership sell us a car that had the wrong brakes in it. They thought they could wiggle out of it. I am not a door mat. They said to me, “What has happened in your life that you do not trust me?” LMAO. After weeks of persistent and consistent advocacy and calmly informing them I will take them to small claims court, they paid for our brakes to be replaced. They were tough. They really put up a good fight and they thought we would go away using the same strategies that school districts use. Nope. Sorry. Nice try. They don’t work on me. I know what to do.) Thank you school district for all of the advocacy experience and the ability to sharpen my skill. Conflict resolution, relationship building, advocacy – I am very ready for life.

I wish you all the best in your advocacy journey. I highly suggest you find your people for support. You are certainly not alone and you don’t need to do this alone either. There are a lot of parents out there walking the same path as you. If you want, you can find them.

Start here…

BCEdAccess Society
Family Support Institute
Inclusion BC

Here is my GET HELP page.

Best wishes,

Posted on

It is not about intent. It is about impact.

You do not need to prove or have evidence that your child’s school intended to harm them. That it was on purpose. Just that they did.

Let’s travel back in time to January 2020. Pre-COVID. I started an online course on Rental Property Management. I was lost in terms of what I wanted to do for work. There were aspects of rental property that intrigued me. Enough for me to take up an online course and see where it leads. This decision changed the course of my life.

I was reading a chapter a month, then took the online test. Each month, one more chapter. Then COVID hit. I had more time on my hands. Two chapters a month.

I found it to be quite boring. The only two chapters I found interesting were the chapter on law and the other one on human rights. A flag, a road sign, an indication of my interests. I started to read chapter 14 on human rights in the middle of August. (Note: One-year timeline for my child’s complaint was September 19th, 2020). At first, I was unaware the clock was ticking. I was reading through the chapter, and my eyes read this line:

“…the Human Rights Code does not require an actual intent to contravene (section 2). Thus, unintentional acts that have the effect of discrimination are prohibited under the HRC and are subject to the HRC’s remedies.”

This chapter was FULL of information all about the human rights process, complaint filing, and discrimination.

And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

If you could envision a train going down one track, and someone pulling the lever to switch tracks. This was it. What was holding me back was that I thought I would have to prove that they intended to hurt her. I didn’t know how I would gather evidence for that. I didn’t have evidence for that at the time or that I would ever get it. (Through the application process, I did gather evidence of horror.)

I had previously looked at the BC HRT website, but it all looked really scary to me and overwhelming looking at all of the information. The never-ending pages.

It was THAT sentence and THAT chapter that sent me off to the Human Rights Clinic. It was easier to digest the content and the information when reading it all in chapter format than reading it off in sections on a website. I sent an email, with evidence attached, to the BC Human Rights Clinic. My question was, can I file a human rights complaint? 5 days later, they called me back. Told me to file.

And I was off.

The rest is history.

People usually need to feel that people are doing things intentionally to hurt their kids to justify filing a human rights complaint. School staff can be so ableist and ignorant that they don’t even realize the harm they are causing. Completely oblivious. They could also be prioritizing administrative convenience and other justifications that they willfully looked the other way. They may truly believe and think they are in the right, believing that they have teacher autonomy and they can decide if your child gets accommodations or not. That they don’t have to follow the IEP. It’s their classroom. Their circus. You don’t need to prove that they intended to harm your child, just that they did.

It all comes down to the discrimination test.

Which you have the burden to prove, with evidence.

It’s not about intent. It’s about impact.

*******

Human Rights Code:

Discrimination and intent

2  Discrimination in contravention of this Code does not require an intention to contravene this Code.

********

This is from the BC HRT website on Leading cases: Test for discrimination

Leading cases: Test for discrimination

“Moore v. BC (Education), 2012 SCC 61
To prove discrimination, a complainant has to prove that:

  1. they have a characteristic protected by the Human Rights Code [Code];
  2. they experienced an adverse impact with respect to an area protected by the Code; and
  3. the protected characteristic was a factor in the adverse impact.
    .

Once a complainant proves these three things, the respondent can defend itself by proving its conduct was justified. If the respondent proves its conduct was justified, then there is no discrimination. If the respondent’s conduct is not justified, discrimination will be found to occur (para. 33).”

**********

I filed my first human rights complaint 5 days before the one-year timeline. Like Indiana Jones, I slid through just in time…and grabbed my hat.

Posted on

Does a single comment violate the Code?

Staff and parents have filed or are considering filing a human rights complaint because of a comment another employee or educator said to them at work or during an IEP meeting.

The story comes out. Followed by some version of: “I can’t believe they said that to me.”

Does a single comment violate the Code?

*********

Brito v. Affordable Housing Societies and another, 2017 BCHRT 270

[41]           However, not every negative comment that is connected to a protected characteristic will be discriminatory harassment contrary to the Code. It is certainly undesirable for people to treat each other rudely, disrespectfully, or inappropriately. However, it is not the Tribunal’s purpose to adjudicate disputes other than where a person’s protected characteristic has presented as a barrier in their ability to fully, and with dignity, access an area of life protected by the Code. In performing this function, the Tribunal is cognizant that the disputes brought to it arise between human beings, with all the imperfection that entails. Not every failure to be kind or professional requires state intervention. This includes failures with discriminatory overtones – and therefore highlights a distinction between comments that may be “discriminatory” in the everyday sense of that word, and comments that amount to discrimination, within the meaning and scope of human rights legislation.

[43]           In the analysis of whether negative comments rise to a level of harassment that adversely affects a person in their tenancy, the context is critical. Where conduct occurs during a single incident, or does not otherwise amount to a pattern of conduct, the Tribunal will consider all of the circumstances to determine whether it violates the Code: Hadzic v. Pizza Hut Canada  (c.o.b.Pizza Hut), [1999] B.C.H.R.T.D. No. 44 at paras. 32-33; Pardo v. School District No. 43, 2003 BCHRT 71. Those circumstances include “the involved parties, the context in which the comment was made, whether an apology was offered, and whether or not the recipient of the comment was a member of a group historically discriminated against”: Pardoat para. 12.

*********

One of the cases listed here is an education case.

Pardo v. School District No. 43, 2003 BCHRT 71

[12]           In my view, all the circumstances must be taken into account when considering whether a single comment could constitute a contravention of the Code.  Without suggesting that this is an exhaustive list, some of the relevant factors would be the egregiousness or virulence of the comment, the nature of the relationship between the involved parties, the context in which the comment was made, whether an apology was offered, and whether or not the recipient of the comment was a member of a group historically discriminated against. 

If you want to research whether you think your single comment would reach the level of discriminatory harassment that created a barrier, you can search for other cases on CanLii. Here are my instructions. I found many cases by entering “single comment” in the DOCUMENT TEXT field.

I highly suggest you research other decisions and see if your situation is similar to or different from the decisions you find. It will help you determine if going this path is worth it to you as a way to resolve this. Resolution often can take many paths, and filing an external complaint is just one of your options.

Hate Speech and Harassment

The tribunal went through a LONG analysis of what is hate speech with this very well-known decision that got a lot of media attention. The School Trustee had to pay &750,000.00 for his ongoing explosions of hate speech.

Chilliwack Teachers’ Association v. Neufeld (No. 10), 2026 BCHRT 49

[120]      The analysis of hate speech is driven by the dual harms it is intended to address: (1) the “grave psychological and social” harms experienced by individual members of the targeted group, and (2) the larger social harms caused by speech which “propagates, within social discourse, premises of inferiority that may gradually desensitize the majority and lay the groundwork for later, broad attacks”: Whatcottat paras. 73-74; Wardat para. 62. This second, social, harm is rooted in the recognition that “the end goal of hate speech is to shift the environment from one where harm against vulnerable groups is not tolerated to one where hate speech has created a place where this is either accepted or a blind eye is turned”: Whatcottat para. 131. This purpose-driven perspective must account for the specific context affecting the targeted group and the types of speech that, by drawing on pre-existing fears or stereotypes, is likely to expose that group to hatred or contempt.

[121]      A finding of hate speech is reserved for extreme and egregious examples of delegitimizing expression, whose harms “cannot be prevented by the discernment and critical judgment of the audience”: Wardat para. 61; Whatcottat para. 46. Section 7(1)(b) of the Code does not protect against “hurt feelings, humiliation or offensiveness”: para. 47. It does not capture speech that is derogatory, false, or discrediting, or which ridicules, belittles or affronts the dignity of a group of people, including through the application of stereotype. Importantly for the purposes of this case, it does not capture speech which debates or speaks out “against the rights or characteristics of vulnerable groups”, unless the speech is made in a manner “which is objectively seen to expose them to hatred and its harmful effects”: Whatcottat para. 145.

[122]      Hate speech exposes its targets to detestation and vilification. It includes “a component of looking down on or denying the worth of the other”: Whatcottat para. 43. Speech that exposes a target group to detestation tends “to inspire enmity and extreme ill-will against them, which goes beyond mere disdain or dislike”: Whatcottat para. 41. It seeks to “abuse, denigrate or delegitimize [the group], to render them lawless, dangerous, unworthy, or unacceptable in the eyes of the audience”. Speech vilifying a group accuses “them of disgusting characteristics, inherent deficiencies or immoral propensities which are too vile in nature to be shared by the person who vilifies”: Whatcottat para. 43.

*********

For those who are wondering if filing a complaint over a single comment will be dismissed in a dismissal application, I highly suggest you speak to a lawyer.

Here is my lawyer referral list. Some are paid, and some are free.

Posted on

Settlements and Legal Fees 2012-2026 (Public Schools) – Students and Employees

Why are legal fees that school districts spend SOOOOOOOOO much money on such a mystery???

We already have an OIPC decision that states legal totals do not expose privileged information, so they aren’t protected under the privacy laws. So why the secrecy?

*********

OIPC Decision – Order 1728

[49] For the reasons given above, I find that ss. 14, 17 and 22 do not apply to
the information in issue. Therefore, under s. 58 of FIPPA, I order that the City is
required to disclose the settlement amount and the legal fee amount by August
18, 2015 pursuant to s. 59 of FIPPA. The City must concurrently copy the OIPC
Registrar of Inquiries on its cover letter to the applicant, together with a copy of
the information it provides to the applicant.

**********

Where do you find information that shows their legal spending?

So far that I am aware of, there are two places.

The first one is their Statement of Financial Information that you will find on the main district website under their Board’s financial information section. This is posted every year by December 31st. If they spend over $25,000.00, they have to publicly report it and post it.

The second place is through the Ministry of Finance and the School Protection Program. This is the school’s insurance plan that covers legal fees for human rights complaints. This is where I have been sending my Freedom of Information Requests. If you want to send your own FOI requests, it will cost you $10 and I will write below what I requested. You can file your own and improve on what I have collected.

I first started doing this in 2022. I have just completed another batch. I am a persistent little bugger.

Below are screenshots of the information. However, not very accessible to read. So, I have put everything into an Excel sheet. Kapow!!

The first sheet has the main districts of the Lower Mainland and their legal fees for the last few years from the SOFI. I have mostly focused on the law firm Harris and Company, as they are a very popular law firm for school districts. But there are other law firms that school districts use. The other popular one that is used frequently is Guild Yule and Farris. Then a bunch of other law firms that don’t particularly focus on education but have experience in human rights and insurance.

Below is the link to this document. Click on the different sheets to navigate through all of the data.

I am posting this information because I want this to spark conversation.

What do you think of all of this?

Does it bring up further questions?

What is the difference between the money spent on what is covered by insurance and by what is not?

What is the insurance company’s criteria for what they will cover?

If the district goes rogue and wants to spend their own money on an issue, can and do they do that?

Why don’t we know about any of this?

Why doesn’t the Ministry of Education refuse to keep track of this?

We are talking about MILLIONS of dollars!

Fighting disabled children who are trying to get an education. Schools aren’t fighting parents. They are fighting CHILDREN. The parents are just representing their kids on the complaint. The complainant is the child.

Are we good with this? Public? Hmmmm.

Any thoughts?

Click on the Lawyer Fee Data Sheet to dive in.

LAWYER FEE DATA SHEET

This is what my FOI request on my last one 2024-26

“From the School Protection Program, liability discrimination claims connected to human rights complaints within K12 public schools. The total costs of legal fees and settlement amounts, including how many claims there were for each year (Date Range for Record Search: From 2/10/2024 To 2/5/2026)”

Please use my data as a stepping stone for your own searches.

Posted on

Teachers Regulation Branch (TRB) Decision

Here is an important TRB decision about a teacher who was too rigid and the impacts of their rigidity impacting students differently. More so for Indigenous students and neurodivergent students.

“Polishak did not generally adjust his manner of teaching, classroom expectations or assignments to support students’ individual learning needs. A parent of student (“Student A”) asked for Student A to use headphones in class while working on assignments to assist with focus, which is a helpful strategy for students with ADHD. Polishak did not allow Student A to use headphones and did not allow it for some time after the School principal advised him to do so.”

ALSO:

“In the 2023-2024 school year, Polishak generally used rigid classroom rules, which he rarely modified to support the individual needs of all learners in his classes. These rules negatively impacted some students more than others. Over one-third of the students in the School were Indigenous and many of them bussed to and from the School. Polishak’s rules included:

a. Students were required to value all of the class time by not being late. When a student had a history of lateness, Polishak sometimes refused to let the student enter the classroom. Polishak required late students to wait in the hallway for up to 15 minutes, which resulted in students missing more learning time and sometimes falling behind on in-class assignments.

b. Polishak required students to complete all assignments. He did not usually modify or adjust assignments to meet a student’s individual needs. Polishak imposed a “homework detention” on students who had not completed assignments, by which the assignment had to be completed under his supervision before or after school, at lunch or during the flex block.”

There is more to this decision.

Here is the decision in full:

Jonathon Tyler Polishak

Posted on

Reasonable Accommodations for “General Education”

This is a new education case that was posted on June 16th, 2026. This is from Alberta. While it is not binding in BC because it is from a different province, cases from other provinces are still influential and are used by human rights tribunal decision makers to help them interpret and apply human rights law to the case they have in front of them.

JF obo DF v Calgary Board of Education, 2026 AHRC 68

There are some paragraphs in this case that succinctly outline the duty to accommodate. As always I recommend people read the case in full. Lots of details in there about the specific circumstances of the case.

Duty to Accommodate

[26]      The starting point for an analysis of accommodation is found in Central Okanagan School District No. 23 v Renaud,[8] where the Supreme Court of Canada described accommodation as a “multi-party” process:

The search for accommodation is a multi-party inquiry. Along with the employer and the union, there is also a duty on the complainant to assist in securing an appropriate accommodation…

To facilitate the search for an accommodation, the complainant must do his or her part as well. Concomitant with a search for reasonable accommodation is a duty to facilitate the search for such an accommodation. Thus in determining whether the duty of accommodation has been fulfilled the conduct of the complainant must be considered.

…

The other aspect of this duty is the obligation to accept reasonable accommodation… The complainant cannot expect a perfect solution.

[27]      The Alberta Court of Appeal stated in Callan v Suncor Inc.[9] that a complainant “is not entitled to dictate the accommodation he or she will accept” and that “[t]here is no duty of instant or perfect accommodation, only reasonable accommodation.”

[28]      As Chief Oviatt stated in RS obo CS v Edmonton School Division (RS)[10] in respect to the above decisions:

These decisions bear on the Complaint. The respondent had a duty to arrange the complainant’s learning environment in a way that he could meaningfully access general education. It also had a duty to reasonably accommodate his disabilities to the point of undue hardship. Undue hardship is a high threshold that places a significant obligation on the service provider. At the same time, all parties must participate and cooperate in the accommodation process. Ultimately, the respondent was best suited to determine how to reasonably accommodate the complainant in light of its operations, and the complainant’s parents had a duty to accept reasonable, not perfect, accommodation.

[30]      In RS, the parents raised complaints in respect to the provision of safe spaces, speech supports, and a one-on-one educational assistant, among other forms of requested accommodations; which are also issues raised in the Complaint. In RS, the Tribunal determined that:

The respondent was obliged to provide reasonable accommodation to the complainant to ensure he had access to general education, and it was entitled to inform its decision using all available information. The physician’s March 2022 medical recommendation was undoubtedly one piece of that information. So was the complainant’s behaviour at school and the respondent’s ability to meet the same objectives by using a classroom educational assistant who prioritized the complainant’s needs. The respondent was entitled to apply its expertise in education to determine a reasonable level of support.

[31]      Finally, in Moore, the Supreme Court of Canada emphasized that “a margin of deference is…owed to governments and administrators in implementing [education policy].”

[35]       There is no information in the records indicating the respondent has failed to provide the support indicated in the January 4, 2024, report to DF. Nor is there any information suggesting any available resources were withheld or that the respondent failed to reasonably accommodate DF considering its operations. Rather, the records include hundreds of pages of correspondence confirming accommodation steps being taken by the School, Student Support and Safety Plan documents from September and October 2024 setting out plans for how School staff will assist DF, and a Learning Plan from October 2024 derived from specialist recommendations.

[36]      In more general terms, it is not sufficient for a complainant to demonstrate that there is a program or treatment that would be beneficial that has not been provided by a school for the Tribunal to find that a respondent school board has violated the Act. This would run counter to the principle outlined in Moore that school boards should be provided some deference in how they meet their obligation to provide meaningful access to education.[13]

[37]      While it is clear from the materials that the complainant’s parents have been dissatisfied with the respondent’s accommodation efforts for some time, the record supports a robust, collaborative approach to accommodation that, although it could be argued was not perfect, reasonably accommodated the complainant to the point of undue hardship.  Prior to the Complaint being filed, and afterwards, hundreds of emails were exchanged between the parties, and many meetings held, to develop, implement, and adapt accommodation plans for DF.

[38]      Therefore, I find the Complaint has no reasonable prospect of success under section 4 of the Act.

*******

This complaint did not proceed to a hearing, and it was dismissed.

One of thing that I know is going to stick out to people reading this is “the respondent was best suited to determine how to reasonably accommodate the complainant in light of its operations, “

One thing to keep in mind is that resources must be distributed equitably. Whatever funding the government gets, and how they decide to organize their operations, are they doing so in an equitable manner?

Parents take Ministry to Court – Win for Equitable Education

[152]      The Charter guarantees equal access to education for all students; the corollary effect is that that the equitable principle must be applied in times of labour or resource shortages.  Here, what is apparent is that there was no consideration of how the reduced resources could be redistributed among all students.  It was assumed that minimal disruption to the system would result by targeting only a sub-set of students – those who use an EA. However, this approach failed to consider that non-disabled students might suffer the least amount of harm since they do not have the same disadvantages as the students with disabilities and could adapt to an at-home learning program more easily, i.e., some non-disabled students switch to at-home learning to free up more resources for complex-needs students, or some of them, to attend school in-person even with the EAs presently unavailable.

There is a zone.

Not getting access, barriersGetting Access “Reasonable Accommodation”Ideal Accommodation
Discrimination, cannot be justified.Having “a ramp” – barrier is removed, it doesn’t promise a certain level of demonstrated ability via grades, just access. An opportunity. Dismissed complaint if parents are expecting ideal and refuse to accept a reasonable accommodation.


X by Y v. Board of Education of School District No. Z, 2024 BCHRT 72

[110] …. Not all negative experiences are discrimination. Even accepting that these incidents occurred, I did not hear evidence that could establish, on a balance of probabilities, that X’s disability was a factor in the conduct of the adults involved in these interactions.

[120] …..by reviewing the Diagnosis Report, developing an IEP, making various support people and strategies available that were incorporated into the classroom and outside, reviewing progress and changes, and adapting its approach in response……

Even if they can argue that their decisions aren’t discriminatory, you can still appeal a decision under Section 11 if you don’t agree with it and you think it is harming your child.

Not a single person has wide-sweeping rights under the Human Rights Code or the Charter. It is how your rights are defined, and that is defined in common law. Created by tribunal decisions and courts.

The duty to accommodate is our strongest form of advocacy, but there is a ceiling. It’s not unlimited. It can bring your child up to reasonable accommodations and barriers removed. It may not be the educational experience you wish for them. It doesn’t mean that your kids won’t experience negative experiences or that it won’t be hard. It doesn’t mean they wont experience harm from the education system as a whole.

We need to advocate through multiple pathways, have multiple teams of people in various roles and positions, all advocating for systemic changes. Laws need to be applied. It takes people and organizations to do that. Our education isn’t operating to the fullest it can in implementing human rights for children with disabilities. But it will only bring us up to “reasonable”. If we want our ideal, we need other forms of advocacy and relationship building to bring us the rest of the way.

Here are systemic blogs you may find interesting.


Advocating for Systemic Change
Complaints are the Ultimate Protest
Systemic Imperfection
Who does Society care about?
Why Can’t we Just Sue the Government?
Systemic Impacts of Scarcity in Education


Posted on

Dear Parent/Caregiver,

Here is what I would like to tell every new parent of a disabled/neurodivergent child entering the school system. I learned this the hard way. Hoping to pave a path so it’s easier for those who follow.

*******

You are going to be entering the school system and advocacy will be required.

How the school system responds to you, as a whole, is not personal. They are not peering into your soul and basing their response on what they see. Even if they really like you, it wont change their response. They will protect themselves no matter what, first.

School districts speak a different language. The language of liability. The language of ableism, racism, and patriarchy. They are assessing you based on risk. How risky of disruption or expensive are you going to be?

There is nothing wrong with you. You haven’t done anything wrong. This is not your fault.

The lens through which they evaluate and come to a conclusion about your child is not your shame to carry. It is theirs.

You are dealing with a colonial system. This is a machine that has been operating for a very long time. The machine thinks it is successful and wants to keep going.

When people gaslight you, try to control you, ignore you, and/or silence you, this is an example of the colonial machine. The machine has different priorities. Stability, predictability, risk-management, union contracts, power and control, etc. If the system were a person, we would describe them as narcissistic using coercive control.

If you are someone who has experienced abuse and trauma, this will be especially triggering.

However you cope with this, it is not your shame to carry.

However you learn to navigate K-12 education, please don’t internalize their behaviour towards you as a reflection of your own value.

How they behave is a reflection of the machine, and it has nothing to do with you.

How the machine grinds and turns the wheels is not a reflection of all who personally works within it. There are fabulous caring people in education. Some people help grease the wheel more than others. Some are completely oblivious to it. Others just think, this is how things work and defend the system. If you are in the school system long enough, you will meet wolves in sheep clothing. Intentional or not.

Being able to identify what is a reflection of the machine, can save your mental health and protect your emotional capacity when you advocate.

This is a chess game. There are rules. Learn to play the chess game and it will help you advance. Get the most of what you can for your child and their education while staying afloat.

There is hope.

You will know when you are not getting what your child is entitled to, where to focus your energy, or when it is time to leave. Knowledge is power.

You belong to a community, whether you have found us yet or not. Your people are out there. There are more people advocating for your child than you may realize. Movement has been occurring. The machine doesn’t want you to recognize those. So, we remind ourselves.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker

******

More blogs on the school system:

Liability in Education
School Emergencies
Understanding Systemic Change

Posted on

What is Reasonable? – Duty to Accommodate

A lot of human rights decisions from tribunals will focus on whether the school’s response and decision making was reasonable. Where the accommodations reasonable? Was the delay reasonable? Did they try and mitigate the harm? Was that reasonable?

Given what they knew at the time about the child’s disability-related needs, did they make a reasonable decision? It doesn’t need to be the perfect decision, just reasonable. Can they justify it?

When it comes to decision making, in order for it to be administratively fair, they need to explain to you the decision. According to Ombudsperson, you have the right to receive a decision, “Fairness is also about providing clear and meaningful reasons for decisions so the person affected can understand what process your organization followed and how it came to the decision it did.”

If schools are justifying their accommodations as reasonable, it is only fair that they explain why they justify those accommodations. There justification has to meet a specific standard. (See below)

Tribunal decisions have already clearly stated that we don’t get to pick what accommodations are provided to our child, we are on a consultation basis.

Leaving a student to suffer disability-related impacts without accommodations, was not seen as reasonable when they were aware. They couldn’t justify it. If they can’t justify it based on fact and evidence, they are in trouble. It can be discrimination.

Let’s look at some cases and see what they say. I will discuss more below once you read through the cases I have selected with key take aways at the end of the blog. Knowing and understanding this, how can we tailor our advocacy? We can use this to make it work for us, and push them on this. Push them to make their decisions make sense. Justify it as reasonable. They can’t do that? Then we can push the line and move it.

CASE ONE

An example of what is unreasonable:

Student (by Parent) v. School District, 2023 BCHRT 237

[100]      In short, I agree with the District that the Parent and Student were obliged to bring forward information relating to accommodation. The Parent did that, when she communicated that the Student had anxiety and trichotillomania and that school was taking a significant toll on her physical and mental health. That information should have been enough to prompt a meaningful inquiry by the school to identify what was triggering the Student’s symptoms and what supports or accommodations may be appropriate to ensure she was able to meaningfully and equitably access her education. The failure to take that step was, in my view, not reasonable. As a result, the disability-related impacts on the Student, arising from conditions in her Language 10 class between April 24 and June 27, 2019, have not been justified and violate s. 8 of the Human Rights Code.

(Summary: school knew she was struggling, knew she had a disability, and that her struggling was connected to school. They didn’t do anything about figuring out if she needed any accommodations. Not a reasonable response.)

*********

CASE TWO

X by Y v. Board of Education of School District No. Z, 2024 BCHRT 72

[112] Accommodation requires a reasonable, not a perfect solution: Central Okanagan School District No. 23 v. Renaud, [1992] 2 SCR 970 [Renaud]. While there may have been other approaches available to the District, this does not necessarily render the one taken unreasonable. What is reasonable and what constitutes undue hardship is fact specific and will turn on the specific circumstances of a particular case: Renaud.

(Summary: You don’t get your perfect or ideal accommodation, only an accommodation that achieves the goal of equity. It will be very case-by-case what that looks like. Not the same for every person.)

********

CASE THREE

Kahn v. Upper Grand District School Board, 2019 HRTO 1137 (CanLII)

[260]           In rejecting the Loop of School plan, Ms. Kahn failed in her obligation to co-operate in the accommodation process. In so finding, I note that parents do not have the right to dictate the accommodations which their children will be provided with to access education. While parents do have the right to provide input as part of the accommodation process – which Ms. Kahn did in this case – they must accept reasonable accommodations offered by the school board. See UM v. York Region District School Board, 2017 HRTO 1718; Fisher.

(Summary: School educators determine what the accommodations should be. If you don’t help to facilitate this and give them a chance to see if it works, you wont be able to complain later. You complaint could be dismissed.)

********

CASE FOUR

Wells v. Manitoba (Human Rights Commission) et al., 2025 MBKB 86

[1]         Maxine Wells (Ms. Wells or the applicant) is a tireless advocate for her son who had learning disability challenges as a student in the Border Land School Division (the Division).  Ms. Wells was in regular contact with his teachers, school administration and Division personnel[1] regarding his learning challenges and how they should be addressed.  Often, there were disagreements about his needs and how they should be addressed.  Several times, Ms. Wells retained independent specialists to assess her son’s learning disabilities and provide recommendations on how to accommodate those learning disabilities in the school setting.  Ms. Wells says that the Division was often dismissive of the recommendations of these specialists.  This became increasingly frustrating for her as she wanted to ensure her son had the best possible outcome in an education framework that did not, from her perspective, appear to be giving him the opportunity to succeed.  She says that ultimately, her son did not achieve the level of learning he could have had the Division followed the recommendations of the specialists as she urged them to do.

This case had the court assess their reasonableness in their response and they outlined the reasonableness test.

THE STANDARD OF REVIEW

[10]      The standard of review to be applied when the merits of an administrative decision are challenged is reasonableness (Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, [2019] 4 S.C.R. 653, at para. 16).  None of the parties suggested that the Legislature intended a different standard or that the rule of law requires the standard of correctness be applied.  (Vavilov at para. 17)

[11]      In conducting a reasonableness review, a court must consider the outcome of the administrative decision in light of its underlying rationale in order to ensure that the decision as a whole is transparent, intelligible and justified.  What distinguishes a reasonableness review from a correctness review is that the court conducting a reasonableness review must focus on the decision the administrative decision-maker actually made, including the justification offered for it, and not on the conclusion the court itself would have reached in the administrative decision-maker’s place.  (Vavilov at para. 15; see also para. 83)

[12]      Other principles which guide a reasonableness review are:

•         A decision is unreasonable if there is a failure of rationality internal to the reviewing process or where the decision is untenable in light of the relevant factual and legal constraints (Vavilov at para 101);

•         A decision must be based on reasoning that is both rational and logical (Vavilov at para. 102);

•         A reasonable decision is one that is justified in light of the facts; the reasonableness of a decision may be jeopardized where the decision-maker has fundamentally misconstrued or failed to account for evidence before it (Vavilov at para. 126);

•         A decision-maker’s reasons must meaningfully account for the central issue and concerns raised by the parties.  Where a decision-maker fails to meaningfully grapple with key issues or central arguments raised by the parties, that may result in the decision being unreasonable (Vavilov at paras. 127-128).

[30]      In my view, the Report is a fulsome consideration of how the Division considered and accommodated the learning disabilities of Ms. Wells’ son.  It is “transparent, intelligent and justified”.  The Investigator understood Ms. Wells’ concerns and considered the evidence with those concerns in mind.  She acknowledged the differences between Ms. Wells and the Division with respect to the son’s learning challenges and reasonably concluded that the Division would be in the best position to determine how to accommodate those challenges, taking into account the available assessments.

[31]      I agree that there was ample evidence of extensive and reasonable efforts by the Division to accommodate the son’s needs, notwithstanding that the applicant did not agree with them.  Dissatisfaction with the decisions of the Division do not amount to discrimination.

[32]      In my opinion, the Report and the decision to dismiss the Complaint is transparent, intelligent and justified.

[33]      The application is dismissed, with costs.

***************

Professionals have a zone of reasonableness. Their decisions don’t need to be perfect, but there is a standard for reasonableness.

Even with the Teacher’s Regulation Branch, their behaviour has to be a “marked departure” from the Teachers Standards. It has to be unreasonable based on their professional expectations.

So let’s review.

If you feel the accommodations are not reasonable and your child is still not equitably accessing their education…remember they need to remove barriers…. then the school needs to justify their decision making to you in order for it to be possible that it is reasonable and administratively fair.

Their explanation needs to be:

  • Transparent
  • Intelligiable
  • Based on fact and evidence
  • Rational and logical
  • Connect to the key concerns

What can you do?

  • Explain the harm you are witnessing. You are the one best to discuss your child and their needs. They get the final decision, but they are required to meaningful consult with you.
    .
  • You will need to communicate need to them (in an email) so they don’t claim hindsight later on. You don’t want them to try and claim they made a reasonable decision at the time based on what they knew.
    .
  • You want to trigger meaningful inquiry by expressing the harm you are witnessing and linking it to school.
    .

MEANINGFUL INQUIRY – MEANINGFUL CONSULTATION – DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT



The duty to accommodate requires collaboration. Both parties have responsibilities in the process. Advocating for your child is part of the process. If you refuse to collaborate they can claim that you “frustrated” the collaboration process and they made a reasonable decision based on the information they knew at the time. They still have a requirement to accommodate your child whether you are involved in advocacy or not.(1) If you don’t want to be consulted you don’t need to be. They will just make their “reasonable” decision with the information they had at the time, minus any input from you.

*** The duty to accommodate is a process grounded in legally protected rights. This is not a perfect system. It is the most powerful form of advocacy we have, as it forces the schools to do things and explain things that no other system can. Parents experience more success advocating for their kids using a human rights lens. Even with Ombudsperson, it’s a recommendation, not an enforcement.

Push them to justify their behaviour, their decisions through the lens of reasonableness. When they can’t do that, you know you have room to push for further supports. Always come back to the discrimination test. Can you prove harm? Yes? Then keep going.

Keep in mind, you can appeal a decision or an absent of a decision to the School Board called a Section 11 appeal.

I don’t want to tone police, you do you, but when you ask them to justify their decision making, I wouldn’t suggest you use those words. Seeking clarification….. or can you please explain ___ to me so I understand better…
No one is going to fault you for wanting to understand someone’s decision making related to your child’s accommodations.

Having them justify their decision making,
or NOT being able to justify it
can be very helpful with your advocacy and evidence collecting.

Good luck advocates!

Here are some further blogs that expand on concepts I discussed above.

1. Hindsight

2. Duty to accomodate

3. Meaningful Inquiry

4. Meaningful consultation & A Guide to Meaningful Consultation

5. Section 11 appeal

(1) – They have the duty to accommodate your child whether you are involved or not.

L.B. v. Toronto District School Board, 2015 HRTO 1622 (CanLII)


(c)      School boards have an obligation under the Education Act to provide appropriate special education placements, programs and services to their exceptional students. Parental conduct or lack of parental authority cannot be used as a justification for not meeting an exceptional student’s needs; and

(d)      I agree with the decision in R.B. v. Keewatin-Patricia District School Board, (R.B./Keewatin) 2013 HRTO 1436, an HRTO decision cited by both parties in this case, at para 265, that a parent’s “fierce advocacy” for his or her child must not and cannot prevent a school board from accommodating the child’s needs to the point of undue hardship.

Posted on

This is an Emergency!! Serious School Incidents

Not all education issues are sudden, turn into a panic, flip your life upside down or it’s an emergency that needs to get resolved right now. Some issues are slow and build over time.

This blog is about emergencies. The sudden ones.

If shit hits the fan fast, this is the go-to page.

Some people find my site and contact me because other people are telling them, “You have got to talk to Kim!!” So, if there is a page you want to pass along to another parent in need, here it is.

Emergencies are different territories.

What is the district thinking?

If this is an emergency situation after an incident, you will not be the only one realizing that this is a big deal and it could snowball into something so much worse. Trust me. The district knows too. They are NOT going to want to show it on their face or in their emails that they are aware of how bad this is. At least not until they meet with you. They are going to be curious and wonder:

  • How do you feel?
  • How mad are you?
  • Are you going to be controllable or are you flying off the charts?
  • Do you know your rights?
  • Will you even mention a legal process?
  • Are you going to threaten the media?
  • Will you call the police?
  • Will you be consulting with a lawyer?
  • They will be assessing you – do we think this person has the resources/capacity to make this painful for us?
    .

They want to get into your head.

Why?

BECAUSE YOUR REACTION WILL TELL THEM EVERYTHING THAT THEY NEED TO DO.

Their goal is to…

  1. Keep you satisfied enough, but not give or do too much.
  2. Keep this internal and as quiet as possible. They want to be able to control it.
  3. Have as little impact on staff as possible. (They have unions to deal with)
  4. Not have any formal complaints be filed. (They want to know how expensive this will get)
  5. If this ends in a settlement, it is very normal to have a settlement agreement include a release and a non-disclosure agreement. (You don’t necessarily have to sign the NDA part.)
    .

Their liability processes have kicked into place. They have notified the School Protection Plan and they are waiting to see if you make a big deal out of this, and if you do, what are you going to do? To read more about how schools operate from a liability framework, read my Liability in Schools page and this blog on insurance. The insurance company will also weigh in as they are involved when incidents happen like this in schools.

They may be straight with you and ask you not to go to the media or file a complaint. They will reassure you that this will be taken care of, and your child will be supported.

They may offer you an external investigation and tell you that this will be investigated. (Their investigation will not be to find the truth and provide you with this information, it will be to reduce their liability.)

You may hear that staff are on a leave.

You will notice that your child is not on their list. They show up buried in #1. Keeping you satisfied. It absolutely kills parents to realize that schools actually aren’t focused on the best interest of your child in these situations; they are focused on themselves. You can use this to get what your child needs.

So, you may find yourself in this horrible situation. You can’t even process what has occurred. You may be at a hospital. You may have MFCD calling you. You could have the police contact you. Your child is traumatized and refusing to go back to school, and you are still in shock trying to process it all. The severity of all of this will differ. The end result is still the same. Trust has been broken and your child is refusing to go back, and you aren’t sure if you can even send them back after this. You have no idea how you are going to manage work when everything has just exploded.

So, what is your action plan in all of this?

I will break this down into themes and then put all of this into a timeline of steps at the end.

Media

I know you are ragging mad right now, but I do encourage you to give yourself 48 hours before calling the media. Some parents have had success in reversing field trip decisions or exposing exclusion. In terms of stories from a “grab the publics attention” kind of stories, those are small potatoes. This emergency situation is so bad, it’s in a different category. A few things to know about the media from experience.

  1. You never know what will take off. If your emergency is shocking, it could spread across the country very fast. You don’t know what will trigger people and all of a sudden you and your child are national news. Think 10 years ahead, will your child want this story in the news about them? (A human rights decision win involving a high school student showed up in over 60 media outlets across Canada and went international)
  2. You never will know exactly what will be written and what parts of your interview the journalist will pull out of your conversation. It will be a surprise, and I always find it very interesting to find out what parts have been selected and what has been left out. You won’t have control over the narrative.
  3. You cannot undo what is written in the media. Once its out there, it can take on a life of its own and you won’t have any control over it. Social media is wild. Years from now, when your child is an adult, they may Google the article and read all the comments, which some are going to be horrific.
    .

You may want to keep this in your back pocket and just know this is a possibility. But please, don’t make this decision when you’re mad. This could be used as leverage. You may feel that society needs to know about this. Finding the right reporter will be important. Please see my IN THE MEDIA page for reporter suggestions. You can also see what kinds of issues parents have taken to the media before. A lot of parents also feel that their issues are newsworthy, only to find out that reporters don’t want to touch the subject. Just because you feel that you can take it the media doesn’t mean the media will want to take it from you. Some subjects they won’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole, and sometimes the current news is just so horrific that it’s bad timing and they don’t think it’s enough of a story. I am aware of a couple of families who were shocked to find out that reporters didn’t want to publish their story.

External Investigator

The Superintendent may tell you they are going to have an External Investigator come and they will investigate everything and look into everything. These external investigators are mostly previous senior district administrators. A lot of them are retired Superintendents etc. A lot of people know each other from previous work and organizations. Some people have found them to be very biased.

Let me be clear.

This investigation is fully for them, and has nothing to do with you. This is for liability reasons. They can also use this as a way to get rid of staff they don’t want. If staff are a liability to them, they have launched into “constructive dismissal” techniques to drive them out or used investigation results to fire them. This is also something they can tell the Board of Education and/or the Ministry of Education that makes them look like they are taking care of things.

Doesn’t mean the investigation will be bad for you and not beneficial, but they are NOT going to investigate and then invite you into a meeting and tell you EVERYTHING that has occurred.

Here are some things you will hear.

  1. They will not be able to tell you anything about the staff, and they will state the reason is for privacy reasons. They won’t tell you what information they found out. They may tell you the staff are on a leave, but beyond that, the information will be VERY little.
  2. They will use this as a way to soothe you. This is the pacifier they will use in hopes you calm down.
  3. They will offer you an interview. (They want to know ALLLL the details, and everything you know and feel. They don’t want any surprises.) This isn’t necessarily bad. Just know that everything you are telling the investigator, you might as well be sitting in front of the Superintendent and their lawyers. But, the good thing about telling them what your child is experiencing is that they can’t claim HINDSIGHT. If they know your child is struggling, they have the responsibility to figure out how to remove the barriers. Meaningful Inquiry.
  4. This process also buys them time and delays the end result. They will tell you they can’t do anything until the investigation is over. The delay they hope will give you time to calm down and you will not be in fight mode. It also gives them time to think and have conversations with people about what on earth they are going to do. They are hoping you will expect less as time goes on.
    .

Something you may want to ask:

  1. When you are done with the investigation, will you consider if new administrator procedures or policy needs to develop to prevent this from happening to someone else?
  2. Will there be training for staff?
  3. Will you be reporting staff to the TRB?
  4. Will you be putting a Letter of Direction in the school employees’ file?
    .

Demand Letter or Filing Complaints

Now this is something you may want to think about.

In addition to the demand letter option, you can always look into filing a lot of complaints, depending on what has happened. To review your options, please see my Overview of the Complaint System. They don’t want you filing complaints. So you can use it.

Think about what you want for your kid. What barriers will they need to get back into school?

  • A new school?
  • A different teacher? Different EA?
  • Moved to a different classroom?
  • More EA supports/accommodations?
  • A plan for bully prevention – a safety person? To keep their cell phone on them?
  • A reintegration plan?
  • Counselling?
    .

NOW IS YOUR TIME TO ADVOCATE!!

They need to make things right by your child. They will never be able to undo what happened. They can’t just wave their arms around and the shock and trauma is gone. However, they should absolutely not be putting up any barriers to get your child back into school. The statement, “we don’t do that here” should not be coming out of their mouth.

They need to do everything in their power to remove the barriers, or deal with formal complaints.

You can use the complaints as a motivating factor. You may not want to file right away, as if they don’t remove the barriers you will have more to write in your complaint. You have one year to file a human rights complaint. There isn’t a time limit from the Teacher’s Regulation Branch (TRB). You can file a TRB complaint on teachers, Principals, and even the Superintendent. You may want to see how things unfold in the next few months before you file you anything.

You could send a demand letter, outlining everything you want. With a settlement amount. Just know, that you will be signing a release to not file any future complaints and they will want you to sign some version of a non-disclosure agreement/confidentiality agreement. For them this will close and end the issue.

The demand letter could be the fastest route to get you what you want. You may need settlement money to get your child counselling or other professional supports ASAP. You may want specific commitments and promises from the district in a written contract. Human rights complaints, even with fast-tracking, can take a couple of months to get into a mediation meeting.

Demand letters are an option. I know several parents who have been successful. Both public and independent schools. You can have a lawyer send a demand letter, or you can send one yourself.

*** Keep in mind no matter what the incident, it will need to be connected to a protected ground for the human rights complaint.

Contacting a Lawyer

I know meeting with a lawyer sounds like a big deal. It is. I will NEVER forget the moment I walked into a lawyer’s office for a consultation. The office looked like something out of a movie. I was offered 5 different types of water. I didn’t even know 5 types of water existed. Geez, as long as it doesn’t come from the toilet, I am good! There is just something about meeting with a lawyer and talking about your kids’ school that just makes you want to sob and wonder WTF is going on here. What planet am I on???

The money you spend on a lawyer could be sooo worth it in the long run. You are getting legal advice. There aren’t any missing blind spots. They can write up your demand letter or human rights complaint for you. They may think of things or be aware of things that you haven’t even thought about.

They can do the labour that parents find keeps them afloat. You can focus on your kid and the lawyer can deal with the school.

I have a lawyer on the list that I refer out to. I have never met this person. I have never talked to this person in any form of communication. There are no benefits coming to me at all when I make this referral. I have heard such positive feedback from parents that this is the law firm I pass along to everyone who wants a specialized education lawyer referral. There aren’t many who specialize in this field, and he is one of them. Here it is:


Vancouver Law Firm | Kesari Law Corporation

For a list of free legal consultation services, here is my list. Some parents have found pro bono lawyers who are willing to help.

Contacting the Ministry of Education

For public schools – the Ministry typically doesn’t respond to individual issues, but when you have issues that involve a group of children, then they respond. Action happens. They just won’t tell you about it. If nothing else, you leave a paper trail and documentation.

For independent schools – they have an independent investigator at the Ministry of Education. If your emergency reveals issues at the school that harm other kids as well, you may be able to trigger an investigation. If nothing else, you leave a paper trail and documentation.

I encourage people to tell the Ministry and you can notify the Superintendent that you are doing that. They aren’t going to like it. So, you can use that in your favor as well, if you like. Sometimes school districts need a little nudge. Or it can bring you some peace knowing that other people are aware.

Appealing a Decision

Both public and independent schools have appeal processes.

For public schools its called Section 11 under the School Act.

For independent schools, they will have their own process you will need to ask about. However persuasive they may be that they don’t have one, they need to have one, they should have one. The Ministry of Education will tell you to go that route.

Contacting the Board of Education

Each Trustee is responsible for a zone in your district. They are elected as a method of accountability and oversight for the district. Contacting them and letting them know what is going on is something you may want to consider. It will make the district administration sit up straighter when they know the Board is aware.

*******

ok, so we have now arrived at the timeline.

An emergency happens. Everything explodes. Now what?

Steps to Take

*** Advocacy in emergency situations can be similar to slow-burn situations because we still need to be focusing on our child’s disability-related needs and removing barriers. Children have a right to feel physically and psychologically safe at school. Duty to accommodate still applies.

The first step is going to feel awful, but it is an absolute must to consider.

  1. First and foremost, take care of your kid. (This isn’t the awful part.) Their needs are the priority right now. Have the conversations with the hospital staff, police, MFCD, or anyone else that you need to be having. AND HERE IS THE YUCKY PART. While you are doing this, think documentation. You are going to need evidence that your child felt as horrible as they did. You will want to take pictures of their injuries at their worst. Not day 5 of healing. You may want to take videos of what is transpiring. It may feel like you shouldn’t have your detective hat on while you are trying to take care of your kid, then give the task to someone else who is with you. The more evidence you have, documentation for ALLLL of the processes and interactions with the school, the stronger of a position you will be in to advocate for your kid, for barriers to be removed, and for a possible settlement for them. If you show up to the school and your 7-year-old is in handcuffs. You need to record them screaming.
  2. Reach out for help. Consider contacting a lawyer and ask for an urgent consultation. You need someone, a support person, to just process your own emotions and be able to think about what you need to be doing. Getting a counsellor may be very helpful, AND you will be documenting your own harm, as you may also want to file a human rights complaint on your own behalf. #3 is also at the same time as #2.
  3. Go to the top, immediately. Typically, there is a chain of command you have to climb in order to get to the next person. In these emergency situations. Screw it. Send an email to the Superintendent and Secretary-Treasurer, and ask for communication/meeting as soon as possible. You can cc: the Director of Learning, the District Learning Support person, your child’s principal. Whomever you want. Give them a timeline of 2 days to respond. 24 hours if you want to in some cases. If you don’t get a response, go to the School Board, and the Ministry. The Superintendent will want to speak to the staff with the most direct knowledge of what happened first, before they speak to you. Let them know that this is extremely urgent and time-sensitive. There is a chance that they have already heard about the incident, and they are expecting an email.
  4. When you meet with them, they will be thinking about all the points I mentioned above. How mad are you? Do you know your rights? They will then need to go back and discuss and get back to you. They will be reassuring you that they will take care of this and ask that you don’t do anything yet until you meet again. They will want to keep this internal, controllable and as quiet as possible. You want them to know that what happened is serious and you are not a doormat, without necessarily saying that. You need them to do what they can to support your child. But you don’t want to come off as uncontrollable or unhinged. You still need them. Collaborating with them in the best interest of your child will help you all move on as soon as possible. But if you don’t make a fuss or ask for things, they aren’t going to offer it.
  5. Over the next chunk of time, email them back and express requests as your child needs them as they transition back into school. Be as persistent and consistent as you need to be to get your kids needs met. You have your power of the possibility of formal complaints; they have their own power as they control your child’s education. As much as your instincts are telling you to gut them like a fish, you are so mad, if there is a win-win here for everyone, I would suggest you try to find it. Get your kid what they need and move on in your life. If you are going to sign a settlement, make sure you are happy with it, because once it’s signed, it’s a done deal. There are no do-overs. If they aren’t giving your kid what they need, you have complaint options that will force them to deal with this. (unless you have already signed a release) Some administrators don’t have a lot of experience in this, and they have no idea the lengths a parent will go to for their child, and so many people are propelled forward wanting to make sure there are safeguards in place for other children to not experience something like this either. Sometimes things are just so bad, that parents feel compelled to file complaints and make this public; otherwise, it feels like we are complicit. This is a personal decision and completely dependent on your family and the context of the situation. Do what you need to do for your own peace, either way.
  6. You will want to be fully aware of gathering documentation. My blogs on documentation are here on my blog list.
  7. Also, be aware that depending on what happens, you may be able to file a human rights complaint under Family Status for you as well. For more info on this, here is my Family Status page.
    .

Your Employment

Depending on the level and context of the emergency, some people have been able to take sick days, or some people have taken a leave of absence. When your child refuses to go back to school, all of a sudden, you are left scrambling.

Your employer has the duty to accommodate you too, under Family Status. You need to officially request accommodations from your work. Just don’t quit. If you have concerns about your employment, it may be worth it for you to consult a lawyer. (See referral above).

Sustain your Advocacy

This isn’t going to be easy, and it will probably push you past your comfort zone and up to the limits of your capacity.

In amongst all of the chaos, if you don’t think of yourself and your own needs, you will not be doing anyone, including your child, any favours.

You will need your own support. Ask for help.

Here is my school advocacy help directory list.

Finally, I wish you all the best. I’d love to say that school emergencies are rare and far and few between. I have had enough parents contact me over this topic, both public and independent, that I realized there was a need for this page. If you are someone who is aware of another parent in need, please do share.