Tag: #DutytoAccommodate

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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…..

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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.

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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.

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 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.

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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,

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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.

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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


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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.)

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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.)

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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.)

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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.

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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.

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Trying to Collaborate in Good Faith

Trying to collaborate in good faith and discuss “reasonable accommodations” can be the real murky (stressful) part of the accommodation process that has the most potential for disaster.

This is where we are at our most vulnerable.

Here is why.

(Please read every single word of the next paragraph. Twice if necessary.)

As part of the duty to accommodate, both parties are expected to collaborate in good faith. The accommodations offered by the school don’t need to be perfect or ideal for our children; they just need to be reasonable enough for them to be able to access their education. (Whatever that means.) Even though they have to meaningfully consult with us, the school gets to decide what is reasonable. We need to engage in the accommodation process and have a conversation about whether we think their suggestions for reasonable accommodations are going to work. They have the final decision-making power. Even if we don’t agree, if they draw the line in the sand and say this is it. We have the duty to facilitate that decision. Even if we think it is going to harm our kid. Then if it does harm our kid, we have to document it, and the conversation starts all over again. All the while, we need to be civil and can’t lose our shit. If they frustrate us and we shut down and stop engaging, we will have “frustrated the accommodation process”. In an employment situation, they can have your human rights complaint dismissed. However, this important case [L.B.v. Toronto School Board, para 77 (c)(d)], shows that in the education context, even without parental authority, the school still has to fulfill their legal obligations to your child. Just be prepared, they will blame you for everything if you file a human rights complaint. Well…. they always seem to do that anyway…but still. This case will be helpful.

Sounds fun eh?

If you are ready to rip your hair out, it’s not you. It’s them. They know exactly what they are doing as they drag you onto the hamster wheel and make you run and run and run. (Maybe the teachers aren’t in the know of these strategies, but the admin are.)

There are ways to get yourself off the hamster wheel.

These are not in any order of importance. Just a list of strategies to consider.

  1. Question and document their delay strategies as them not working in good faith. Or any other nonsense they do. You aren’t the only one who has to be collaborative. Delay strategies, ignoring you, dismissing your concerns, is not collaboration. How you question them will be the art of advocacy as to communicate what you are noticing, but not become adversarial.
    • Keep and log every email that they didn’t respond to and every meeting that was cancelled and delayed
    • Keep a timeline for how long things are taking the harm because of the delay
    • Email the list of concerns you have, and note the ones that have not been addressed or have a proposed resolution plan.
    • When you email, you can use the word “notice”. I have noticed that it’s been 3 weeks for us to have a proposed solution to my concerns outlined in my email Nov 12th: Concerns for XXXXX.
    • Another phrase that is good: “It is to my understanding….” And then state what you think, and seek clarification. Is my understanding correct?
    • Email sentences to use: “I am noticing….”, “It is to my understanding that….”, “Is it correct to assume…..” or “I am confused, can you please clarify…..”
      .
  2. Question the reasonableness of their accommodation suggestions – Ask for evidence. Without using the word evidence. If they want to argue that they are providing your child reasonable accommodations to the tribunal, they are going to need to have EVIDENCE to show that.
    • Again, we are using emails as our tool here as documenting is sooooo very important. We absolutely want to communicate in emails. If they don’t want to communicate with you in emails, that is a red flag. (They are up to funky-monkey business, and they know it.) One way of asking for evidence is to say, can you explain to me how this accommodation works for XXXXX? It is extremely reasonable as a parent to want to understand how their plan is going to provide “the ramp”. Ask questions, get them to explain it to you. Don’t let them use vague language. Keep asking questions until you understand exactly what they are talking about. They will use fancy-pancy language with you, hoping to intimidate you. You have every right to understand exactly what they are talking about. If they are not using plain language and instead use jargon, that doesn’t make them look good. What is the point of communicating with each other if we don’t understand what we mean?
      .
  3. Always ask HOW questions. They state your child does _______. Great. HOW does that happen? How. How. How.
    • The tribunal has stated in human rights complaints that the school is in the best position to have discretion to create your child’s education plan, so if they are the experts, then they better behave like the experts. It is their responsibility to investigate why your child is struggling and create a plan on how to remove the barriers. It’s called meaningful inquiry.
      .
  4. File external complaints. Many parents threaten all sorts of things, and quite frankly, not many people do it. They are used to hearing every threat under the sun, and they just sit back and wait for you to explode and leave. If you file a complaint, you will stick out to them. They will underestimate you, until you show them with your behaviour that you are not a doormat. Sometimes, bringing in external eyes and forcing them to provide evidence to someone that they are fulfilling their legal obligations is exactly what needs to happen.
    • All of the external complaint departments are silos. They are VERY specific to the issue you are dealing with. A lot of the time, people could file with all of them as they are possibly dealing with overlapping issues, but not always.
    • To understand which external complaint deals with what issue, please read my page, Resolution Options in Education
    • Also, When should I file?
    • Why does this strategy work? The Damage Period
    • When you should file is basically asking the question to yourself – if, after giving advocacy a chance, what are you willing to tolerate or not tolerate? When will it be enough? Only you can answer that question.
      .
  5. Section 11. In action – not making a decision is making a decision. The School Act Section 11 notes that a lack of a decision is still a decision. If the school is making a decision that “significantly affects the education, health or safety of a student,” you can appeal to the Board of Education.
    • To read more about this INTERNAL advocacy route, please read my page Section 11 – Appeal to the Board of Education
    • Telling the superintendent that you intend to file a Section 11 appeal should at least get you meetings with people in upper management.
    • Not many parents complain past the principal. So again, pulling in district eyes to your child’s school may be necessary. Some principals think they are untouchable. Sometimes we need to remind them that everyone has to answer to someone. It’s kind of how our society works. No one should be untouchable.
      .
  6. Leave if you can. This is an absolute option to consider. There are a lot of parents who feel that if they leave, then “they will win”. This is the emotional well-being of your child. The best revenge is living well. This isn’t a competition. Take your kid and give them something better. Sometimes the fight is worth it, and sometimes it is not. There is nothing wrong with making your child and yourself the priority. They don’t deserve your energy. There is nothing wrong with moving schools or considering other learning options.
    • I say this as someone who is an absolute fighter. My kids were getting better care when I started filing complaints than compared to when I wasn’t. So, for my situation, it was absolutely worth it to stay. Filing complaints is a form of advocacy to push the line, create needed data and change. We need people willing to get in the ring. At the same time, if you need permission to save yourselves and focus on the health of your family, you have got it. I’ll absolutely give it to you. Depends on what your history is or current life issues, sometimes fighting the abusive people in the education system isn’t your journey to take. In the same breath, “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.” ― Alan Turing.
    • No one else can make this decision but you. These aren’t easy decisions as they will impact your child, your family, and you. People just want to be told what to do. I can’t tell you what to do. This is your family, your life. Only you will experience and witness the benefits and consequences of your decisions. Whatever you decide, I hope you find peace.
      .

In summary, the collaboration process can be a case-by-case part that isn’t written in stone and will be very specific to your child. For this reason, there isn’t a cookie-cutter instruction manual on what exactly you need to be doing next. Some people are very collaborative and other people are focused on control and are not collaborative at all. A lot of it will depend on your own resources, perception, values, priorities, and personal situations. For that reason, the uncertainty causes families a lot of stress, and they are terrified of making a mistake. I absolutely encourage you to reach out to support groups, counselling, advocacy coaches and non-profit organizations that offer support. Don’t do this alone. You want to lessen your suffering? Reach out to others. You have a community out there who can sit in front of you and say “me too”.

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Participating in the Duty to Accommodate

If you are someone who is asking for accommodations for yourself at work or your child in school, we also have obligations under the Code to follow. If we do not follow this, than our human rights complaints can be dismissed.

Rennie v. BC Ambulance Service, 2025 BCHRT 104

[29] Further, Mr. Rennie obtained a medical letter dated April 13, 2015, from a psychologist. There is no evidence that this letter was provided to BC Ambulance prior to the present complaint proceeding.

[30] In these circumstances, I am persuaded that BC Ambulance is reasonably certain to prove at a hearing that Mr. Rennie failed to participate in his accommodation process by not communicating with BC Ambulance, and its obligation to accommodate came to an end. Therefore, Mr. Rennie’s complaint has no reasonable prospect of succeeding.

This complaint was dismissed.

We have to participate. This falls under the “Duty to co-operate in good faith”

Both parties are expected to do this. Both sides need to communicate.

If the school is ignoring you, keep all those emails that you didn’t get a response to. Those will also be important.

And…

If the school is communicating with you. You can’t ignore them either.

To read about the expectations and responsibilities of the duty to accommodate process read here

Some parents feel that the communication they receive from the school is meant to poke them or bait them. I highly suggest you read 5 Rules on How to be Untouchable. Also keep in mind the communication between the parties needs to be in good faith, so if you feel there is anything sneaky going on, always keep the emails.

The point of the communication and co-operation needs to be focused about figuring out which accommodations work and which ones don’t. Accommodations don’t need to be ideal or perfect, just “reasonable” enough to provide the person with “a ramp”.

So, provide documentation. Communicate in good faith. And one more extension from this topic for parents in education is the Duty to Facilitate. Very similar to this case, but for parents. Failure to facilitate a school decision can lead to your human rights complaint being dismissed.

Knowledge is power.

Know your rights and responsibilities under the Duty to Accommodate.

It’s a two-way street.