Tag: #Law

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Life After K-12 – 6 months later

It has been quite an interesting journey. For those who are looking to create their own healing and want a sneak peek into what may be ahead, I hope these blogs are helpful. My first one was written six months ago, titled: Life After K-12

Healing isn’t a straight line.

Since my last blog about coming to a place of healing and realizations, I have felt like I am peeling an onion. Every time I pull back one layer, another one is there. Similar theme, just different.

I have had moments where I felt I was moving backwards. I was pulled backwards recently. The anger was back. The fight. I saw them as my abusers once more. The old narrative returned. They were the ones who dragged me through 6 years of litigation. Not true. We took turns. They started it. 😉 lol. And they sent me into fight mode with all of their horribleness, and then I dragged them. Determined to get accountability and truth. Which I did. I had to pull myself out of the water again.

When asked by a parent in a social media post, how do you get accountability and heal from the trauma you experience in the education system?

Part of my response to them was:

There is a quote I saw that says, “I hope you heal from the things no one has apologized for”. In my experience, healing is something that you actively work on, and the school will unlikey be involved in your healing. This is something you/child will need to be determined to do on your own. It is work. Counselling is beneficial. And yet, healing is not a straight line. ….

Emotions for me connected to healing are around grief. We grieve the system we never had, but wanted. Forgiving people for not being perfect or for not being the people we wanted or hoped they would be.

In terms of accountability, the only path I know about is through external complaint filing. There are no guarantees. I work in the field of criminology and when people have someone sentenced in court for an offence they have committed against a loved one, they may feel closure, but it doesn’t heal them. Healing, they need to do on their own.

I hope you heal from the things no one has apologized for. ❤“

I have a couple of months left of being on the board for BCEDAccess. I have been emotionally preparing for leaving. I am feeling at peace about passing the baton to such an excellent team. It just doesn’t feel like my emotional world anymore. I feel like an outsider looking in. My role needs to change. How I can still help needs to change. My view and focus are more systemic in different ways. My full-time job involves litigation and using complaint systems to elevate social justice issues. I love my day job. PATH feels like an extension of that, just in the education world. My past is mixed in with my current world. PATH doesn’t feel like work to me at all. It’s lighthouse duty. Long-term. Seed planting. Emotionally sustainable.

I have learned a lot, and the system made the mistake of giving me the grand tour. They just kept waiting, insisting it would end on their terms. It didn’t. And yet still, healing is left to be my responsibility. They are absent.

What I learned is that parents need a lot of help. These unfair systems are navigated by lawyers. They know exactly what they are doing. Parents need all the help they can get with information, and for that reason I will never shut up.

But there is hope for happiness. Optimism. Peace. I know this, because I feel it. Live it. Just as long as I am not in the same room with them.

For me, healing was only possible once K-12 was over and the fight was over.

Healing just doesn’t need time. Time alone will not get you there. Healing is an action. It’s something you do.

But it also involves boundaries. I can forgive them, but that doesn’t mean they get access to me.

Part of my journey has included writing about systemic advocacy. Which I enjoy. It will be interesting what my perspective will be 6 months from now, as I am still aware I am peeling the onion. To be continued….

Systemic Advocacy Blogs

What is “Doing” Healing?
-Healing doesn’t just happen over time. It’s something you have to be determined to do, face and work at it.

Disappointment
– Finding out how systems work can be disappointing and then freeing.

Planting Seeds
-Systemic advocacy is all about planting seeds. You’ll never truly know your impact.

Embracing Grief
-Anger is for things you can change. Grief is for things you cannot.

Suffering is Not Your Identity
– You don’t need to take on suffering as an identity to help people. It’s what you experienced and survived, but not who you are.

To see more blogs from Building Advocacy

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Should I tell the school I filed a human rights complaint?

Good question.

There is strategy in this.

This is a worthy question to sit with and think about.

If you aren’t filing to fast-track your complaint, the current wait list is 2.5 years long. Just to find out if your complaint was accepted. (If it is not accepted, you won’t have to wait so long. The ones that are accepted sit in the queue longer until they have the case management capacity for them to proceed.)

The current wait time is long!

When you file a complaint, the school will be unaware unless you tell them. They will only find out if/when your complaint gets accepted.

So, the ball is in your court. What do you want to do?

Here are my reasons for you to consider telling them you filed a complaint. If you talk to other people, which I encourage you to do. They may have different lived experiences. But here are my reasons.

  1. Damage Period. Schools will always try to reduce their liability. In this case, this is good for us. They will try to reduce the harm your child is experiencing so that they won’t have to pay as much or reduce their risk in you being successful at a hearing. Supports that they previously said couldn’t happen will suddenly start to happen. Magic. (They will try to make it seem like it has nothing to do with your complaint.) So telling them they have a human rights complaint coming their way may get your kid more support. If they don’t think you have a case at all, they won’t be concerned. BUT, even still, it puts you in a different category. See reason #2. AND – If nothing else, you will get district eyes, and they will be investigating what is going on.
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  2. Parent advocacy. Parents threaten things all the time. All. The. Time. It’s a regular Tuesday for them when a frustrated parent threatens something. I have seen some of the emails. Folks are creative! A much smaller percentage of parents actually file complaints. So if they know you have crossed that line, your threat level just increased. Schools don’t care if you threaten a human rights complaint; they care if you do it. They analyze you by your behaviour. Do you follow through on what you say you will? How far are you willing to go to advocate for your kid? They focus on your behaviour, not your words. If the school thinks you are all bark and no bite, file a complaint. Keep in mind that certain behaviour can kick you out of the advocacy game. 5 Rules on How to be Untouchable. And yet, the school has the duty to provide your child an education regardless of what your advocacy is like.
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  3. Retaliation protection. There is retaliation protection built into the legislation of the Human Rights Code. They are not allowed to retaliate against you or your child, which public schools are well aware of that, and if they do, there is an avenue to address that. You can have extra costs given to your child just for the retaliation. People are often scared that filing a complaint will put their child at risk, however, in my experience, it is the opposite. My children got supports they never would have received otherwise, and I felt they were quite protected. The school district knew I could amend my complaint at any time and start adding to it. They knew if I was frustrated, I was more likely to fight and more likely they would then have to justify their behaviour and decisions to the tribunal. When they know external eyes could be looking at this, it can be very helpful.
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  4. Resolution time. Because the school is aware, you may wish to see if they want to resolve this sooner rather than later. They may be willing to do that. Some people have had their lawyers send a demand letter or you can even approach them on your own, looking for a solution. They may be interested in talking, as it will be the cheaper route. Or they may not want to take the early resolution route, knowing how long the system takes to process these things. Based on the context of everything, they are strategizing too. They often like to use delay in their favour, but sometimes they realize it’s in their best interest to resolve this now, then feel like they have this hanging over their heads.
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  5. Keep it hanging over their heads. It may take a really long time just to find out a complaint has been accepted, and if they are aware of it, they will be on their best behaviour. So use it. Tell them about the complaint, and just let it sit there. They will sit up straighter and just keep it hanging over their heads. Sadly, this is what we need to do just to get our kids their rights, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and that may mean filing external complaints and learning about avenues you never expected to need to have skills in. This is another example of using the system to get our kids an education. It sounds horrible that the wait time is long. But. Then again. They love to use delay on us and hope to exhaust us. We can flip it and use delay to keep them upholding our kids’ rights.
    .

Here are reasons you may not want to tell the school.

  1. Retaliation. Even if there is retaliation form to fill out to hold them accountable for their behaviour, it will still be sitting in the long queue, and it won’t help you in the present. Some people do experience really unusual retaliation because the person they are dealing with is unusually spiteful. (It will come back to bite this person later.) You just don’t know how the school is going to react. They might start to do little things that build over time, and your child is now refusing to go to school, and they have managed to weed you out. If they feel like they can’t control you or you are unmanageable, they have a history of knowing how to make people (or your child) so uncomfortable they “choose” to leave on their own. No one knows for sure how the school is going to respond. I can’t promise you anything or guarantee you any kind of response. You know the players on the field. I have never met these people at all. Districts differ. Some district admin have integrity and more of a moral compass than others.
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  2. Emotional readiness. Maybe you just aren’t emotionally ready to tell the school. There is no rush. Once you submit it, you can wait until you are ready and you have your plan thought out.
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    ********
    If you do decide to tell them, I suggest you email the Superintendent and the Secretary-Treasurer together and don’t cc: anyone in your child’s school.

    Let the school staff pretend that they don’t know what is going on, and build the relationship with the school staff as much as you can, until you think it is beneficial for it to be out in the open. I would suggest you let it play out a bit after you inform the senior administration and then make the call if and when you ever want to be open about it with school staff. That’s just my two cents.
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Sometimes filing a human rights complaint can be the move that gets you off the hamster wheel. The human rights tribunal is also not the only complaint avenue. There may be other avenues that are more suitable for your issue.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be filing complaints against the school when my kids started kindergarten. Never. Being in an adversarial position is a position no parent wants to be in. We aren’t entering these external complaint systems with glee. It’s heartbreaking when you think of it. But these systems are tools. This is Hunger Games. We are thrown in the pit by the system. We didn’t ask for this.

We are reacting to reality.

I have zero regrets. These systems kept my kids afloat in an education system that was never designed for them. It scares me to think what might have happened to them, and to me, if I never went this route.

Here is an overview of your external complaint options.

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Threat Level – BUILD THE FILE

Do not think for a moment that school administration isn’t assessing your threat level.

They are.

Whether you want them to be or not. They won’t ask your permission.

It most likely will NOT be the teacher, but the SENIOR administration absolutely is, and so is the Principal.

They aren’t just assessing you; they are assessing the cost of the situation as a whole. The details and context of your situation. For example: the cost of an extra EA v. lawyer fees. The details of your allegations with the possible outcome of the tribunal, with wait time, with providing current accommodations etc,. The lawyers will be giving them their advice on how concerned they need to be.

I hate that lawyers cost so much, but in this circumstance it can actually work for us. EA’s are way cheaper than lawyers. I used to wonder how on earth the school district lawyers do what they do and sleep at night. They sleep in silk sheets and sleep absolutely fine. Bless them for being so expensive. The insurance company will not be impressed with the bill. School administrators are also very busy and their time is very valuable. If you want to rack up the bill in money and time on an issue, you can absolutely do so. Be expensive in multiple ways.

School is categorized as a service. If you were to walk into a store, in order to obtain something from that store (a service), you need money. It is the currency of that service. You see something you like; you look at the price tag. Chicken is $25.00. Gum is $1.75.

Your threat level is your currency in your child’s education. (How sad is that.)

You don’t need to threaten anyone.

In fact if you do…. your strength just crashed.

They will view you as weak. They know they will be able to control you, poke you and watch you create your own documentation to weaken your cause. Human rights complaints get dismissed due to rudeness, insulting language, swearing etc, etc, etc. They would LOVE for you to destroy your own case by losing your shit. They cross their fingers for it.

Your strength, your muscles, your flex is going to be documentation and the language you use in your emails.

Why?

Because those will allow you to be successful if and when you file external complaints. That is the threat. They know you are “building your file”. That is what lawyers do. They also build the file in case it ever goes for a Judicial Review. If an employer wants to fire someone they don’t like, they start padding the file. HR departments do this all the time. They pad the file with little things, whether it’s true or not. It all builds over time. Everything builds. Lawyers argue over the smallest things and never let anything go because they know that it’s the little things over time that could be what tips the scales and you win your case.

BUILD YOUR FILE.

Document. Everything.

You may say to me… Kim…I can’t.

I don’t have the capacity.

I don’t have the resources.

I am barely hanging on.

How do I get the school to accommodate my child?

I say, yes, it is unfair. Totally.

The unfairness doesn’t change reality or my response.

I am so sorry.

But here it is.

You may need to file complaints to get yourself off the hamster wheel. So, BUILD your file now.

You may not have the capacity now. You may not have the resources now. You may not be mad enough now. But a few years from now… you just may be. You may have the capacity that you never expected to have. You can’t predict the future. And you will be thanking your younger self for creating this document trail that will now elevate your human rights complaint when you are ready to file. It will give you options. It will give you choice. That is power.

People will naturally think that they are tough and that they are sticking up for their kid when they make a lot of noise, when they get angry, when they threaten the school. I friggen get it. I was so mad, I told the district I was going to gut them like a fish. So, I totally get it. But if you REALLY want to scare the shit out of them and increase your threat level, BUILD YOUR FILE – gather your evidence, document in emails.

Parents threaten the school all the time. It’s just background noise to them. They don’t care. Truly. You think you are having an impact on them. You aren’t. The only arena they are concerned about is the legal one and public relations. If they know you don’t have the documentation (evidence) they are not concerned one bit. Not one bit. You think they are worried because of what you wrote, but they aren’t. They know the one thing that triggers concern in them is documentation, and if you don’t have it, you are nothing to them. They don’t need to do anything. They will flick you off like an annoying bug.

So please,

Document.

Be strategic.

Hearings are years from now, and the tribunal will rely on it.

Elshazly v. Vancouver Police Board 2026 BCHRT 195

This hearing was 6 years after the event.

[11]          The witnesses testified about events that happened in a short period of time, nearly six years earlier. I consider that over this length of time, memories have understandably faded, shifted, or hardened around a particular version of events: Clarke v. City of Vancouver and another, 2024 BCHRT 298 at para. 24. In my view, no party’s account of the incident is completely reliable. ………

[12]         On most issues, I have found that the most reliable evidence is contained in documents created at the time of the events, including the audiovisual recordings put into evidence. I have used these documents as a “reliable yardstick against which to compare and assess the reliability of the witness’ testimony”: Boschoff v. Inspired Retreats, 2014 BCHRT 6 at para. 8; Clarke at para. 24.

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Your documentation = your muscle.

** AND, the building of your file now may just be what creates the change so that you will never have to file a complaint. Because the school will know. They will see your muscle flex.

Build your file.

It will benefit you in ways you will never even be aware of. The people who are not building their files will absolutely be walked over.

You are teaching the school how to see you.

The best gift you can give your kid, whether you are comfortable doing this or not, is to build their file.

Don’t wait until you feel comfortable doing this, just do it. You wait until you are ready, you’ll be waiting until a crisis hits. Be uncomfortable and do it anyways. The alternative is worse. Trust me. Way worse.

It may be the very thing that keeps you out of the external complaint system.

We can build an army. A well-informed, knowledgeable, empowered army of passionate parents. All building our files.

Everything the system uses against us, we can reverse and fling it back at them.

They use delay.

We can drag them through YEARS of litigation.

You want to throw delay at me?

Oh honey, I can file complaints, and this isn’t going to be over for you anytime soon.

They will want to limit their damage period.

If I were to ever wish anything for anyone starting out in education with a disabled child, it would be three things.

  1. Get connected to your community. You aren’t alone.
  2. Become knowledgeable of your rights and your child’s rights. Learn about the duty to accommodate.
  3. BUILD YOUR FILE.


THE LANGUAGE to build your file – IS THE DUTY TO ACCOMMODATE.

Blogs on this topic
Documenting for Advocacy ** Key blog
School Protection Program – School Districts – Lawyers: The Three Musketeers
Riddle: Who has the final decision making power?
Liability in Education
This is an Emergency! Serious School Incidents

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Summer Review

I hope you all have had moments of rest and relaxation. I was originally going to take a break from blogging and social media posts, but rest just seems to lead to more blog writing. So that plan went out the window.

Why am I so fixated on external complaints and education law? Because I know it can help people.

So for those of you who took a social media break or were away on vacation, here is a recap with a list of blogs from the end of June through August.

BLOG

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

Does a single comment violate the Code?

What do I do now?

It is not about intent. It is about impact.

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

Cease and Desist Letters

When a preferred EA is no longer supporting your child.

School Trustees

Teacher Training – Is it enough?

Masking – Students who say – “I’m fine”

Workplace Stress – Bad Boss – Not necessarily discrimination

They aren’t breaking you. They are building you.

School Protection Program – School Districts – Lawyers: The Three Musketeers

My new page is: BC Human Rights Tribunal Process

My updated pages are: Mediation through the BC Human Rights Tribunal

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They aren’t breaking you. They are building you.

“When you walk to the edge of all the light you have and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown, you must believe that one of two things will happen:

There will be something solid for you to stand upon, or, you will be taught to fly.” – Patrick Overton

I have a lot of quotes that I love. This one I found in my early twenties. It has stayed with me all these years. I can tell you that as I was approaching my hearing and starting my degree, this is what I kept in mind. I was all eyes and ears for any piece of information that was going to cross my path. I had no idea what I was doing, and I felt completely in the dark.

Life can be pretty incredible sometimes. Unpredictable. For the good, the bad and the ugly.

What can start out as a complete pile of horse shit can become fertilizer. Be what fuels the seeds buried inside of you to grow.

There are many people who have taken what they learned through advocating on behalf of their own children in education and have created something beautiful out of it. By helping others. Spreading everything they have learned.

Some people have turned it into a new career, have gone into politics, taken on leadership roles, become “advocates”, or volunteer in various support roles in their communities. Parents have gone back to school to become teachers, education assistants, literacy tutors, non-profit leaders, etc. People have been evolving, pivoting, and shifting as they navigate life. But they are forever bringing what they learned and practiced with them, and other people are benefiting.

I feel very grateful for having the opportunity to return to school and get a second degree. This time in criminology and legal studies. I work as a Health Care & Human Rights Legal Advocate for the most traumatized and marginalized population of people in our society. Most of my clients are disabled. The extent of trauma that they have lived through, and are currently living through, I can’t even wrap my head around as to how these people are still breathing. I never talk about my work to friends or family. I see it as an act of love that I keep this part of my life away from them. This work isn’t for anyone who can’t live in the grey. The government systems I advocate in are brutal, abusive, and oppressive, intentionally targeting my clients behind system-approved processes. I have meetings with dangerous people who all wear suits and say they care. I love my job. I do a mix of direct 1:1 individual client work and also systemic work. Every day is a protest. A strategic act of rebellion. A part of my advocate role is that I write human rights complaints and represent clients navigating human rights systems. If you ask me where I want to be in five years and what I want to be doing, it is this. Here is where I want to be. Everything I have experienced, navigating my own experience advocating for my children and navigating the BC HRT combined with my own lived experience, has benefited my clients. I learn more every day.

To the parents out there who are in the dark. Furious. Angry. Ready to take on the world. I say this: use it. Be open to what the future will place in front of you. It may not feel like it, but you are learning so much right now. You are in the thick of it now, but you won’t always be. You never know what nuggets of gold you are learning and how this will help other people in the future. People are always going to need help. The need will never end. It’s natural for advocates to take breaks. Collect ourselves. Reflect and sometimes pivot into other helping roles. But our experiences are never wasted.

They aren’t breaking you. They are building you.

You never know…..

Just be open.

One day you may find yourself in the most wonderful position in life. To help someone else.

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Teacher Training – Is it enough?

One of my children had a particularly stressful year in school. It flipped both our lives upside down. I left my work because of it. The teacher was ill-equipped to teach a child with learning disabilities. Added to the mix, there were issues of severe bullying within the class. Without going into specifics, it was an “active” classroom on top of everything else. I was so frustrated about the whole situation and felt the adults in the room really didn’t know what they were doing. Some of the information I was providing to them about disability felt very basic to me. Their old school traditional ways of teaching were not working. And just increasing the intensity of traditional pedagogy was making things worse.

Years later I found out from another parent who volunteered in the school that the classroom teacher was frequently, almost on a daily basis, leaving the class in tears. She also had two very young children at home, and I can imagine now just how overwhelmed she must have felt.

Jumping ahead a few years, it was revealed during the hearing at the BC Human Rights Tribunal, for my other child, just how ill-equipped and lacking in knowledge related to disability and mental health the teachers and school counsellors really were.

It seems people’s individual knowledge and skill level had more to do with their own interest, motivation, work experience and self-learning. This produces such a wide spectrum of knowledge among educators. Some people have been amazing and very helpful. People I relied and on and was so thankful for their knowledge. Other people, I wonder how on earth they got here.

One teacher at our hearing, under oath, testified that after graduating from a well respected university program that the word “accommodation” wasn’t something that they had heard of. Ummm….teaching universities…..you might want to review your education program. Shall I name you and read out the transcript? Or was the teacher lying? Or were they confused? A classic defense. Apparently everyone becomes confused when allegations appear. And yet tribunals write in decisions that educators are the experts and they get to decide what professional recommendations to implement or discard.

Teachers are graduating with so little knowledge in their duty to accommodate, human rights, disability and mental health. Basic mental health, like anxiety. Professional development workshops on inclusion are optional. WTF! It sends the wrong message. Apparently skills in inclusive education are nice to have but not essential. Our kids are optional folks!

At another hearing from the BC Human Rights Tribunal, an educator admitted “We aren’t trained for this”. What are you trained for? Teaching the neurotypical kids who are natural sponges and have no barriers for learning? Is that it?

I know there are recent efforts to improve training and skills in educators, and some people currently completing education ready to bust out, but it is still optional for educators and we need a lot MORE! We need to take these researchers and teachers of teachers and clone them. Spread them everywhere.

So many students are not even identified because teachers can’t even tell when a child has a learning disability. I assumed all teachers would be able to identify this. Nope. The skills and knowledge that staff have are very inconsistent. The best teachers are the ones when their own children have disabilities or themselves and they can take their own lived experience and knowledge and combine it with their foundational training. I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have them.

I knew one teacher who had ADHD didn’t want to disclose it to their colleagues for fear they would think less of them. What does that tell you??

Even with literacy screening recently in kindergarten, do teachers know what to do next? There is no shame is admitting, that you don’t. It’s not your shame to carry, it’s the post-secondary institutions that you paid good money to. There are surveys and research being done and with reports of “severe instruction deficiencies” for teachers who know how to teach kids with dyslexia. Go ahead and take a deep dive on the internet. If you are lost and confused, you are not alone. An education law book was very explicit over how much administrators lack knowledge in education law and human rights.

I don’t want to start giving personal examples about just how shocking the myths, stereotypes and lack of knowledge around disability is amongst classroom teachers and administrators. I was stunned. My trust was completely shook during the hearing. I thought to myself, wow, I really gave them a lot more credit and depended on them than I ever should have. From this point forward I need to assume no one knows anything. You want evidence of just how serious of an issue this is, you can come to my home and read through all of the evidence I have organized in binders.

The number of teachers and educational assistants willing to work in the education system are becoming so low, districts are hiring “responsible adults”. Oh my goodness. Please send help.

I would really love a HUGE spotlight to be tilted towards post-secondary education programs for teachers, and professional development workshops on inclusion and disability. The fact that parents are still dealing with teachers who are punishing neurodivergent/disabled kids because they don’t have “listening bodies” is incredibly frustrating and discriminatory.

WHY are disability and inclusion professional development workshops optional? That is quite the message. Received loud and clear. As a system, do you not find this embarrassing? The teachers who are not signing themselves up for this kind of training, I would argue, are probably the ones who need it the most. The undercurrent of this blog is ableism. Who are we prioritizing? Who are we ignoring? Who are we making optional? Let us think and reflect on this.

Teachers, this can’t be fun for you either. Can you imagine how stressful it would be to have so much responsibility, be held to standards, to potentially be defending your decisions in a hearing, and not even be properly provided with information and skill to do your job in the first place?

This is a topic where I feel we can all come together and be on the same page. It benefits everyone to have teachers feel confident and be skilled.

Improved mandatory teacher training in disability,
mental health and inclusive pedagogy please!!

Please don’t send teachers the message that teaching kids with disabilities are optional.

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School Trustees

We are having elections this fall. It is a big deal and a big commitment for people to make when they run for a school trustee role.

You are in the public eye. Under the microscope. Some districts more than others. Some districts make the news and clips of their board meetings are spread on social media. Other districts, the general public doesn’t even know they exist. However, in those smaller towns, where everyone knows everyone, you may certainly be talked about just as much.

Parents have mixed views of trustees. We need them badly. We have so much hope in them. Some of that hope is unrealistic. Which, I am guilty of having. At the same time parents have had some negative experiences with interacting with some board members.

Trustees roles are impactful and limiting at the same time. They are not in the driver’s seat for many things and other things they are. Parents see them as the accountability mechanism, but yet trustees can only bring about accountability in very specific circumstances prescribed to them by legislation and policy. At the same time, districts vary greatly in how transparent and open they are to the public. Some districts limit and restrict delegations, public engagement or refuse to answer parents questions.

Trustees are our community members. Many of them are parents themselves. It can feel very confusing when we think they aren’t fighting for us, and at the same time they have liability restraints too. Being a trustee means that you are constantly working within the grey.

We have seen tremendous devotion to the role of school trustee, by fighting the government through the court system. We have seen trustees turn on each other. We have seen how a human rights complaint and other legal avenues are used as accountability systems for a trustee spouting hate speech. Board meetings can be sometimes be dry, uneventful and feel so performative. Some districts have accused trustees seeking accountability for bullying and harassment. If you have been paying attention in the last few years, as a whole it can be quite dramatic.

I tip my hat to anyone who wants to get into the ring. The ultimate form of service for your community. I know they take a lot of heat for things they aren’t responsible for or have no way of resolving on their own as the education system is massively underfunded. I have also seen first hand them defend, quite passionately, the rights of others when someone shows up unexpectedly with statements of hate. Parents also question how they allow superintendent and senior administrators salaries to become so inflated.

Some districts have been accused of suppressing the public involvement and being undemocratic, lacking in transparency. Parents have gone to the media to protest the limitations and unfairness.

I saw an old picture I found during an internet search of a school board meeting in the 1970’s and the room was packed. Standing room only. You couldn’t add a toothpick in that room. It was so interesting to read the emotions on people’s faces.

I cannot say this enough, please read up on your candidates and vote. Four years is a long time and many people continue and run again. Know where they stand and what their backgrounds are.

If you are interested in understanding and learning about education that goes beyond the scope of your child’s classroom, I encourage you to attend board meetings. Many of them offer online options to view the meetings that are more accessible. Attending in person can also be valuable to talk with the other parents in the room or to be able to talk to the board members during the break or after the board meeting. In my early days I was attending the board meetings in person for multiple purposes. I wanted to connect and learn about the board members. Figure out the roles and what happens here. I was depending on them for help. The district was failing me. They were my last hope. At the same time, my attendance was an act of resistance for the staff. A silent protest. Good luck ignoring me. I am not going away.

As I was navigating the years, I thought the Board was also against me. I was really confused. I was seeing mixed signals all over the place. I was weeding through bread crumbs of information that were being indirectly tossed out at me. I wondered how much the district was keeping the board in the loop. If you aren’t contacting the trustees directly, the district decides what information they are willing to share. I think there is a lot that they still don’t know.

This fall will be 7 years since I attended my first board meeting. I didn’t realize it. But as I was navigating through my pile of shit, they were also navigating through theirs. I now have more pieces of evidence that as evidence started to show up for them, they have been my secret ghost writer, backing me up. They shifted things in the district that were within their powers. Things I would never have been able to do without them. This was clearer to see when everything was done and I was able to re-examine everything with unfogged eyes. I realize now I have been funneling my anger at the wrong people. Change is never immediate.

For all the people who will be starting their first terms this fall with dewy eyes, I hear the learning curve is sharp.

Don’t lose yourself in the system.

You will need courage to do well.

You will need to be able to sit in the uncomfortable zones, hang out there for a while, and get curious.

I hope you evolve, take in all the experiences you can, and just get better and better.

For those of you who are stepping away, I hope you are proud of the work you have done. I hope you leave with a sense of peace. For those running again, I hope with good intentions, all the best.

Please vote.

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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)

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What do I do now?

It’s been three months since I wrote my Life After K-12 blog. I have been sorting myself out, trying to look at what moving on means and what that is going to look like.

I have declared that this summer I am taking a vacation and reducing my services and social media presence.

Less than 24 hours later, I was cleaning out my office at 5 am. Weeding through old textbooks I no longer need, books I would rather pass on. It was a synaptic neuron trim in physical form. Six bags ready to be donated.

In the process, it sparked a new blog. I’ll post it tomorrow.

I just can’t, for the life of me, seem to be able to shut up.

It seems every time I declare a break, I end up cleaning and clearing, only to start writing more.

People have asked me what my plans are. I can never see myself running for a school trustee position. That is way too peopley for me. Too much attention. Zero interest in participating in a political role. I don’t want to lead an organization either that I am currently not entrenched in, as the membership is. Being on the outskirts of that experience pushes me in another direction. My perspective is different. My nervous system has stabilized.

So now what?

So now I write.

Everyone who knows me well always chuckles when I say I am taking a break. They give me two days.

They aren’t completely wrong. I actually haven’t even lasted two days. I have submitted to and accepted my internal machine that seems to have an unlimited energy source. So why fight it?

Trying to damn the flow seems to exhaust me, and when I put pen to paper, I feel happy and energized. In the groove.

I love writing. It’s solitary. It’s a quiet activity that, when shared, is loud. My kind of loud. It is a process that takes the chaotic party happening in my head and funnels it into something speakable.

And so I write.

Not quite sure what to do with everything… yet. Where I want to carve out the river. But I’ll figure it out. I just need to keep writing. That I know.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.