Tag: #PostSecondary

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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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Post-Secondary Human Rights Complaint, Settlement Offer

This is a case that involves a nursing student at a post-secondary institution.

Student D v. Selkirk College, 2025 BCHRT 178

[2]               Student D was a student in the Bachelor of Nursing program at Selkirk College. She alleges the College discriminated against her in the area of services on the grounds of mental and physical disability contrary to s.8 of the Code. She says the College failed to reasonably accommodate her disabilities which negatively affected her academic performance, and she ultimately withdrew from the program.

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This is a dismissal application, but it’s a specific type of dismissal application. The respondents offered her a settlement offer that can be disclosed to the tribunal. It is called a “with prejudice” offer.

If you offer a settlement offer to the respondents and you don’t want it to be disclosed to the tribunal, you need to write “without prejudice” at the top of your email/offer.

If you turn down a with prejudice offer, the respondents can file a dismissal application that ultimately forces you to accept the offer. The only way to not accept it is to convince the tribunal that your case is worthy of the time and resources of the tribunal for a hearing, as it will benefit the public interest and potentially make case law advancements. Or you can just not accept it and walk away with nothing.

This case can also give you ideas on what kinds of things you can ask for in a mediation meeting.

This is an important case to read for young adults in post-secondary.

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[7]               Student D has achondroplasia, generalized anxiety disorder, and auditory processing disorder. In September 2017, she started a four-year Bachelor of Nursing program at the College. Student D says that between April 28, 2020, and July 14, 2020, during the practicum portion of her program, she made requests for accommodation to her instructors and school administrators who failed to provide her the requested accommodations. Student D withdrew from her program on September 21, 2020.

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This is what she was offered, which she turned down. She felt the amount was too low. And so now the tribunal has to make a decision about allowing it to continue to a hearing or not. Respondents cannot file this kind of dismissal if the hearing is within the next 4 months.

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[9]               On February 3, 2025, the College made a with prejudice offer to settle the complaint on the following terms:

a.    The amount of $20,000 for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.

b.    The amount of $24,394.30 for lost wages, less statutory deductions, representing a delay to potential graduation from the Bachelor of Nursing program by one year, less her average annual earnings as a care aide and educational assistant, and less a 30% contingency to account for the potential non-graduation from the program.

c.     The College will provide Student D with a letter of regret acknowledging the distress she experienced in the program.

d.    The College will provide a revised transcript replacing any “fail”, “no credit granted” or “partial credit granted” notations with a “withdrawal” notation. The College will also provide a transfer letter endorsing Student D as a candidate for any nursing programs in other post-secondary institutions.

e.    The College will commit to reviewing its Accessibility Services for Students program and making any updates it deems necessary.

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The tribunal dismissed her human rights complaint and allowed her to accept the offer she originally rejected, if she wanted it. You can read more about how they analyzed the appropriate settlement amount in the case. I haven’t pulled any of that out for this blog. Fighting this type of dismissal is low risk because you can always accept the same offer, even if you lose the dismissal application. Sometimes these are posted publicly, and some dismissal applications are private. But this is also a great way to get a public record of your case.

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[10]           The offer remains open for acceptance notwithstanding the filing of the application to dismiss the complaint. The offer will expire two weeks following the Tribunal’s decision on the application to dismiss.

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And the decision from the tribunal is….

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[47]           The Tribunal routinely hears and decides cases that concern disability accommodation in educational settings, and I am not persuaded that the circumstances of the present case engage broader public policy issues that warrant proceeding in the face of a reasonable settlement offer. Further, considerable resources of the parties and the Tribunal would be required for a hearing of this matter. The Tribunal encourages parties to resolve their disputes in good faith on a voluntary basis. The College’s settlement offer contains terms that the Tribunal cannot order at a hearing, such as issuing a letter of regret, providing a revised transcript, and the transfer letter. The College’s offer also includes terms to ensure the discrimination does not occur again by reviewing its accessibility policies and training its faculty. Under the circumstances, I find that allowing this complaint to proceed would not further the purposes of the Code.