This blog is about healing from K-12 public education.
It has been one full week since I announced I am taking a month break from both P.A.T.H and my Chair role at BCEdAccess.
It was exactly what I needed. My decision was fast. I was fighting the urge to delete my Facebook account. I was so desperate for an escape. Yet, it was hard to leave too and resist the urge to not rush back by day 2. I would have explained more about my sudden departure, but I truly didn’t have the words.
I have been operating at max capacity for a ridiculously long time. Too long. I needed to give myself permission to take the advocacy hat off. Even if for just a bit.
Why?
I have survived K-12 education. For 15 years of my life, my kids with invisible disabilities were in public school. Both graduated and went to their graduation ceremonies.
I have also survived 3 Human Rights Complaints (3 public-facing decisions – 1- Final decision from an 8-day hearing -5 years, many private decisions), 3 Ombudsperson BC complaints that lasted- 3 years, 4 OIPC complaints (1 public-facing Order – 2 years), 8 Teacher Regulation Branch complaints and an external school investigator hired by the district that lasted 2 FULL years.
My last child graduated in June of 2025. I was involved in litigation with the school district for over 5 years. Many years of internal advocacy before all of that. The third human rights complaint ended in a settlement in the fall of 2025.
Everything was now truly complete. It was all over. Then the crash of “fight mode” happened. My body felt different. The engine that was running in overdrive for so long was revving down. I felt bored and unfocused. Like….now what? Now what do I do? What do I think about? I had this space.
As the months unfolded, I felt I was running on empty anger fumes that were no longer being refueled by a dueling opponent.
I was dragging myself. The race was over. Everyone left and went home. Yet…..I was still there…running.
With everything done, I then spent a lot of time organizing all of my files. I had to do it in chunks. It was still too fresh to do it all at once. Saving or deleting thousands of school and lawyer emails. Sorting out which parts of the history of their complaints to create a binder to pass along to the kids. Their history. I was deleting hundreds and hundreds of school emails. Some of them I read and some of them I just couldn’t. Re-examining everything with a new lens. After years of clinging onto everything for potential litigation use, when I finally pressed the delete button, I felt like I was cutting off a limb. Trying to process everything with the intent of letting go.
Simultaneously, I was meeting with parents through P.A.T.H, and communicating with BCEdAccess families. Everything was blurred. It didn’t feel like K-12 ever ended.
I still found myself looking for the next fight. I needed to stop and remind myself, “Kim – it’s over! Your kids are fine!” Tears would well up, as I repeated this to myself while taking a much-needed deep, long breath.
It is true. It is over. And they are fine. Now. They weren’t always fine. But they ended up being fine because I used every external complaint system to apply pressure to the school district to ensure that they are fine. My kids got their needs met in those final years at school, finally, after years of harm and unmet needs.
Dealing with the psychological games from the school district triggered my childhood experiences that were pushed deep down. School employees will ignore you. They gaslight you. They blame you. They don’t believe you. They dismiss you. They delay you. They manipulate you. They flat-out lie to you. They use social pressure of knowing that people naturally want to be liked to “stay in line” and not cause a fuss. They use social embarrassment and shame as a weapon.
When you have a disability as well as your children, all of the systemic oppression and abuse you faced as a kid just all bubbles to the surface. It’s one thing when it’s you experiencing this, but to see your children now experiencing it….well, it is unbearable.
When I was a child, another classmate at school told me her parents had told her she was not allowed to play with me. I asked why. She said that it is because stuttering is contagious. I told her I don’t think it is. Her reply was, “Then how do you explain accents?” She went on and on about how her parents told her that people learn accents from being around others. Warned people that they should stay away from me or they would stutter too. Then she gathered everyone else up, and off they ran, leaving me to play by myself.
Growing up with a disability and facing social exclusion never leaves you. Children can be cruel. So can the adults. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s with a stutter was brutal. I spent my childhood years trying to blend in with the wallpaper, as being seen was dangerous. Thanks to the stuttering community I found in my early adult years, I healed, felt what true forgiveness feels like and learned its ok to take up space.
My advocacy was in view of the district administration, the School Board of Trustees, lawyers and their support staff, insurance staff, the school staff, and every external complaint system employees that examined everything. I have counted 50+ people. Everything was on show for people to examine, scrutinize and form an opinion on all of my emails and emotional pleadings. What made it extra sticky was that I was a previous employee; some of these people I had previous social and employment connections with. I also started blogging on a website I created called Speaking up BC. Opening the door to expose my feelings and experiences with abelism and fighting the unfair system.
I already know what social exclusion feels like, and I know that I can survive it. So, when it came to taking the risk and sticking my neck out in front of an audience, I didn’t give a shit what people thought of me. I was willing to risk social consequences. You want to judge me, think bad things about me and not like me? Join the club. What can be looked at as a previous horrible experience from childhood can be turned into an advantage as an adult. I am free. I am not chained down by social expectations like a lot of people are. I have never fit in, and I am certainly not going to try to fit in now. So, whatever you think of me, it’s cool with me. I realized a long time ago that I have no control over how people view me. Let it go.
I have pushed back on every single wall this system tried to put in front of me, as they were constantly trying to change the maze. Walked over every “that’s not appropriate” and just kept filing another application for documents. Got amazing evidence! I have seen the dark shadows. The many gaps in this education system AND in the external complaint systems. I have seen good people do horrible things. I have seen good people be complicit bystanders. Observers who did absolutely butt-kiss nothing. I have seen educators in positions of authority over children prioritize administrative convenience and have placed children in harm’s way. I know things that would shock people. I had one external complaint system realize that they messed up my complaint. Six months of ignoring me, hoping I would go away, but I didn’t. There was no public announcement, but knowing they realized they made a mistake was comforting. Lessons learned. They, too, can learn where their gaps are.
Seeing what is behind the curtain of these systems and knowing how they really work is jarring and changes how you see life and people. I have seen people become destroyed by the systems. You aren’t just fighting the system. You are fighting trying to keep hold of yourself and not become someone else you don’t recognize or respect when you look in the mirror. I have seen desperation bring out the worst in people.
I am the type of person who has to understand all of the crevasses and all the little pieces to make sense of everything and move on. Otherwise, I will ruminate and be hooked on obsessively trying to figure it out. I needed to know and understand how on earth such a cluster fuck up could occur for so long under the watchful eyes of educators.
I have experienced a mixture of success and failure. My evolving motto as I moved through the system was to test and learn, and publicly expose, the decision-making of all of the systems as much as possible. I wanted to figure this out so that we could “fix” what happened to my kids so other families won’t experience the same thing. I wanted accountability. The idea that they were just pushing this under the rug and wanted it all to just go away like it was nothing enraged me. I feared the failures would just continue and never end. Lessons would never be learned. I was completely willing to fall flat on my face and feel absolutely naked under scrutiny. I didn’t care. I wanted what happened to be exposed and examined. You want to poke fingers at me and think I am emotional, great. Let’s talk about why!! Gather everybody around, like some great murder mystery plot reveal, and let’s. talk. about. why.
When trust is broken with schools, it can really mess with your mental health. There are the incidents and all of the events that broke our trust, and then there is the response from the school and district, and then again the response from their legal team. I am not just healing from one thing. There is the harm my children experienced, and then there are their responses to me and their liability processes.
I don’t regret going as far as I did. That hearing needed to happen. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I feel a deep sense of peace. I got the information I needed to get, I understand all of the puzzle pieces in the 1,000-piece puzzle. My kids are both doing great. They have survived, gained life skills, and are starting their adult lives. I got more than the accountability and understanding of the seriousness of what occurred than I was even expecting. Lessons were learned. I went to school amongst all of this to SFU and obtained a degree in Criminology and Legal Studies. The injustice was the catalyst that pushed me in this direction. I ended up with a meaningful career I never expected, a higher salary than working for the school districts that I left, and a whole new social network of friends and fellow advocates. But there were costs. Costs I was willing to live with. Because the alternative was not an option.
But back to the break.
I need time to reflect and acknowledge everything. To refill my cup and remember all of the goodness and incredible things that have happened. As well as all of the hardship. I wanted to heal. It will be over my dead body that I allow these people to break me. I was determined to not only create change, but to come out of this better than ever. I am ok with having scars, I’ll take them, but this needs to build me. This needs to be a launching pad and not the guillotine. I want to evolve in life.
In the fall of 2025, I started counselling to help myself process everything. Years of constant advocating for my kids in K-12 brought up a lot of my own shit. I do have to say, it would have been easier on myself if I had taken up counselling waaaaaayyy earlier.
When they say healing is not a direct straight line. No kidding! I would have times where I felt like I was free and weightless. A couple of days later, I am back to being angry and looking for a fight. Then I’d be back to being thankful for all of my experiences and how my quality of life in the end has increased. Then back to feeling that I never want to see anyone who works at the district ever again. And then the cycle continues. Counting my blessings. Then singing ABCDEFU by Gayle at the top of my lungs. Ask me how I am, and it will depend on the day. Healing is messy. All over the place. Always shifting when you think you are finally done.
I will be honest. I made mistakes. My advocacy wasn’t perfect. I was my own mountain at times. It wasn’t only them. I have gone back and reviewed previous emails, and I now see some attempts of them trying to bring this to an end. I honestly didn’t even process it. I look back on documents, and I swear what I was reading now wasn’t there then. I have no memory of reading that. But it was there. As the years unfolded, I saw everything as an attack more and more. They thought that they could end it whenever they felt like it was a good time to do so. They were too subtle and too late. When their attempts weren’t working, the lawyers went full speed ahead. A bull. Eyes on target. Set to destroy. I think they truly wanted to break me so I would shrivel up and disappear completely. Instead, I turned into a bull back. Two bulls in a room. Nothing left but stubborn will.
This break has already been exactly what I needed.
I am giving myself permission to focus on myself. This week I have vacation time off from work. I am really looking forward to some me time.
Listening to everyone navigate and share their stories on social media is triggering for me. It’s incredibly emotional. It sends me back in time, and I needed a break and separation from witnessing the trauma to smooth out all of the corners and come to a place of forgiveness. My peace needed to seep in deeper into my bones. Not just be in my head, but be in my heart.
This time off has felt like I was placing the period at the end of the sentence. Sealing the envelope. Closing the book. My children had their graduation ceremony. I needed something to signify my ending.
I have lovingly placed the K-12 education life experience on a bookshelf. I have forgiven myself for all the things that I didn’t know, but wish I had known at the time, and for all of the things I wish I did differently. I have forgiven all of the people involved for all of the things that they didn’t know at the time, and for all of the things that they wished they had done differently.
For the smaller group of people who intentionally and knowingly harmed my oldest child and me, and went ahead and did it anyway, my forgiveness is still fluid depending on the day and hasn’t solidified yet. One day, I hope to be rooting for you.
I had a wonderful person in my life when I was a teenager. She almost died in a car accident, and it severely altered her life. She fought to live and ended up on disability, lucky to be alive. She kept a picture of the totalled car in a picture frame on her wall right by the front door. The car looked so crumpled that you would think it just came out of the car crusher from a scrap yard. She was hit by a large transport truck that was speeding down the highway when it hit a patch of ice. I can’t believe any human being came out of the car alive. People would ask her why she had something so horrifying in a picture frame by her door. She would tell them, it reminds me that I survived that. I can survive anything.
Be proud of your own car crash and survival. Own it.
Healing takes more than just time. It takes focus and effort. It is a worthy goal.
To strip off the anger. To wipe away the disappointment in a system that is different from what I expected or wanted. To forgive people for not being perfect and not knowing everything, I think they should have already known. It’s a place of acceptance. I don’t need to like the system, but I accept the reality that we are all in. I don’t want to carry the heaviness and be angry for the rest of my life. Anger had served its purpose well. It was action. It was fuel. But now it is time to put it down. I don’t need it to fuel me anymore.
The ball of anger and disappointment never really goes away; it just feels different. Further off in the distance, sleeping somewhere. Not so close and alive. Demanding my attention.
Before I went on my break, I lost my words. Some would call it writer’s block. But it was more than that.
I have always been limitless in how much I could write. It flowed through me. I felt I had to try to pace myself so I wasn’t overwhelming people. But then, suddenly, the well dried up. I would lift my pen to write in my journal, or place my fingers over the keyboard to write a blog, and I just didn’t know what to say anymore. About anything. I would sit there staring at the wall. Just….nothing. I felt anxious. Something was off, but I didn’t know what. That’s when I knew. This isn’t good. I am finally beyond my limits. I have been taking care of everyone else and not enough of myself. I feared I was reaching burnout.
I know my cup is filling up again because I woke up one morning and just like that, my pen is moving, and I am back to writing. My words have returned. I don’t feel depleted anymore. I was an anchor who jumped over the boat, wishing to hide in the deep and dark parts of the water.
The human rights decision is a fraction of the whole story. The tip of the iceberg. The whole story isn’t just about discrimination. The Board and the district didn’t need to make all of the systemic changes they did. They went beyond the base minimum of fulfilling their own liability needs. Some of the signs of their work are public-facing, but unless you know what to look for, you won’t be able to connect the dots. The breadcrumb trail spans years. By the significant changes that have occurred, hard conversations have clearly taken place. Even though I have never signed an NDA, I will never parade the individual details of those involved for public gawking. Some people have suggested I write a book about all of this. I am not going to do that. I also had a journalist reach out to me from another province who was very interested in the backstory of my website and how and why all of this started. She couldn’t have been more eager to write a story. I declined the offer. Enough media attention has already occurred that I am beyond satisfied. For everyone who has been connected to this, we all should have the right for this to come to an end and move on with our lives. Advocacy and sharing knowledge about these educational issues can be done in a way that is respectful and humane. I don’t need to tear people to pieces in order to use what happened as a way to advance the system. I am very selective with the information I share about everything I have experienced, and do so with purpose. I am not a tell-all novel. Information for advocacy can be offered up for families’ consideration while still respecting our family and the district’s privacy. I firmly believe we all deserve a second chance. It doesn’t benefit society if people make a mistake and we forever write them off. We want society to show grace to our children and to us who don’t get things “right” the first time; we need to show grace back.
I fight so hard for others, for the same reasons many of you all fight so hard for your children and others. I have been where so many of you have been. I, too, have quit my job due to a lack of school support. I felt like I was going to have a mental breakdown dealing with the school. Years of sleepless nights. Anxiety through the roof. Wanting to rip my face off I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Nauseous – physically sick. Stress hives breaking out all over my back and chest. Leaving in the early mornings to walk on a treadmill at a gym – I would cry and try to process what email I should send next. Terrified the staff would find me annoying and take it out on my elementary-aged child. Who was already dealing with abuse from the school.
But the quiet and unplugging is essential. I have intentionally slowed down. Engaging in somatic therapy activities. Poured on the self-care activities I know that will work for me. I know some people cringe at the word self-care. It is so overused. But I wanted it. Needed it. And it is working.
By stepping away, I have my energy back.
I am refilling my cup. I am the only one responsible for refilling it, and I am the only one with the ability to do so.
I see the big things that indicate to me I am healing. My energy and writing are back. I also see the little things.
My favourite singer is Sarah McLauchlin. I love her music. I have been listening to her for years. During the tribunal process, my music preferences switched. I was always listening to fast, pumping take-over-the-world music. A couple of days after my break started, I was gravitating back to my Sarah music. By Day 6 it was all I was listening to for hours. Going through all of her albums.
“The world is on fire, it’s more than I can handle
I’ll tap into the water, try to bring my share
I’ll try to bring more, more than I can handle
Bring it to the table, bring what I am able”
Welcome back, Sarah. I have missed you.
I am at a place where I can make a decision. I could step away and never have anything to do with K-12 education ever again. Disappear off the grid. Or I could intentionally make the decision to come back. Previously, I felt like I was trapped in time. My children have moved on, but I was still stuck in the past.
But I don’t feel like that anymore. This break was me leaving. I found my way to the future.
I am intentionally deciding to come back. That intention makes everything feel different. It is not just a continuation.
I am not coming back as someone currently in K-12. Not as “we”. We aren’t in this together anymore. I was questioning whether I should be in the role of Chair or be doing this work if I were no longer in the same ocean, trying to keep afloat and not be swept away with the strong currents, along with everyone else. But I come to you all now as someone standing on the shoreline, on solid ground, throwing out the life preserver of lived experience to the next generation of change agents. Someone who went through it and came out on the other side still intact. I didn’t lose myself. If anything, I met myself.
It is day 7 of my break, and I am itching to come back. As much as I was ready to cut everything and run, the pendulum swung, and I am already on the other side. I am a little intense. It can be all or nothing with me. I am either ready to take over the world, or I am taping out on a beach somewhere, counting stars. Again, meeting myself.
I am still aiming to take the rest of the time to deepen and solidify all the progress so far. Or at least I am going to try. I do really want to force myself to take this time and use it. I am looking forward to being back on May 1st and reconnecting, and also meeting the new families seeking services and support through P.A.T.H and BCEdAccess. When the next runner comes up beside me to reach for the baton, I will warmly pass it off to the next Chair of BCEdAccess. P.A.T.H will continue to be an evidence-based lighthouse.
I love all the families that I have witnessed over the years, who are still trying to do the best they can for their kids and themselves in such a broken system. But also for the ones who have honoured that they need a break to refill their cups and heal. I love all the families whom I have never met and will never meet, but are still somewhere trying to stay afloat, swimming against the current. You are all in my heart.
Much love and solidarity to you all,
Kim, – From solid ground. xoxo
