Policy – “Soft Policing”

Policy is known as “soft policing”.

Policy is not law.

It is literally a group of people coming together and making stuff up. Sometimes policy is based on evidence, and sometimes it is not.

School districts have a lot of policies. I highly recommend you go to your school district site and find the policies and the administrative procedures. They may not be located in the same area. Some district websites are easy to navigate, others not so much. It’s worth the hunt. Policy will likely become part of your advocacy at some point.

A huge role for the Board of Education in your district is to create, review and revise policy as needed.

When they update or add a policy, they will, or should, be posting it publicly for public feedback. This will not be an announcement that gets emailed to you. It will take parents/guardians to be alert to these kinds of things being posted on the district website and to follow what is happening in board meetings.

Many districts have an online option for attending board meetings. Which I really like. You can multitask while you have it on in the background. Or if you are finding a part particularly boring, you can turn off the volume. Sometimes board meetings are interesting AF. Drama ensues. Showing up in person can also be informative. See who talks to whom, and you can feel the energy in the room that you can’t do over video. There are opportunities to have conversations with the trustees during break or after the meeting that can be helpful.

I HIGHLY suggest you get to know your district’s school trustees. These are the people who are creating these policies, bylaws, approving budgets, making section 11 decisions, and overseeing the superintendent and secretary-treasurer. The board appoints these people to their positions.

If there is a policy that you would like to bring to the board for consideration, you can certainly email them and discuss this with them. Their role is to listen to you. You can suggest amendments to the current policy, and next time they review their polices, you never know, your suggestions might make it in.

By reading up on policy, you may realize there may also be avenues for you to resolve your issues that you didn’t know were an option. For example, the whistleblowing policy. That is for everyone, not just staff. If you have someone in a position of power who is lying to you or being unethical, this is an option for you to consider in reporting it. Especially if you feel that the issues are not being addressed by the district staff. The whistleblowing complaints are reported to the board.

When there isn’t any transparency and people feel untouchable, it can lead to a lot of funky-monkey business in school districts. It is shameful when the system tries to cover it up. I hate to say this to you, especially if you are a new parent to advocacy. Please don’t be naive. This isn’t care-a-lot, and people in education are not sugarplum fairies. Staff have a fiduciary duty to their employers. Some of these people are wolves in sheep’s clothing. As you advocate and navigate the system, you’ll be learning who is who. Some people are genuinely the kindest and most caring people you will ever meet. The others…will become clear.

Something to keep an eye out for…as policy is not law and can be discriminatory.

Get to know your board, their policies, and administrative procedures. If you want to make changes, email away.

Petition – To Premier Eby – Invest in Schools Now

(ID: text: Storm Warning: BC Public Education Crisis Rally BC Families for Public Education. Picture of dark clouds over a school building with the outline of children and adults holding hands in front of the school. Lighting coming from the clouds down to the people)

Sign the Petition

https://chng.it/b7NDsP8rXn

News Articles

Surrey students plan march to push for B.C. school funding

Students rally against closure of White Rock learning centre

Kamloops-Thompson DPAC holding rally to push for more school district funding

Surrey parents and students rally for education funding

Students, parents protest Surrey school district’s band class cuts

Students rally to save South Surrey White Rock Learning Centre – You Tube

Vancouver School Board trustee faces backlash after post referring to parents concerns as ‘spam’

The government is under budget constraints?? Doesn’t add up.

“According to that 2021 data, BC allocates just 3 percent of its GPP to K-12 education, while Manitoba allocates 4.9 percent, Nova Scotia 4.4 percent, Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island 4.2 percent, Quebec 4.1 percent, New Brunswick 4 percent, Ontario 3.8 percent and Alberta 3.3 percent. This smaller percentage means BC school boards have less funding available for student support and to provide up-to-date, adequate and safe school buildings.”

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/news-research/increased-public-funding-for-private-schools-is-dividing-us-and-needs-to-stop/

Our province is the LOWEST.

How are other provinces able to fund schools more than BC? PEI is at 4. 2% and BC is just 3%.

Explain that!

The kids who are going to feel the effects of the budget constraints the most are the most vulnerable kids.

I do not understand how the people in government, who are making these budget decisions, sleep at night.

Please sign the petition! A HUGE thank you to the organizers. Let’s spread this far and wide!

Parents are not going to sit back and tolerate this.

We are voters!!

Well, a message to the other government parties. You want to kick these people out? Make funding public schools your election commitment. Be nervous NDP! Want to keep your seats? FUND SCHOOLS!!

The Flaw of Inclusion

There is one part of “inclusion” that worries me.

You can be in a room with 100 people and feel utterly alone.

Depending on the type of disability you have, you may not meet someone with the same disability as you until you are an adult.

Just because you are in the same room with a bunch of people, doesn’t mean you feel like you belong there. That you are accepted. Hell…it doesn’t even mean you’ll be tolerated.

Growing up with other people who don’t have anything in common with you, at the core, and experience life differently… is bizarre. It’s like watching a movie.

People with rare diseases will travel halfway around the world just to be in the same space as someone else so they can talk about everything they are experiencing and have someone say the words “me too!”.

There is a reason humans have such a strong desire to be around other people who mirror similar elements to themselves. We feel seen. Understood. Real.

Inclusion as a concept is great. Fully support it.

However….

This is one flaw that I really don’t like.

The one good thing about grouping people with similar characteristics together is that they get to meet other people just like them, and those friendships and bonds are stronger than anything else.

Kids in gifted programs will report that they finally meet other kids who are just like them, and they feel “normal” for the first time. Educate Deaf children together and we have the learning of American Sign Language, Deaf culture and a community. At stuttering conferences, many report that meeting other people who stutter is soul-saving.

Inclusion spreads people out, and those bonds are not connecting. Under the concept of inclusion, how are we going to meet each other?

If you are neurodivergent, ask yourself… how many of your friends are also neurodivergent?

I can tell you, I already know the answer. Your closest friends, you will say, all of them are neurodivergent. And I bet you, as an adult, meeting other people just like you and talking about your experiences has been part of your healing process and becoming comfortable in your skin.

If kids are spread out like a dropped clump of marbles in the education system, rolling out in all directions, how are they going to meet and have friendships with other kids that they can see themselves in? They won’t.

That makes my heart sink.

So, how can we have both?

How can we connect kids with each other and still give them an inclusive education?

CLUBS!?

What else can we do?

Some districts are closing their gifted programs. Are there other ways we can bring gifted kids together?

We need to figure out something. People with disabilities shouldn’t have to wait until they are adults to meet other people who are just like them. That is incredibly isolating.

The first time I met someone who stuttered, I realized we had more in common than the friends I grew up with. And my friends were the same gender as me, the same age, had the same teachers, grew up in the same neighbourhood. Yet, this person who I just met 5 min ago who stuttered, who was not my gender, not in my generation, from another country, we could say “me too” for the first time.

People who don’t have disabilities or who are neurotypical don’t realize this part. Just how important it is. You all get to see yourselves in another human being every time you leave your home and enter society.

A lot of us connect over the internet, Zoom into support groups, and gather at conferences.

In order for inclusion not to have its dark side, we need to figure out how to still connect kids and not just have them all spread out like a dropped clump of marbles.

“Life Begins at the Edge of Your Comfort Zone”

– Neale Donald Walsch

I forget what book I was reading, and this was years ago, but they used the term failing forward. If I ever find it, I’ll come back and update this blog.

As long as you are moving forward and pushing past your comfort zones and embracing new experiences, as a human being you will “fail” or make mistakes at some point. We are all human. We may not get exactly what we want, but that isn’t the point. We often get more than what we would get if we did nothing. Keep going. You will learn. You will be able to accomplish and experience way more in life if you embrace the concept of failing forward.

Nothing is really a failure… is it? As long as you reflect, learn, recalibrate, and move forward with that new information, it certainly isn’t a failure in my mind. This is how we get really really good, at what we do.

What are we doing?

We are advocating for our children. Learning how to navigate the system and not lose ourselves in the process.

There is a cooking show my family and I were recently watching. The person really liked the quote, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone”. I like that quote too.

In my early years, I spent a lot of time working with seniors. I loved working with that age group. I could put people in two categories. There were people who were miserable and people who were at satisfied. The people who were miserable never stopped talking about all the things that people did to them. They blamed everyone for the horrible life they felt they had. Then there were the people at peace. These people would often talk about how they helped people. I will always remember, there was a teacher, and she would talk about her students and how they had come back later to find her and tell her how much of an impact she had made on them.

One thing that is common in both groups is that people often talk about regret. I don’t want to look back at my life and feel regret. Wishing I took the leap, but didn’t.

I have zero problems with falling flat on my face.

I don’t want to just fail forward. I want to do it while running.

Anyone who sticks their neck out for other people, to have other people see what they are doing, is a risk taker. Taking on leadership roles puts you in the ring. People will have their opinions about you. Some people will agree with you. Some people won’t. Cool either way.

We do the best we can. It doesn’t mean we will necessarily achieve our goal, but we will have tried. We can look our kids and tell them, I tried. I did everything I could do.

Right now, our education is already in a crisis and based on what school districts are telling us at budget meetings, the budget cus are going to intensify in the coming years.

Maybe all of our advocacy efforts wont achieve exactly what we are hoping for, or maybe we will move the needle. Regardless, we do our best, and we let it go. We know we tried, and we fail forward and keep on trying.

This work isn’t easy. We need to help each other. Show your support for the brave people who are taking up leadership roles and willing to take the risk of failing forward. I am watching many people step up for their community.

Attend a rally. Email your MLA.

Make this a part of your story that you tell years later.

At least you will know what happened when you gave it your best. You won’t look back in life and wonder….what if?

“Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch

Gears in Motion – Systemic Change

There have been so many people advocating for change within the education system. I have been witnessing a lot of the “gears” moving.

Understanding Systemic Change

PACs are coming forward and holding rallies, and they are hosting budget information nights with tons of parents showing up. Also advocating for their right to be heard.

Organizations are making headway on the path to an equitable education through investigations or guidance manuals. It’s really quite a time to be paying attention to what is happening. Teacher associations are speaking up.

All eyes are on education!!

Social media has certainly been active. More people and organizations are blogging about budgets and EA cuts.

Here is one thing that is absolutely true.

All of these people and groups that are advocating and leading teams. They are getting really really good at what they are doing. They are expanding their comfort zones and becoming seasoned to be in the ring. They are becoming skilled at speech making, networking, organizing. They are like a fine wine. Just getting better and better, building on skills they already had.

You can’t put the squeezed toothpaste back into the tube.

They will be mentoring and inspiring people they aren’t even realizing, and more people will be following in their footsteps and feel braver to stand up because they are witnessing and having advocacy modelled to them. The connections they create are not just going to melt away come the summer.

The advocacy is just going to grow. More people will join the movement. It is going to get very very loud. The media is paying attention, as they should be.

Decisions about education are a reflection of who society cares about, and who they don’t.

The government is going to need to respond to people or risk losing the trust in its voters. They ran on an election promise of EAs in every classroom from K to grade 3. I hope they just don’t pull all the ones from high schools and just move them to the elementary schools and say, ta-da! Meanwhile, high schools will be falling apart.

Parents are collectively and individually becoming excellent advocates! This is an advocacy education train that is not going to stop. Full steam ahead!

ID: Text – Your enemies will open doors for you that they won’t even know that they’re opening…By the time they figure it out, they won’t have the power to close them.

More Blogs! More Lived Experience!

Hello Everyone!

I am adding 2 more blogs to my parent blog list.

I love it when people write and share themselves with all of us. There is so much to relate to and learn about.

  1. End Collective Punishment in Schools.

This is an excellent blog about the Appeals Process in Schools.

“You retell the story, often to someone hearing it for the first time—someone who cannot possibly hold the full weight of months of frustration, confusion, and cumulative impact. You must sound nice, since they might judge you, but you’re furious by then. Heart broken for what your child has suffered. They listen, they nod, and then they reiterate policy. Like you’ve never heard about policy:-(

It seems like less of a pursuit of resolution than an institutional ritual. Performative. Lip service.“

2. The Canary Collective

This is written by a teacher advocating for change in the system!!

“I am an educator, an advocate, and a witness to a system in urgent need of change. The Canary Collective is not about any one person. It is about the movement we must build together, a revolution grounded in truth, hope, and justice. It is a space where marginalized voices can speak freely, where silence is broken, and where a different future is imagined. Like the canaries once sent into coal mines to warn against toxic air, we raise our voices to reveal danger, name what is harmful, protect what is precious, and call for transformation before more harm is done. Together, we can reshape education into a system rooted in acceptance, belonging, and care. I believe that future is possible if we are brave enough to challenge discrimination, to dismantle exclusion, and to refuse the comfort of silence. This is a place for those who are ready to stop whispering and start building. Welcome to the Canary Collective.”

You will find these blogs listed on my Parent/Guardian blogs page

A big thank you to the creators for sharing themselves with us.

Facebook Post – On BCEdAccess Blog

Hello Everyone,

It’s time to get loud.

I have a volunteer role outside of my Speaking UP BC blogging and PATH. I am the Chair of BCEdAccess Society. I have been a part of the Facebook group for years. I am sharing a blog I wrote through my role and volunteer work with BCEdAccess. This is the first time I am sharing a blog through my own personal Facebook page. I hummed and hawed over whether this was a good idea or not. To blend the two of them. But I have decided to do it anyways, as the content of the blog, I really want to share.

The purpose of sharing this blog as much as I can is to provide a seed of thought and spark a conversation. A questioning and analysis of how this education system is functioning. Seeing whether you agree with what I wrote or not, is not my purpose. Whatever your view is on the funding issues our school districts are facing, please find people in your life and start a conversation about your thoughts. I’d love it even more if one of those people were your local MLA.

I haven’t really talked about it publicly but I was an EA in the school system for years. I did my training and student placements in hearing and Deaf schools in Ontario, worked in Montreal, and then again here in BC. I know what working education is really like. So, I see the education system from a staffs perspective and I understand it from a parents perspective. I have friends who are teachers and EAs. When I was working in schools and had discussions with staff, there were things that were happening and we wanted to speak out about it and talk to parents. We were crossing our fingers that parents were going to rally together and fight the school. Teachers and EAs cannot speak out about their working conditions publicly or even students learning conditions. The closest they come to being able to do that is when they are on strike. Other than that, they are forced to keep quiet or they will lose their jobs. Even then, there was a legal decision centred around teachers posting flyers educating parents about the educational losses that were happening. Teachers were identifying the harms that the cuts would have on student learning with the statements “Our Children’s Education is Threatened” and this went to a hearing to analyze their freedom of expression issues. Their employers wanted them to shut up. I will link the case below.

People who work in the education system need to be very careful what they say publicly. Even what kind of content they “like” on social media. There is even policy behind this. So on social media, teachers and EAs need to be silent or risk their employment. We are dealing with educators leaving their jobs at exceptionally high numbers. Districts are reporting issues with high absenteeism. Districts are so desperate for adults they are hiring people who have not been trained as teachers or EAs.

The blog from BCEdAccess was posted yesterday, on a holiday, when many people would have plans or be enjoying the long weekend. In less than 12 hours, this blog became the second most viewed blog on our website, close to reaching the numbers of our most viewed blog which took days to reach that number of views. On my personal Speaking Up BC my stats jumped to numbers as if I had posted the blog on my own site. The number of new viewers skyrocketed and what people were mostly viewing was my blog “Why can’t we just sue the government?”, which I will link below.

A lot of stuff is shared in secret. People are sharing my blog amongst their colleagues, friends and family and they are just not sharing this publicly. I want parents to know, that just because you don’t see school staff or trustees in the media ripping the government to pieces doesn’t mean they aren’t advocating behind closed doors. They may have duct tape over their mouths publicly, but I don’t.

We all want a better education system. Budget cuts and the chronic underfunding impacts every single person and worst of all, it impacts our children, which builds the foundation for the rest of their life.

I don’t need people to comment publicly on my work. The feedback I get on whether I have planted a seed of thought, I get through website statistics. I know the ones that have stirred conversation. This blog is one of them. And the work week hasn’t even started yet.

However you view and feel the impacts of the chronic underfunding and the cuts that are coming this year, please talk about it with other people. And if one of them is your MLA, thank you!

Here is the blog posted on the BCEdAccess website

https://bcedaccess.com/…/scarcity-in-education-harmful…

Here is the hearing decision BCTF and the BC Public School Employers

https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcla/doc/2004/2004canlii94306/2004canlii94306.html

Here are my blogs

Why Can’t we Just Sue the Government

&

Budget time

Another new HR decision – Intersecting Identity – Self-Representing Parent – A win!

I have written so many posts that start with New HR decision that it’s starting to sound ridiculous.

So, yes this is another new one. I know we just had a new one a couple of days ago.

I can’t tell you how exciting this is. This is the month of April, only four months into 2025 and we are already at 5 decisions with more to come. This is going to be quite the year!!

Is the Ministry of Education and Child Care paying attention to all of this????

They better wake up!

Here we go.

Decision #5 – This parent is self-representing. They won. The complaint is fully proceeding.

Child (by the Parent) v. School District, 2025 BCHRT 89

This case involves a couple of protected grounds.

[3] The Child identifies as Black and of African race, ancestry and place of origin. The Child has a mild Autism Spectrum Disorder [ ASD ], which the Parent describes as largely diagnosed from his late speech and asymptomatic.

This is a timeliness complaint

What is interesting about this case from an analysis point of view is that there were gaps between the discrimination and multiple allegations were beyond the one-year time limit, and yet it was still accepted.

[25] Having found multiple arguable contraventions of the Code , that are both timely and out of time, it is necessary to next consider whether the late-filed allegations form part of a continuing contravention.

[26] I first considered whether the allegations are of a similar character for the purposes of determining the existence of a continuing contravention of the Code . The School District argues the timely allegations are dissimilar because the timely allegations involve different children at different schools. I disagree with the School District. From my review of the allegations in their entirety, I agree with the Child that they involve the School District’s failure to properly respond in series of altercations where white male students harmed the Child for reasons related to his race, colour, ancestry, place of origin and mental disability. At the same time, the allegations are of a similar character because the Child alleges the School District’s repeated responses to all these incidents were unfair to him for reasons related to the personal characteristics identified. In my view, the similar character of these allegations is not affected in any material way because they occurred at different schools and with different white male children.

[27] I have next considered the existence of gaps between allegations. I have determined that there are no significant gaps for the purposes of s. 22(2) of the Code in this case. I disagree with the School District’s approach to this question by looking at the entire timespan for the allegations in question. In my view, it is more appropriate to look at the length of time between allegations to determine whether they occurred in succession. Here, there were gaps of half of year to about nine months between most of the allegations and these are explained by the somewhat randomness of serious incidents happening when the white male students engaged the Child. The only possibly significant gap in my view, occurred between the November 2019 incident and the Spring 2021 incident. However, this gap is easily explained by the fact that during most of 2020 schools were closed due to pandemic restrictions and the Child was not in physical proximity to the students in question.

[28] Overall, I am satisfied the Child’s allegations from the June 2018 incident to the Spring 2021 incident allegations are of a similar nature in succession to the timely October 2021 incidents allegations. As such, the Complaint is a timely continuing contravention of the Code and it is, therefore, unnecessary for me to determine whether it is in the public interest to allow any late filed allegations to proceed.

There are multiple allegations of bullying connected to racism and what I would label as ableism.

Here is an example.

[13] On October 20, 2021, the Child alleges three higher grade white boys followed him into the bathroom and one of the boys intentionally slammed a bathroom stall door into his face. The Child alleges this incident resulted in him chipping his two front teeth. He alleges the School District principal and vice principal were unmoved by the incident and did not want to report it to the police. The Child alleges the vice principal kept blaming him for screaming and shouting and rolling around on the floor as an attempt to magnify his autism behaviour to justify the other boys’ wrongdoing. Once again, the Child alleges the School District protected the white assailants from receiving any blame for the incident. This allegedly included the School District saying that they did not know which boy had caused the harm to the Child. The Child alleges this incident was a good example of the School District’s staff demonstrating their inclination to favour white children in altercations involving him [the October 20, 2021, incident ]

I encourage everyone to read this case in full.

The other human rights case that was connected to discriminatory bullying is this one. I’ll be adding this case now to that page as well.

Way to go, self-represented parent!

Accepted Human Rights Complaints in Education

Here is a list of some key human rights cases that were accepted and valid complaints under the Human Rights Code. There are more human rights complaints to explore in Canlii. For instructions on how to use Canlii click here.

It is very helpful to know what gets accepted by the BC Human Rights Tribunal. These examples give the public and the tribunal a peek into the education system. Exposure alone of these circumstances is advocacy and creates a data trail.

These cases can be used in our advocacy when communicating with the school.

EA not provided

IEP and designation not provided

Professional recommendations not included in IEP

Parents were not meaningfully consulted

Meaningful inquiry – The School didn’t investigate what the disability related barriers were and try to remove them

Equitable access to education – The Moore case

Hostile and rude teachers, not accommodating

Exclusion

Another exclusion example

Preventing a student from presenting at an assembly and mishandling an assembly incident.

Not providing reasonable accommodations – Dyslexia

Not being able to read, leaving for a private school – Dyslexia

Bullying

Allergies

Forced out of school (poor transition into high school)- paying for private school (Ontario)

Family Status (impact on the parent) – file within one year

Here is the page for a list of dismissals and timeliness applications over the last 10 years.

New Human Rights Decision – Professional Recommendations in IEP

2025 BCHRT 85 – BC Human Rights Tribunal

Child (by Parents) v. Surrey School District No. 36, 2025 BCHRT 85

More important learnings from human rights decisions!!

This is a dismissal application. Parts of their complaint were dismissed but the part that is continuing is the allegation that the school didn’t incorporate professional recommendations into their child’s IEP.

The human rights tribunal is accepting this as a valid complaint, and it is proceeding. This case can be used to enhance your advocacy.

[66] The Child alleges that the School Board lost or did not read many of the reports that were provided to them, and that as a result, the recommendations contained in those reports were not incorporated into their IEPs. Therefore, they say, the Child’s disabilities were not properly accommodated. The Child says that had the IEPs been developed in line with the medical and psychoeducational recommendations contained in the reports provided to the School Board, their Parents would not have had to intervene with private support services in order to keep the Child at grade level. They say that because the recommendations in the reports were not incorporated into the Child’s IEPs, the Parents were required to provide the Child with tutoring, vision therapy, and auditory therapy, along with other interventions.

[68] The School Board admits that certain of the recommendations contained in the psychoeducational assessment and other medical reports were not included in the Child’s IEPs. However, the School Board says that the IEPs developed for the Child “are consistent with the recognized supports for students with a learning disability like dyslexia within British Columbia.” They say that many of the recommendations from the psychoeducational assessment report in particular were specific to programs available in Colorado, not in BC. They say the IEPs that have been developed for the Child were consistent with the Child’s Ministry of Education designation and “the information regarding [the Child’s] learning needs”, including the provision of a learner support teacher as well as modifications implemented by the classroom teacher. They note that the Child’s progress reports indicate that they have progressed “well” and “overall at grade level”.

[72] While the School Board took steps through the IEPs to accommodate the Child, based on the materials before me, I am not persuaded that they are reasonably certain to prove they took all reasonable and practical steps to remove the disability-related barriers faced by the Child. This allegation will proceed.

We already know from X by Y v. Z that it doesn’t matter what their grades are, its whether the school district removed the barriers to access their education equitably

[142] Y has said that the learning support provided throughout X’s education has not been enough for X to “reach the same level as his peers or possibly excel”. The District’s obligation is reasonable not perfect accommodation. As I have said above, reasonable accommodation is not necessarily measured by whether a student is meeting or exceeding certain standardized learning goals but rather by whether barriers have been removed to provide meaningful access to education.

As always, I extend much appreciation and thanks to the parents who are navigating this system and bringing these decisions forward.

Putting the pieces together

Accepted human rights complaints