Tag: disability

Family Status Protection

BIG NEWS!

For parents who are concerned about losing their job due to parent responsibilities of raising their children, this is a step in the right direction.

“Vancouver, B.C. – On Friday, the B.C. Court of Appeal issued a decision that clarifies the circumstances in which parents and caregivers can seek accommodation in their workplaces.

The Court released their decision in Gibraltar Mines Ltd. v. Harvey, a case alleging discrimination against the mother of a young child by her employer. B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner intervened in the case to address the legal test for family status discrimination in B.C.

‘Family status’ is a protected ground in B.C.’s Human Rights Code, prohibiting discrimination based on a person’s family situation, such as if a person is a caregiver for children or elderly parents. To determine whether family status discrimination has taken place, decision makers in B.C. have traditionally used a two-part test. This test asked whether the employer unilaterally changed a worker’s terms of employment and whether there was a serious interference with a substantial parental or other family duty as a result. The main issue before the Court of Appeal in Gibraltar was whether the law did, in fact, require a unilateral change to terms of employment as part of the legal test to establish discrimination.

Friday’s ruling means that employees can qualify for a workplace accommodation when any condition of their employment has an adverse effect on an important parental duty. Complainants are not required to show that their employer has changed their terms of employment. This is particularly important for parents of young children whose parental obligations may change during their employment and conflict with their workplace responsibilities.”

“The Court’s decision is welcome and is a significant win for gender equality in the workplace in many ways. It is an important step forward, but there remain outstanding issues that need to be resolved to ensure that mothers and other caregivers are able to access the full protection of human rights law.”Kasari Govender, B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner

For the full release read the HR Commissioners announcement

For more media regarding this:
The Canadian Press
Burnaby Now
Global News

NEW! Dyslexia Advocacy Society of BC has a BLOG!

Woohoo!!!

Dyslexia Advocacy Society of BC Contact us 778-839-1540
Picture of the front page of the blog titled Dyslesia BC Blog, first post: Lets make sure we get structured literacy into BC schools.

Dyslexia BC now has a blog and what are they posting about?

Some upcoming advocacy action. That’s what!

“Next week, starting on April 27, 2023 the British Columbia School Trustees Association (BCSTA) is having their 2023 AGM and they have a motion at the table submitted from the North Vancouver School Board (No.44)  that   is called “Learning Disability (Dyslexia) and Policy/Guidelines for Screening in Kindergarten.”  To help support this motion we have written a letter to the BCSTA Board.”

To read the letters and support the very important motions, visit their blog at Dyslexia BC Blog

New TRB Commissioner

WOW! We have a new TRB Commissioner and she sounds fabulous!

“The British Columbia Commissioner for Teacher Regulation is Ana Mohammed. She is a trained lawyer, adjudicator and mediator with experience in administrative law and extensive experience in employment and human rights law.


Ana has practiced as a lawyer in the areas of administrative, criminal, employment and human rights law. She was appointed as a full-time member with the BC Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) from 2001 to 2006, where she heard and decided human rights complaints as a sole adjudicator, as well as conducted mediations and dealt with complaints at the prehearing and preliminary stages. A selection of Ana’s preliminary and final decisions may be viewed at the BCHRT’s website. Since 2007, Ana has also periodically taught human rights law as an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia law school.


Ana has been the principal of a human rights and employment consulting firm since 2007, where she worked extensively with unionized workplaces in the private and public sectors, as well as with private and non-profit organizations. She is named on several collective and facilities agreements, including the BC college and university sector agreement, as a neutral third-party investigator and mediator, and has been engaged to do workplace assessments and industry troubleshooting work. Ana has designed and presented many human rights and employment education workshops for employees, union and employer personnel, board members and various executive bodies. 


Ana is a mother of 2, and a first generation Canadian. She has lived and worked in 3 Canadian provinces since 1977. She brings a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) lens to all the work she does. She has extensive experience working respectfully and effectively with diverse populations.”

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/governments/organizational-structure/ministries-organizations/boards-commissions-tribunals/commissioner-for-teacher-regulation/meet-the-commissioner

How do I not Let you Break Me?

I was listening to a podcast for my corrections class and one of the women who has been incarcerated was crying and sharing her experience of how she refused to let the prison system break her soul. She was worthy of a better life.

Her determination to keep herself going during the most difficult period in her life is something that has been floating around in my thinking.

As an advocate, I have hit a wall.

I feel exhausted.

Mentally and emotionally – pushed to my limits.

Disability management – pushed to my limits.

Close to burnout.

And I have 3 exams to write this week.

How do I not become bitter? Broken? And completely mistrusting?

How do I not give up on people?

I can mostly keep myself afloat.  Looking for the positive. Self-care.  Reminding myself of all the usual things I tell myself that is routed in hope.

My positive cup has been drained by recent events and I am just so fucking tired. More than what I was prepared for. It’s been a long fight.

I must complete a task forcing me to go over every detail with a fine tooth comb. Reliving the details over and over.

How do I keep myself in the game? It’s not over yet.

How do I not let you break me?

Resolution Options in Education

You have a situation at your child’s school that you realize, with all your best efforts, is not being resolved internally. You need help. You need an external organization to intervene. Who do you go to?

Not necessarily an easy question.

Some have retaliation protection built into their legislation, some do not.

Each option is connected to their own separate legislation. They are each a silo and operate independently. They are not connected. Knowing which avenue is most appropriate can save you months and even years of potential disappointment or wasted time.

Here are your options and the legislation they are attached to.

** All of these processes will require you to provide as much documentation (evidence) as possible.

  1. Professional Conduct Unit (Teachers Regulation Branch)

The TRB is connected to the Teachers Act. If the teacher in your child’s class has violated the standards for educators you can file a complaint. The Commissioner will determine if their behaviour was enough of a marked departure to lead to a consent resolution. The TRB will not consider human rights discrimination in the way that the HRT will. They are connecting the teacher to the Teachers Act and their professional standards, not determining if their behaviour was discrimination or related to the human rights code.

Before you file a TRB complaint please read this information.

There is no retaliation protection built in to the legislation, they advise you file another complaint for the retaliation.

2. Ombudsperson BC

The Ombudsperson of BC deals with administrative fairness and is connected to the Ombudsperson Act. So if education staff are ignoring you, not explaining their decisions to you or not following their own policy, then you could file a complaint with them.

You can go on their website and see their check lists to know if the administrative or procedural unfairness that you are experiencing is something they can assist you with. They can do an early resolution if you are being ignored. Silence, unfortunately is not uncommon in education.

There is retaliation protection built into the Ombudsperson Act.

3. Human Rights Complaint

The HRT deals with the Human Rights Code. It is an administrative tribunal and this area connected with disability in education is most likely going to be tied to Section 8: Duty to Accommodate. This is a legal process connected to the Human Rights code. That’s it. They will not be applying school policy to their decision making, just the Code. Understanding the components of the duty to accommodate is key.

There is case law around the schools responsibility to prevent continued bullying, and not having barriers that would prevent a disabled child from accessing their education connected to a duty to accommodate. This includes a duty to inquire, a duty to consult, and a duty to co-operate in good faith. Parents then have a duty to co-operate in good faith, a duty to facilitate the decision, and need to accept accommodations that are being offered that will remove the barrier for their child to access their education. This doesn’t mean the best accommodation, just enough to remove the barrier. I highly recommend you consult a lawyer. On the HRT website they have a list on where to get help.

There is a very firm 1 year limitation.

You can request it go through a “fast track” process if your issue is urgent.

There is retaliation protection built into the Human Rights Code.

4. Section 11 Appeal

This process connects with the School Act. As a parent you can file a section 11 appeal if you disagree with a decision that the school is making and it is significantly affecting your child and their education.

This process is faster than the Human Rights Tribunal process.

This advocacy is more open to looking at how policy and discrimination are impacting the student. Here are some guidelines.

Here is the Section 11 Appeal Manual.

5. OIPC

OIPC follows the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Act

If you submit a Freedom of Information Request and they have redacted information you want access to, or are withholding information you feel you should have access to, or are delaying and not following the guidelines in providing you your FOI request, you can file a complaint with the OIPC and they will examine your case.

Here is how to make a complaint.

6. Education Mediation

Education mediation is connected to the Education Mediation Act. This is an option I know very little about, and would be relying on this legislation for information just as anyone else looking at it for the first time.

If anyone has gone this route and would like to share their experience with me, I would love to hear about it. Please email me at Kim @ speakingupbc.ca

7. Whistleblower Policies

All school districts are required to have whistleblower policies. If you are dealing with lying, manipulation and unethical behaviour, this is a route you may want to investigate further and pursue. Each school district should have this policy posted on their website. You may need to find it through the Board of Education section of their website under policies or administrative procedures.

8. Advocacy groups (highly recommended)

Support is essential when advocating in education. Having someone knowledgeable with experience to guide you is very beneficial.

BCEdAccess Society & Parents Facebook group
Inclusion BC
Family Support Institute

Teacher Suspended – Not Following IEP and Safety Plan

We have an important consent resolution that has rightfully been making the news.

The Professional Conduct Unit (formerly Teachers Regulation Branch) doesn’t have a great track record.

In fact, most of the complaints parents file lead to “no action”. It has been confusing, disheartening, and a punch in the gut for many that leads us to question the legitimacy of this department in the Ministry of Education and Child Care that should be protecting the most vulnerable.

As shown by the annual reports by the Professional Conduct Unit, you can see for yourself.

2021-2022
2020-2021
2019-2020

You get the idea…puzzling isn’t the word…

In the year 2021-2202 out of 242 complaints/reports only 28 led to a consent resolution. If you read through them all, you will get a clear sense of which ones make it through. Most of them are sexual offences or related to physical safety.

There is a lot more going on in schools, unfortunately, that require action in order to keep kids safe from harm beyond just their physical bodies. Based on self-reporting of parents, especially for kids who are disabled, they just aren’t making it through, even when the human rights tribunal is accepting the same complaints from the same parents. Here is the discipline database.

Thankfully, most teachers will never experience this process because, well, they are just absolutely fabulous who have a genuine care for children. All of us parents and society will forever been in their debt. Forever and ever.

Other people….chose the wrong career.

Even though the TRB rarely, and I mean rarely, releases a consent resolution connected to a student with a disability, this recent case highlights that the teacher wasn’t aware of the students IEP and Safety plan, when they should have been, and states the incident has caused the student anxiety.

I was hoping this story would make the news.

And it did.

Many parents feel that IEP’s don’t get the respect they deserve. Some teachers follow them to a tee fully embracing them, and others completely ignore them. Ignore an IEP and safety plan and we could end up seeing you in the news one day.

Here is the full consent resolution that is posted on the Ministry of Education and Child Care’s website. Parents, you may want to keep this one on your computer. An advocacy tool.

Bellow are news articles on this important consent resolution. I will update them as they are posted in the media.

Vancouver Sun
Surrey-Now Leader
Vernon Now
Info News
BC CTV
Global News

Update: Administrative Procedure 356 Feedback from the Public

Communication I received from the Langley School District on Feb 9th, 2023.

“Thank you for sharing your questions and feedback. As was outlined in the meeting, the District is gathering feedback from the public, reviewing the information, and providing responses that pertain to Administrative Procedure 356. The District is also sharing a webpage which contains the meeting minutes, presentation slides, and question-and-answers from the meeting on the District webpage here.

The District is welcoming questions and feedback from the public until February 23, 2023.

To ensure equity and transparency, any additional questions from the public that were not answered in the question-and-answer period of the meeting and pertains to Administrative Procedure 356 will be shared on the same webpage after February 23, 2023.

Thank you for your feedback and helping contribute to our learning community.”

UPDATE: March 11th, 2023 – They have posted the questions and answers from the parents information night

https://www.sd35.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/AP356-Additional-Questions-2023Mar10.pdf

An Open Letter to the Trustees of SD35-Langley

Dear Trustees,

I registered for the information session, Tuesday January 31st, regarding AP 355 procedure. At the last minute I was unable to attend due to the physical location of the meeting, but would have been able to attend if the meeting was online. I would like to communicate my concerns regarding your procedure. Even though my children are not in your district, other districts and parents are taking notice and your procedure has wider implications for other school districts to follow with similar procedures.

My concerns include the following:

  1. Potential for misuse. People in positions of power can use policies such as this as stepping stones for wider implications and inferences that leave vulnerable people even more vulnerable.
  2. Age. Other districts who have an exclusion policy have an age minimum of 16. However, this administrative procedure starts at kindergarten. That means some children being impacted by this procedure will be as young as 4 years old. This becomes enforceable on DAY 1 of kindergarten. The “spirit” of your procedure is very different than the other 3 policies I found online.
  3. Costs. There are financial costs to this procedure on families that are not being addressed by the school district. Will parents be reimbursed for their lost wages due to not being able to work for 3 days at a time? Due to systemic issues that are created and maintained by the Ministry of Education and how the public service of education is delivered in this province, it leaves parents shouldering the financial responsibilities and not the school district. Districts can be held financially responsible for human rights violations, lost wages and the cost of outside school programs. What happens here?
  4. Appeals. I have concerns that there is not already an established separate appeals process that is not a very cumbersome time consuming section 11 appeals process.  
  5. Delivery. I have concerns in which this information night was delivered. It could have easily been on zoom so that families with disabled children could access the information.  The barriers were evident and did not go unnoticed by the families who could not attend.  Due to the small number of people who were able to physically attend the information session, compared to the number of concerned members of the disability community who were interested in attending, the small “sample size” group who attended, you will be unable to make inferences to the larger population and feel that you fully understand everyone’s concerns.  It fulfills checking off a box on your to-do list, but little else, and I implore you to consider further community consultation via online as well.
  6. Reporting. Will there be reporting expectations from the district admin to the board so there is oversight? How often will these reports be expected to be reviewed and is there going to be a public anonymous quantitative data reporting system for transparency and legitimacy of your procedure? If you say this procedure will benefit the families for accountability, how will you be demonstrating that to the public that with evidence?
  7. Vague terms. It concerns me that there is a lot of vague undefined terms in this policy with no reference. Acts have definitions. For example, What does “exceptional circumstances” mean?
  8. Legal consultation. Will the school district be accessing their lawyers for legal consultation during the implementation of this policy? Will parents have the same access to legal consultation?
  9. Human System. Education is delivered through the means of a human system, designed and maintained by people. It is flawed and socially constructed by people who don’t often experience oppression. We are also in a state of educational crisis with severe staffing shortages and untrained adults working in the system who are not trained teachers or EA’s. The stress level of staff who are working in a system of scarcity and desperation will impact the learning environment and employees emotional regulation. This will transfer to the culture and behaviour of those children who are also navigating this human system. Children are not the creators of the environment that they are entering, they are reacting to their environment. It is recognized that we live in a society that is ableist, racist, classist, and education is delivered through a colonized lens. The children who are struggling to adapt to this system and who are most vulnerable will be mostly affected. How are families supported as they navigate this system that they have no control over? As per the school act, final decisions are the purview of the board and not the parents. Parents are responsible for facilitating decisions made by the schools or they can be seen as not fulfilling their duty to cooperate in good faith and human rights complaints will be dismissed. If parents disagree with the methodology that is being forced on their child, what is their recourse that will not risk their employment or make them homeless as they cannot pay their rent due to extended exclusion?  There are bound to be cultural and/or philosophical framework disagreements as professionals who work in disability education cannot even agree on appropriate approaches for specific disabilities and these disagreements even within these professions can lead to fierce emotional debate.  For example, Autism and Dyslexia.
  10. Diagnosis. Not all disabilities are even identified or screened by education staff, therefore many children are not even appropriately diagnosed. The mental health profession is understaffed and extremely stretched very thin with many people not being able to access supports until they are in extreme crisis, and even then the needs are just to high. In a failing system, with so many children falling through the cracks, how does this policy ensure that the education system is adapting to the needs on a macro systemic level? Does the Ministry of Education support this policy and do they plan on providing the school district with funding to ensure that children are accessing education in equitable ways? Will the Ministry of Education ensure that TOC’s will be provided so staff can have time to meet and consult with the appropriate professionals? And on that note, is the BCTF on board with this policy and 3 day cap? If the expectation is meetings are to be taking place and plans designed within 3 days, in the union on board with ensuring their staff are aware of their expectations? How will further professional training be provided to reduce the need for this policy to even exist?

Your responsibility in creating a procedure that doesn’t cause harm is very heavy. Please do not speed along the process. Please take into account the very community that you think this policy will benefit and that means a lot more consultation with community and collaboration with external non-profit organizations who advocate for vulnerable families.

If this procedure is discriminatory or harmful, external organizations will end up being involved in the process eventually and it will cause more harm and stress for everyone involved: school staff, parents, and most importantly the children. As young as 4 years old, on DAY 1 of kindergarten.

Sincerely,

Kim Block

Here is a link to their information and admin procedure link

The Underground World of Human Rights Complaints in Education

By systemic design, human rights complaints in education are underground. A hidden world, away from prying eyes and transparent investigation. This is not for privacy and confidentiality.

  1. Back in the day, with focused education-reporters, this article was written about the expense of lawyers fees for Harris and Co. Vancouver Sun – School districts and the money spent on Harris & Co. What is NOT mentioned in this article is that the money for Harris & Co. also covers human rights complaints filed by parents on behalf of their children.
  2. On the Harris & Co. website, they list the services they offer to school districts. What is explicitly missing, is that they defend human rights complaints, both by employees and by parents. The words “human rights” are missing. Search the database of the Human Rights Tribunal, you will see the cases with the names of the lawyers that link back to their law firm.
  3. On the Human Rights Tribunal website, find me where parents can get information about discrimination related to education services? Last year, I emailed them informing that information specific to education is badly needed. I received no response. No updates on the website have been made. I have had to do my own research and write blogs like this: Understanding the Duty to Accommodate, Why is documentation so important, and create a Human Rights Tribunal and an Education Law page to help other parents understand their rights. I am asking this honestly, for anyone reading this, please send me any links that you can on human rights and education in BC. I’d love to know where this information is posted. If you want to find info on human rights in BC in education the only place to look is case law. So I created my case page. (Which actually should be updated with all of my newest finds.) I swear, I need 26 hours in a day.
  4. Meanwhile in Ontario the Human Rights Tribunal has a Special Education Tribunal, and an Ombudsperson branch focused on Education. Don’t even get me started talking about the Teacher’s Regulation Branch here in BC. That’s a whole other story still in progress.
  5. The Ministry of Education doesn’t even track human rights complaints. Evidence – the state of human rights complaints in BC. No one is even paying attention to all of this. No oversight. Nothing. No monitoring. No accountability. Yup. Read that again.
  6. We already know that the obvious form of exclusion happens from BCEd’s exclusion tracker. We rarely see articles about education human rights complaints in the news. Surrey School District. Parents need to “out” their child. Data with anonymity specific to education isn’t available. Discrimination in school systems is so wide spread. It’s just been accepted as part of the daily fabric of how the education system functions and parents are left to advocate, taking up the responsibility on their own.

So this underground hidden world exists…

Interesting…

Anyone care to take a guess as to why????

I have a couple interesting theories. None that I can write out on social media.

Interesting to note:

  1. Education human rights cases tend to be very long and complex. Weeks long.
  2. The human rights tribunal is already an overwhelmed system as it is. 3-5 years is the current estimate start to end time.
  3. According to the HRT annual report only 1% of complaints make it to a hearing, and if you are unrepresented against lawyers only 20% win their cases. Without hearings happening in education, we don’t have enough case law in education around discrimination.
  4. Parents are quoted &120,000.00 in lawyers frees for a 5 day hearing for lawyer representation. If you win, the settlement offers are small fractions of your legal fees.
  5. Pro-bono lawyers, once you get a settlement offer, wont agree to take your case to a hearing. Or good luck finding one who will.
  6. There is a turn of the tide happening right now. The latest human rights hearing list, has three cases in education, all in the same month.

It is a hidden underground world.

You want a concrete example of what systemic oppression looks like…well…here it is folks!

Oh and fun fact, this system isn’t changing anytime soon.

Where is the outrage?

Oh, that’s underground too.

You see, at Harris & Co. they do explicitly list “defamation issues including defamation on social media” as part of their services.

Lucky us.

Annual Report Season

Hello All,

Below are links to a collection of annual reports for the following organizations. I find the data fascinating and a window into what they are willing to share with us. These are all current annual reports for their 2021-2022 periods.

Here are the list of links,

Human Rights Tribunal – 35 pages
BC Office of Human Rights Commissioner -43 pages
Community Legal Assistance Society – 26 pages
Ombudsperson – 92 pages
Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner – 36 pages
Ministry of Education and Childcare – 22 pages
Inclusion BC – 27 pages
Family Support Institute -24 pages
Ministry of Family and Child Development – 19 pages
Representative of Children and Youth – 132 pages
Teacher’s Regulation Branch – 27 pages

The one I am STILL waiting for is the Teacher Regulation Branch annual report…. I’ll add it when it comes out.

I encourage you all to take an internet deep dive and find organizations or ministries that interest you and read their annual reports.

What kind of annual reports are you interested in reading about?

Happy discovering!!