Month: August 2025

What are you Advocating for?

Schools are required by law to provide your child with accommodations. They are not required by law to remove the disability from your child.

There are parents that feel that if their child is still showing features that are natural to their disability or neurodiversity, it must indicate that the school is not providing appropriate accommodations.

No.

Your child is entering the school disabled at 9am and at 3pm they will leave disabled.

Your child is beautiful. There is nothing wrong with them. Disability and neurodiversity are a natural part of human variation. If we have a society with no disabled people, there is something seriously wrong going on.

Schools provide accommodations, “ramps”. Like a pair of glasses. They don’t “fix” kids and remove the disability from them. Their job is to provide an education, with skills to be able to function the best they can in society. The same as all kids.

For example, if your child stutters and the school doesn’t remove the stuttering and make them fluent, it doesn’t mean the school is failing them. If your kid doesn’t want to participate in “treatment,” it doesn’t mean the school is failing them. If your child is still showing features that are natural to their disability/neurodiversity, it doesn’t mean the school is failing them.

Way back in history it was believed people with disabilities were possessed by the devil. It was believed that if they tortured the body enough to make it unhabitable, the devil (the disability) would leave. People would perform exorcisms, trying to rid people of disability.

We aren’t asking the school to remove the disability or neurodiversity from a child. We want kids to have an equitable access to their education. To be provided with skills and an education so that they can reach their potential. Not to be someone else.

Are you advocating for accommodations, or are you advocating for an exorcism?

Knowing our Rights!! Woohoo!

Ok, so I did want to acknowledge the grief part of being forced into heavy advocacy with law and policy. For those needing that acknowledgement you can read my previous blog Knowing our Rights. The path usually starts off that way, but it doesn’t need to stay that way.

For this blog, we are jumping from grief to acceptance to celebration.

There are many people who have been positively impacted personally from being originally forced into advocacy. They then find out there is something about this that drives them, fills them, and they enjoy helping other people.

I am one of those lucky people.

Some people have become teachers, EAs, OTs, social justice advocates, non-profit professionals, become school Trustees, entered politics, etc, etc, and have gone back to school to start a new career because of their experience.

I consider myself to be one of those positively impacted people, as I have found a career I absolutely love. Out of something that started out very horrible. Like throwing up horrible, never sleeping again in my life, horrible.

I am a health care and human rights legal advocate for people who are extremely vulnerable in society. My clients are among the most marginalized, traumatized, and oppressed people in society. I navigate all of the external complaint systems and work on policy systemic work with teams of dedicated advocates and lawyers. I LOVE IT.

I never ever would have gone back to school and ended up in the profession I am in now if it wasn’t for the shit I had to wade through due to advocating for my kids in the education system. It unlocked something already deep inside me that never had a chance to come out. I love law and policy. I find it fascinating. The social justice and direct client support I do, I absolutely love.

My silver lining.

Some people find out that they actually do love all of this law and policy stuff. That’s right up their alley. That they are actually really good at advocating. Some people have started their own businesses in education advocacy or volunteer to help out others. Some people are really moving and shaking up the system.

Sometimes, we have new, wonderful people enter our lives because of our advocacy. Sometimes, we get to contribute to our communities in ways we never imagined. Sometimes, not all parts are bad. OR at least stay bad.

Knowing our rights is empowering.

Helping other people is a precious part of life. Something to be celebrated.

And thanks everyone for reading my blog series about the Duty to Accommodate. The number of people reading the blogs this summer was intense. Hope some of you enjoyed it!

Knowing our rights!! Woohoo!!

Knowing our Rights

I wrote a blog years ago about the non-death loss that parents of disabled children experience.

From that blog.

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“Do you find out about the reality of public education or do you live in blissful ignorance? If you have a child with a disability, you don’t get a choice. It’s made for you.

I was a secretary at a couple of schools and it was amazing to me, how many parents of non-disabled children didn’t even know the name of their child’s teacher. Seriously.

I on other hand, can recite school legislation, explain the difference between Ministry of Education policy and the Human Rights Code, and define the loopholes in a variety of external complaint processes.

This isn’t what I thought it was going to be like. 

This is a loss that needs to be validated. The loss of innocence.”

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Being ignorant to law and policy isn’t a choice. It’s not a topic that we can read about if we have the time or find it enjoyable to learn about. It’s a must. To be able to advocate for our kids and hold the school system accountable. To give our children what they are legally entitled to have, an equitable education, we need to educate ourselves, whether we like it or not. We need to learn how to advocate, research, and practice our skills. We need to be constantly learning. It’s another profession forced on us, not by choice, but survival.

There is grief to that.

We don’t have the privilege of being blissfully not aware of our rights. Assuming that society will just naturally take care of us. Marginalized communities need to be aware. Be aware of a whole host of things. Law, policy, and how to advocate are key parts. We need to know our rights.

So, have a good cry. Scream into your pillow.

And thanks everyone for reading my blog series about the Duty to Accommodate. The number of people reading the blogs this summer was intense.

I see you all.

Showing up.

Whether you like law or not.

Current Process of a Human Rights Complaint

There can be a variation in how your complaint proceeds depending on all sorts of factors. It won’t necessarily be the exact same for everyone.

Here are the RULES for any part of the complaint.

The tribunal has the power to change these rules.

Rule 2 – Tribunal Powers
(1) The tribunal may exercise any power under these rules at the request of a participant or on its own initiative.


(2) The tribunal may waive or vary these rules and may shorten or lengthen any time limits in these rules, as it considers appropriate in the circumstances.

Here are the steps in the process and some good-to-know info:

  1. Submit a complaint. (They will not inform the school that the complaint is being processed.)

You then WAIT – length depending if you filed an application for fast tracking. You can apply for fast-tracking if you have specific reasons at any point in your process.

Even after just submitting your complaint, some people send demand letters at this point. This of course, will be situation specific. When cases are clearly discriminatory or if you are not asking for money and just specific accommodations, those are accepted more easily.

Some people do not want to inform their school for their own reasons, and some like to inform their school. I suggest that there are a lot of strategic reasons to inform them that you have done this. More on this below. I feel it offers a certain level of protection for many reasons. One reason is that they aren’t allowed to retaliate against you or your child for filing a complaint. But, each person’s situation is different, and you need to do what is most comfortable for you and your family.

2. The complaint decision will arrive by email.

Accepted – both you and the respondents will be informed

Declined – only you will be informed

If the complaint is accepted, the respondents will now have a due date to submit a response to your complaint to you and the tribunal via email.

3. Settlement meeting. They are now automatically being set up and you will be informed of the date when you receive the complaint decision.

Settlement meetings can be requested at any time as you move through the process. This won’t be your own shot. Both parties need to agree. Also, at any time, you can submit to the respondents a settlement offer on paper. You just need to put “Without prejudice” at the top of your email. Here is one article of many on how to write without prejudice settlement offers.

There are also different types of mediation options. I highly encourage you to read about those.

IF IT WAS NOT SETTLED, it continues.

4. Document Disclosure

This is when you make a list of all of the emails and documents of evidence you have. You send the tribunal and the respondents the list. You send your evidence to the respondents. They will send you their list and documents as well.

You can file applications to remove redactions and apply for documents they haven’t handed over that you feel are relevant to your case. Even if you have gone through OIPC, ask again. The HRT has more power to get you documents.

When you are filing applications or possibly facing a dismissal decision, every decision the tribunal responds to could possibly turn into a public decision, but there is no guarantee.

I have noticed that if the decision advances the human rights code, or is helpful for public knowledge and learning and transparency, they are more likely to post it. But there is no guarantee.

You may also want to consider if you should be amending your complaint at all.
You may want to add additional elements after going through all of your documents, or after consulting with the BC Human Rights Clinic or Disability Alliance. If you are adding smaller details, it’s called adding “particulars”. If you are changing the scope of the complaint (adding new allegations), then that will lead to a decision from the tribunal for them to be accepted or not.

5. Case path decision from the tribunal. Then the tribunal will decide if they will allow the respondents to submit a dismissal application or you will have hearing dates booked.

There are a lot of reasons why they can apply to dismiss your case. If you go on the dismissal form 7.2 you will see the list on page 2 of 6.

They can file a dismissal application by offering you a reasonable settlement. If there is nothing novel about your case, the tribunal may force you to accept their offer by dismissing your case if you don’t accept it.

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Pattinson v. University of Northern British Columbia (No. 4), 2025 BCHRT 57

[3]               The University made a with prejudice offer to Mr. Pattinson to resolve the complaint. Mr. Pattinson did not accept the offer. The University applies to dismiss the complaint on the basis that it would not further the purposes of the Code to proceed with a hearing in circumstances where it made a reasonable settlement offer.

[4]               Mr. Pattinson opposes the dismissal application and disputes that the University’s offer is reasonable.

[5]               For the following reasons, I grant the application and dismiss the complaint. I find the University’s settlement offer is reasonable and it would not further the purposes of the Code to proceed. To make this decision, I have considered all the information filed by the parties. In these reasons, I only refer to what is necessary to explain my decision.

Notable paragraphs in the case to understand this process more in-depth, I encourage you to read paragraphs 22-24, 27, 36, 38, 56, 59.

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You will need to explain the tribunal and convince them that your case is novel and is in the public interest for the resources and time to be used up by the tribunal for your case to go to a hearing.

For people who actually want to take their case to a hearing, *** TIP: If they don’t think you will actually take your case to a hearing, they may think that you’ll fold before the hearing and not worry about you. If you actually do want to take your case to a hearing, you are going to want them to underestimate you. Don’t let them worry about you. This option will only be available to them 4 months before the hearing. Once you get past this deadline, you are in the clear. Lawyers ALWAYS underestimate parents. They may not do this if they think the tribunal won’t grant the dismissal. If there is something novel or hearing-worthy about your case, then they may not even try. However, you can still fight this and wait for a decision from the tribunal. You will still be able to accept their offer after you get a decision from the tribunal. So you never know, it may be worth it to reject their offer, fight it and see if you can get a public decision out of it, and you’ll still get the offer anyway.

7. Case Management Meeting between the tribunal member, the respondents and yourself about your hearing. Mediation will be offered again to see if you and the district can resolve it. These meetings happen about a month or so before your hearing.

If you don’t want a hearing, this is another opportunity to settle. Depends on how much hardball you want to play.

**Case management meetings can happen at other times, and you can also ask for a case management meeting too.

8. Hearing.

After the hearing is done, most often people submit closing arguments by written submission. You’ll be writing out your final argument on paper. I highly suggest as you move through the hearing that you take notes as you move along, of argument ideas that you are going to want to summarize in your argument. You will have weeks to complete this. 4 weeks is possible. It won’t be a panic rush or anything.

And then wait for the decision – maybe at least 6 months, depending on the complexity of the case

9. Decision arrives by email. You will be informed the day before to let you know that it is coming the next day.

Navigating the human rights tribunal is kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure. It totally depends on what your complaint is about, what YOU want to do with it and how far you want it to go, and the purpose behind you filing the complaint. It all depends.

For advice and help in writing up a complaint, please book a consultation appointment with BC Human Rights Clinic and Disability Alliance. Parents have found these consultation periods very helpful. Send them a draft of your complaint, and you can get great advice.

For some more tips that I can post publicly, see here.

Wait Time for External Complaint Systems

Filing external complaints can take a long time BUT there are a few options to help speed things up.

There are a lot of people filing complaints. Some of them are about being overcharged on bills from the government, to city bylaws, to very serious, immediate risks related to shelter. There are a large variety of types of complaints. For complaints that involve children who are currently experiencing harm, there are ways to speed up the process.

Ombudsperson BC

So how long does it take? According to their annual report 2023-2024 p. 99

53% of the files were closed within 30-90 days.

98% of the files were closed within one year.

What many people don’t know about is the early resolution option. They have an early resolution team. “Early Resolution team can quickly resolve
a complaint by doing an expedited investigation of the public body the complaint is about.” (p. 19) If you are currently dealing with issues, like the school is ignoring you, then this can be a quick intervention to get the conversation flowing again.

I highly encourage you to ask if this is an option. Especially if your issue is time-sensitive.

Teachers Regulation Branch

This process is currently at 10-12 months for everything to be completed. 3-5 days for your complaint to be accepted and sent out to the educator.

If you have an urgent physical or psychological safety concern about an education staff person, you will get a faster response from the Superintendent than you will through the TRB branch.

BC Human Rights Tribunal

Acceptance of complaints is currently at 12-18 months. On their automatic email response, they state:

“The tribunal is completing its review of complaints filed in 2023. We expect to begin reviewing cases filed in 2024 in the fall of 2025”

Now, before you fall off your seat, let me explain the fast-tracking option.

You can apply to fast-track your complaint if it’s urgent. An example listed on the BCHRT website fast-tracking page is this:

“The complaint is about a child’s education. The child will not graduate this year, without a fast solution.”

So it needs to be something that your child is experiencing harm with NOW. Like exclusion, or not getting their accommodations now. If you pulled your child and they are at a different school and you just filed about discrimination they experienced but are no longer experiencing, unfortunately, you will need to go through the long wait.

Fast-tracking is about speeding up the process at any time during your complaint. So you could file the fast-tracking application when you file your human rights complaint, or if you are in the process and needs become urgent, you can still file a fast-tracking application at any time.

When you file a fast-tracking application, and it gets accepted as that, they aren’t kidding. Things move fast. It’s days or a couple of weeks till you will find out.

Here is the page about fast-tracking. You will need to read this page to know how you will need to make your argument. You will be filing out a general application form. On the home page, they have the FORMS tab and you will be filing out the 7.1 general application form. Fast-tracking is on the list that you tick off.

I encourage people to consider the fast-tracking option. The worst thing will be you will be told no. But you may be surprised by how fast and willing they are to accept your application when it comes to children and education.

OIPC

It will be about 3-5 months before you are connected to an investigator. It can take about a month to find out if your complaint has been accepted. If your case goes to an adjudicator, it can take about a year from the time you are told it is moving onto the next step. Though for your file to reach an inquiry, it’s not too common.

There isn’t a fast-tracking option that I am aware of, but if you urgently need this information, always ask.

Section 11 Appeal

This is an internal complaint system, as you are appealing a decision made by the district to the Board of Education. But this process has a firm timeline attached to it.

From the School Act

11 (7)A board must

(a)make a decision under this section within 45 days of the date on which the board receives the appeal, and

(b)promptly report that decision to the person making the appeal.

** Always Ask

The external complaints systems are not always processing urgent complaints, or complaints for children or vulnerable people. One complaint I read about was about someone’s neighbour doing something they didn’t like.

Complaints that involve children in education, especially if the harm is continuing, require a faster reaction. Always ask. Always express the urgency of what you are dealing with. Ombudsperson and the BC Human Rights Tribunal both have processes to prioritize more urgent requests.

I find the wait time for these processes are currently working at to be a barrier in itself. Access delayed is access denied. The wait times can be daunting for some people. The BC HRT is currently working on how to speed up their process, so hopefully, we will see some movement.

If your issue is time sensitive, when you file your complaint with any of these complaint systems, highlight that it is time sensitive and ask them if there are any ways to speed up the process.

Fairness at the BC Human Rights Tribunal

There are a lot of people self-representing themselves in many legal avenues. Small claims courts, family law, and residential tribunals are just to name a few. Most people navigating the human rights tribunal are self-represented as well.

What all these legal avenues have in common is that they are swamped with work, backed up, and everyone in these systems experiences way longer delays than anyone should ever have to experience. Navigating the human rights tribunal system has taught me patience and the art of waiting like no other experience has or would.

Fairness for a self-represented person is very important. We always want to make sure we are experiencing a fair process, especially when we are in an adversarial legal situation against lawyers. Already, it feels unfair. Because it is. So the process becomes extra important. The term you want to research is “procedural fairness”.

Tribunal members, adjudicators and judges are very used to dealing with the self-represented litigant vs. lawyer situations. This happens A LOT! To start out with, between 50-80% of the people are self-representing, depending on the area of law. That is already incredibly high. Then, of the self-representing litigants in this study “89.3% of respondents said that the other side in their case was represented by counsel, while 10.6% percent stated that the other side was also self-representing.” (p. 6) Wow, so most people are representing themselves in legal proceedings and most of the time they are up against lawyers.

There is a lot of case law already on trying to ensure a fair process.

There are cases that will point this out, and I encourage you to earmark these and use them just in case you feel you need them. There are lots on the procedural fairness page on the BC HRT below.

Here is one example of the HRT bending to ensure fairness:

Teacher v. School District and others, 2025 BCHRT 179

[3]               The Teacher provided further evidence and argument in her Form 5 – Time Limit Reply, which I decided to consider because she is self-represented and should be given some latitude in raising new allegations and arguments in reply. In fairness to the Respondents, I considered their further submissions responding to the Teacher’s reply. Finally, I considered the Teacher’s reply to the Respondent’s further submissions as a matter of fairness.

Here is another case regarding making submissions

Taylor v Mallany, 2019 NLCA 25

[24]      At paragraph 53 of the decision, Green J.A. notes that the Principles impose responsibility on judges, court officials, and members to the Bar to “ensure that self-represented persons are provided with fair access and equal treatment by the court” which includes “opportunities for all persons to understand and meaningfully present their case.” And further at paragraph 54, he suggests that the Principles should be treated as having some legal effect:

The Right to Make Submissions

[26]      A fundamental element of the right to be heard is the right of a party to present their case to the decision-maker.

Procedural Fairness at the HRT

Here is the page on procedural fairness for the BC Human Rights Tribunal. I encourage you to read this if you are going to be navigating the process.

Here are some things that I have learned:

  1. If you are having meetings, you can ask for an agenda to be created so that you know what to expect and can do some research beforehand to prepare for the meeting
  2. ALWAYS ask questions. If you think something is fishy, ask! You have a right to ask questions.
  3. Push the line. If you think something isn’t fair, say so. People can’t read your mind and you are the one with all of the information about your situation. These systems aren’t designed for anyone in particular, so if your situation doesn’t fit the mold, speak up. Always ask for something that you want. If they say no, then you at least got your answer. Don’t assume the answer will be no.
  4. Lawyers aren’t allowed to take advantage of you becuase you are self-representing, so if you they are messing with you, you can call them on it by filing an improper conduct complaint with the HRT or file a complaint with the law society.

Here are some of my tips for navigating the HRT.

The tribunal members have their hands tied in many ways, but I can tell you, I have noticed when they are still able to stay in their lane, uphold case law, they will be flexible to ensure fairness to both sides. Which I have appreciated.

The HRT is a legal process. It’s a legal test. Doesn’t mean your experience didn’t happen.

Like any self-representing person, reading case law is a great place to learn about law. Here are the instructions to navigate Canlii. There are lots of great YouTube videos for people self-representing.

And for those who are interested, here is a fascinating report on self-represented litigants in Canada.

Co-parenting with the Government

The topic of the right to religious freedom has come up a lot. This is outside of my lane of disability writing, but I am surprised by how many parents contact me about this issue, so here is a blog on it.

I want to offer two cases that I think are very important.

E.T. v. Hamilton-Wenworth District School Board, 2017 ONCA 893

This is a case about a parent who didn’t agree with sex education, etc, being taught in school and felt it was in conflict with their right to religious freedom.

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[40]      E.T. cannot, by virtue of his religious beliefs, insist that a non-denominational public school board restructure its inclusive and integrated program, designed to meet its statutory objective of ensuring a respectful and accepting climate for all children, so that he can ensure that his own children are not exposed to any views that he does not accept. Nor do I accept E.T.’s suggestion that the Board could or should ensure that discussion of matters such as sexual orientation and gender identity are discussed purely as matters of fact rather than as matters of “value judgment”. The Board has a statutory mandate to provide an inclusive and tolerant educational environment, one that respects the principles of equality enshrined in s. 15 of the Charter. Equality, inclusivity and acceptance of difference are values, not facts, and it is unrealistic to expect teachers to provide a learning environment that is truly welcoming to all students in a value-free manner.

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So what brought on this decision?

Here was the parents request:

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[2]         The appellant advised the Board that his religious beliefs require him to shelter his children from what his religion regards as “false teachings”. He provided the Board with a standard form list of topics that included matters such as “moral relativism”, “environmental worship”, “instruction in sex education”, and “discussion or portrayals of homosexual/bisexual conduct and relationships and/or transgenderism as natural, healthy or acceptable”. He asked the Board to provide him with advance notice of any classroom instruction or discussion of these issues so that he could decide whether or not to withdraw his children from those classes or activities.

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This was the Boards response to his request.

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[3]         The Board offered to exempt the appellant’s children from the “Healthy Living” strand in the elementary program, which is offered as a discrete part of the curriculum and involves education on human development and sexual health. However, the Board explained to the appellant that its Equity Policy aims to provide an integrated secular and respectful learning environment that does not discriminate against any child. The Board’s program aims to promote a positive and inclusive environment that accepts all pupils, including those of any sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression. The Board advised E.T. that, given the integrated nature of its program and the generality of the items on his list, it was neither practical nor possible to comply with his request for prior notification of any time one of the items on his list would arise for discussion in the classroom. The Board also expressed the concern that if E.T.’s children were required to leave the classroom every time one of these topics came up for discussion, the Board’s policy of providing an inclusive and non-discriminatory program would be undermined.

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The reality is that when we send our children to a public school, we are co-parenting with the government. And the government has the final say. If you want 100% control over your child’s education, don’t send them to a public school. Education is a government service that is for all children, and the government and society have goals for the next generation. If equality and inclusivity conflict with your religious beliefs, you file a human rights complaint against a public school citing religion as your protected ground, you will probably get it dismissed. Schools are legislated to provide an inclusive and tolerant learning environment.

“The Board has a statutory mandate to provide an inclusive and tolerant educational environment, one that respects the principles of equality enshrined in s. 15 of the Charter.”

I also give you this case

Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, 2002 SCC 86

This is a case about parents’ religious objections to 2SLGBTQIA+ storybooks. The school board’s decision was not to approve books for use in kindergarten and grade 1 for fear of the parents’ religious concerns.

The court overturned the board’s decision because it conflicted with the statutory obligation that public schools have in British Columbia to separate religion from state affairs.  

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“The B.C. School Act confers on the Minister of Education the power to approve basic educational resource materials to be used in teaching the curriculum in public schools, and confers on school boards the authority to approve supplementary educational resource material, subject to Ministerial direction.  A Kindergarten‑Grade One (“K‑1″) teacher asked the Surrey School Board to approve three books as supplementary learning resources, for use in teaching the family life education curriculum.  The books depicted families in which both parents were either women or men — same‑sex parented families.  The Board passed a resolution declining to approve the books.  The Board’s overarching concern, as found by the trial judge, was that the books would engender controversy in light of some parents’ religious objections to the morality of same‑sex relationships.  The Board also felt that children at the K‑1 level should not be exposed to ideas that might conflict with the beliefs of their parents; that children of this age were too young to learn about same‑sex parented families; and that the material was not necessary to achieve the learning outcomes in the curriculum.”

The Result:

“The Board’s decision is unreasonable because the process through which it was made took the Board outside its mandate under the School Act.  First, the Board violated the principles of secularism and tolerance in s. 76 of the Act.  Instead of proceeding on the basis of respect for all types of families, the Board proceeded on an exclusionary philosophy, acting on the concern of certain parents about the morality of same‑sex relationships, without considering the interest of same‑sex parented families and the children who belong to them in receiving equal recognition and respect in the school system.  Second, the Board departed from its own regulation with respect to how decisions on supplementary resources should be made, which required it to consider the relevance of the proposed material to curriculum objectives and the needs of children of same‑sex parented families.  Third, the Board applied the wrong criteria.  It failed to consider the curriculum’s goal that children at the K‑1 level be able to discuss their family models, and that all children be made aware of the diversity of family models in our society.  Instead, the Board applied a criterion of necessity, which was inconsistent with the function of supplementary resources in enriching children’s experience through the use of extra materials of local relevance.  The Board erred in relying on concerns about cognitive dissonance and age‑appropriateness which were foreclosed by the curriculum in this case.” 

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Our society needs to stay the course and fight for an inclusive and equitable society for all people and especially for marginalized groups with deep historical roots in oppression. Public schools are essential in socializing the next generation towards inclusion.

On October 13th 2025 The Tyee posted an article written by Ximena Gonzalez titled: “Inside the Right-Wing Attack on Alberta’s Public Education: MAGA’s Project 2025 has become a blueprint for undermining Canada’s schools in the name of profit and privilege.“

If anyone has come across other cases that they feel are important to this topic, or are newer, I would love it if you could email me and let me know what they are.

kimbpath @ gmail.com

What is Rights-Based Advocacy?

This is my personal understanding and definition of rights-based advocacy. I would answer that question by saying,

“Rights-based advocacy is when you advocate through the lens of the human rights code, use various legal authorities and policies to support your advocacy, and are communicating to the school your child’s unmet disability-related needs. We then advocate for the school to remove the barriers our child is experiencing so they can access an equitable education.” 

For this blog, I am going to focus on the second part.  

Rights-based advocacy doesn’t just include policy and law, but we need to be able to communicate to the school that our child has disability-related needs, and that they are experiencing barriers.

Now, the bottom line is that this isn’t really our responsibility to figure this stuff out. It’s actually the schools, and this responsibility is connected to multiple human rights decisions.

However, teachers aren’t trained in every disability and every combination of disabilities, and we know our kids. This is the collaboration part of the accommodation part. They have a duty to consult with us. We can contribute and assist them in creating an effective IEP by helping them identify our children’s disability-related needs and help focus their thinking on being able to identify barriers so they can make a plan on how to remove them.  

People don’t naturally think in this way, so this is a skill we need to learn as well and help our kids’ teachers to think this way too.

The system needs a lot of work, but it’s not going to overhaul itself tomorrow. Today we aren’t living in our dream education fantasy land, we are living in a chronically underfunded resource constrained system with high rates of burn out.  So given the cards that we have been delt, what is the best we can do in this situation to support our children in school?

Whatever situation our child is struggling with in school we need to ask ourselves some questions.

  1. Is there an unmet disability-need here? (They could be experiencing all sorts of unmet needs, It may not be necessarily connected to their disability)
  2. If it is connected to their disability, what is the unmet need?
  3. What is the barrier preventing this unmet need being met?

Now let’s apply this to an example.

Ryan has ADHD. Ryan tends to be more distracted, moving around a lot at the end of the day, and is engaging in social behaviours that other students in the class don’t like. He is taking their pencils and erasers and hiding them, and is saying things (teasing/taunting) that evokes a reaction from them that is negative. This is consistent every day.

When the teacher relays this information to the parent, they think about it and later send an email to the school with their thoughts.

The parent first wonders what the disability-related needs could be related to this situation. People with ADHD need more movement, do better with creative hand on tasks, and struggle sitting. It can be physically painful for them to sit. Their bodies will force them to move. People with ADHD do very well on tasks they are interested in and it is extremely difficult to focus on tasks you have no interest in. They also can require more mental stimulation. Kids with ADHD also have higher relationship needs and connecting with their teacher so they can learn will be more important to them.

They think about these disability related needs and wonder how much movement Ryan is getting during the day, and why they are struggling more so in the afternoon. Their curiosity is that they are wondering if Ryan has been sitting to much during the day and is getting restless and bored with too much pen to paper work. Ryan is then doing things that they find are more mentally stimulating and creating drama in the class is more interesting than doing schoolwork.

Typical classrooms don’t fit the needs of a lot of kids with ADHD. The barrier could be a personal physical barrier – that he is forced to sit too long. The next barriers could be informational or communication – he may not understand the assignments or it fit how he processes information. Classroom teacher management could be the barrier – he finds the teacher too strict and after listening to this all day his more anxious and so he is distracting himself with other things.  It could be he is not interested in what he is working on, and his education isn’t hands on enough and too much pen to paperwork. It could be a relational barrier – he isn’t connected to his teacher and thinks his teacher doesn’t like him so he disconnects more at the end of the day wanting to leave and wish he wasn’t there. It could be an attitudinal barrier or teacher philosophy barrier – that they value pen to paper work over other ways of learning. It could be many barriers. It’s hard for us to know what the barriers are because we are not in school. So this is where communicating with our child’s teacher is going to be very important and to bring up the idea of barriers and trying to brainstorm together what the possible barriers could be.

Could creating more scheduled movement breaks during the day, replacing some of the written assignments with more hands on creative projects that are led by him decrease some of the behavoiurs we don’t want to see and improve his focus to help him last all day? Could the teacher making an effort to check-in with him more often during the day help with building the relationship?

We won’t really know what will work or what won’t work until we try it. We know our kids, but we don’t know what they are like in an education setting 5-days a week when we aren’t in the room and they are on their own. The environment they navigate in school to survive the day and home is completely different.

Even being aware of all of our child’s potential disability-related needs will most likely require us to do quite a bit of research and really know and understand our child’s disability. And then we need to consider their unique personality traits and who they are as people. Disabilities don’t present themselves exactly the same in every person. Disability is also fluid and what a person has capacity for on one day wont necessarily be consistent for all days. No wonder everyone is confused and accessibility can be a struggle.

The more we are informed, the more we can effectively advocate for our child.

For more information on types of barriers and accessibility law, please read my blog Barriers, Barriers, Barriers.

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Kim Block. I have 2 websites.

The one that you are visiting now is called Speaking up BC. My second one is called P.A.T.H – Parent. Advocacy. Tribunal. Help.

On this website (Speaking Up BC), my focus is on school and disability advocacy. The process of advocacy. The philosophy behind advocacy. Community advocacy. Systems. This website is my mic on a stage. (I will still be blogging about education law, human rights decisions, and all of the tools in our toolbox here. The blog lives on!)

My P.A.T.H wesite is all about how to navigate external complaint systems and information about education law. I also offer consultation services. We use external complaint systems as a toolbox within our advocacy, and education law as our tools. Filing external complaints can also bring about systemic change. So these two areas do go hand-in-hand. This website is my toolbox where I get to work. It’s where the action happens.

For those who have been following my journey, you will notice that pages and information from this website have been moved to my P.A.T.H website to create a clearer distinction between the topics.