IPE/BC is an independent, non-partisan organization, however we recognize that IPE/BC Associates and guest authors hold a range of views and interests relative to public schools, education issues, and the political landscape in BC. Perspectives is an opportunity for Associates and others to share their ideas in short, accessible essays.
Not enough funding has cost me everything
Why BC’s inclusion model is failing—and how to fix it
August 25, 2025
By Anna Geeroms
As a Treasurer, I spent years poring over balance sheets, tracing every transaction until the truth revealed itself. When you stare that long at a general ledger, you start to notice not just the cost of doing something, but also the cost of inaction.
That’s where I am now with public education in British Columbia.
Because while school districts talk about affordability and prioritisation, I see something closer to structural negligence: the steady exclusion of children from classrooms and friendships; the erosion of trust between families and educators; the churn of staff leaving through burnout and moral injury; and the downstream costs absorbed—quietly, repeatedly—by hospitals, social workers, tribunals, and, devastatingly often, the justice system.
The worst part? The enthusiasm in Victoria. The press releases. The celebration of ‘historic’ incremental changes. But more funding, when it’s still not enough, doesn’t build equity. It buries families.
What happened to my son
Before kindergarten began, we told school clearly and carefully: our son had been harmed in daycare; he was on a waitlist for autism assessment; he will need full-day relational support to feel safe. They said many children adjust with time. They took a ‘wait and see’ approach.
Within weeks, he stopped entering the classroom. They called us daily, threatening to call 911 if we didn’t come quickly enough.
Eventually, a temporary support worker helped him feel safer—but her assignment ended. He unravelled. In a panic, he once lunged at the teacher strangling her to the pure horror of his astonished classmates. He was six. We were told he might be suspended.
He was eventually allowed back—for one hour a day, in a windowless room labelled ‘closet’ on the floor plan. My presence was required. He never returned to kindergarten class. Never rejoined his peers. Never brought home stories or art or anything like joy.
This is what happens when schools ‘wait and see’, instead of act.
And you would’ve thought that the strangling incident and autism diagnosis should have been enough evidence that he needed intensive and ongoing support, but that was just the beginning of having to fight every year, often multiple times a year to have support restored. Hardly a single school year started with support in place.
Inclusion isn’t happening—not really
British Columbia claims to embrace inclusive education, but what we offer in practice is often triage. Support is delayed until crisis. Staff are
stretched thin. Children without formal diagnoses fall through the cracks. Parents fight for years to get their children diagnosed and then are told there are no resources to support them. Families feel like they are trapped in a cycle of bait and switch while our children are circling the drain.
Thousands of children remain on waitlists for assessments. Others go months—or years—without the IEPs they need. In Vancouver alone, there’s a shortfall of over 100 Education Assistants. Province-wide, the average counsellor serves 693 students—almost triple the expert recommendation.
We have built a system that expects every child to cope—until they can’t.
What real inclusion requires
Inclusion isn’t ambient goodwill. It’s not vague optimism. It is a structure—concrete, visible, and adequately staffed. At minimum, it requires:
- Class sizes of no more than 18 students, so teachers can know and support each child
- At least one full-time Educational Assistant (EA) in every classroom, all day, every day
- Additional EAs where needed, so disabled children can remain with their peers instead of being separated to access help
- Resource teachers embedded in classroom life, not stretched across entire schools
- One counsellor for every 250 students, not 693
- Mandatory, ongoing professional development in trauma-informed, neurodiversity-affirming practices
- Calm rooms, sensory supports, and physical accessibility features that offer dignity—not containment
This is the floor, not the ceiling. Support must follow the child, flex with their needs, and never be withdrawn the moment they appear to cope. That’s not inclusion. That’s abandonment.
The cost of exclusion
I have spent years fighting—just to keep my children safe, just to keep them included. And that advocacy has cost me nearly everything: my home, my marriage, multiple job promotions, my mental and physical health. It has broken my heart in half more times than I can count.
I served on their Accessibility Committee—showed up, contributed to the plans, offered solutions grounded in both systems knowledge and lived experience. But over time, I came to believe those structures are unequipped to lead the change that’s needed. The very institutions that claim to champion inclusion are often the ones upholding the conditions that harm children. Repair cannot begin until they reckon with that contradiction—and until we lift the manufactured austerity driving the day-to-day reality of public education.
When we underfund inclusion, we don’t save money—we just move the bill. We shift the burden to emergency rooms, social workers, tribunals, and police. We destabilise families. We force mothers out of the workforce. We create manufactured crises out of preventable needs. We spend money on legal fees instead of educational salaries. We watch children become so overwhelmed and unsupported that they can no longer leave their rooms—and then we call that a mystery, instead of naming it for what it is: a failure of care.
School exclusion is a pipeline. It begins the moment a child is made to feel that their presence is conditional—that they are too much. And it compounds: in anxiety, in early police contact, in fractured families, in long-term reliance on disability supports.
Meanwhile, companies like Microsoft and SAP are investing in neurodivergent talent. They recognise those minds as assets—if the environment is right. Public schools, by contrast, are spending public money to suppress the same traits. That’s not just unjust. It’s economically incoherent.
What will it cost to fix?
These changes require investment—real, ongoing, unapologetic investment. But they are not extravagant. They reflect what educators, advocates, and families have said for decades: that inclusion takes people, not promises. Staff time, not slogans. And the cost of avoiding it—of delaying, deferring, rationing—adds up faster than we admit.
It’s time to fund what we say we believe
When people ask what it would cost to end exclusion in BC schools, I no longer shrink the answer to fit the frame of political plausibility. I give them the real answer. Because the numbers are only part of the story. The rest lives in the child who curled up in the coatroom, the mother who broke down in a hallway, and the futures still being written—with every budget we pass, every threshold we enforce, and every support we choose to fund—or withhold.
About the author
Anna Geeroms is a neurodivergent solution architect and product owner with more than two decades of experience designing accessible digital systems in education, government, nonprofit, and justice sectors. She specialises in inclusive design and systemic transformation, blending technical expertise with lived experience. Her work explores how digital tools, public policy, and design practices can converge to build more just, accessible systems that hold complexity and uphold care.
She is the mother of twin AuDHD children, including one with a PDA profile who recently withdrew from Grade 7 following years of school-based trauma, delayed supports, and systemic neglect. And step-mother to a 23 year old studying fine art.