Thank you very much to Kim Block, Chairperson, Board of Directors, BCEdAccess, for granting IPE/BC permission to reprint this incredibly powerful post on the state of inclusion in BC’s public schools. We deeply admire and appreciate the work of BCEdAccess; an organization has been supporting parents of students with disabilities and complex learners since 2014. Find out more about BCEdAccess here and contact your MLA to call for well-supported, properly funded, meaningful inclusion in BC’s public schools.
By Kim Block, BCEdAccess
October 18, 2025
Trigger warning: Children’s Self-harm, mental and emotional distress.
The division of resources in society is a political decision. When resources become scarce in education, students with disabilities and diverse abilities are severely impacted. Impacts that last a lifetime.
The Ministry of Education and Child Care has the obligation to provide every child with a quality, equitable education. They defer this responsibility to school districts. School districts blame the Ministry for not providing them with the funding, policy structure, employment agreements and resources to be able to deliver quality, equitable education to all students.
School districts are incredibly underfunded. Children with disabilities are being pushed out of schools because of a lack of appropriate resources to support them. Many children are resorting to self-harm. They are experiencing increased anxiety and depression. They are dropping out or moving to online options. Parents are being forced to quit their jobs. By underfunding schools, we are creating a situation that forces people to be more dependent on other government systems.
BCEdAccess has already blogged about the impacts of scarcity in education titled “Scarcity in Education = Harmful Work & Learning Environments” .
We have many reactive systems in society. To receive a service at a hospital, you need to be sick first. To enter our criminal system, you need to commit a crime first. But our education system is designed to be preventative. It’s the one system that doesn’t wait for there to be a person in need of help. It should automatically provide a quality education for all children. They just need to show up. The reality is, the education system is now a reactive system. There are not enough resources for all children. Only responding to students’ disability-related needs when complaints are being filed or when intense advocacy by parents is being done. When resources are not there, students with disabilities are forced to leave school out of self-preservation and survival.
BCEdAccess has gathered testimonials from parents and guardians from our Facebook group. We thank the families for their emotional labour in sharing their experiences. I want to warn readers that these are heavy and intense experiences. What is consistent throughout these testimonials is that parents are overwhelmed by navigating a system that is harming their child. The impacts on their children are incredibly harmful. This is systemic oppression. When I read the testimonials and hear of the impacts, I wonder, how is this not emotional and mental abuse?
Children are self-harming due to the school environment. If they were self-harming due to their family environment, MFCD would be involved. But if this kind of trauma is occurring at school, it’s government-approved.
When these students become adults, their struggles with functioning in society will be blamed on them. Their struggles to find employment will be viewed as an individual character flaw. Not as society’s failure. Not as systemic oppression. Not as systemic abuse.
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“My daughter is quiet and non behavioural. She has never received support. She is diagnosed asd and LD. After grade 6 her confidence continued to drop and anxiety got worse. She turned to self harm and school refusal. Currently in grade 11 and 5 years of fighting the system only to continue to hear “we have kids throwing desks and our supports are thin.” I finally gave up and decided to home school.” – Anonymous parent
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“Transition to high school. I learned at my child’s 15 minute iep meeting this week that none of his teachers are even aware he has a designation, and that it is up to me to tell them.
My son harmed himself for the first time due to the stress school start up has caused. He also wants to drop out and is in distress daily. So am I. We both feel exhausted and lost. The support block as mentioned above is not working for the same reasons. It is so frustrating. I told the learning suppprt staff this at the IEP meeting and they said we might have to enforce it? But how? No one has followed up since. It’s just so frustrating and exhausting. We seem to slip between the cracks deeper and deeper each year. A psych ed was recommended for last year but I continue to be told he is “low priority” and it’s pretty clear it isn’t gonna happen.” – Anonymous parent
“My son is in grade 10, the school is enjoying use of the funding, but doing nothing to set him up for success. He has attended 4 hrs this year and the counselor has checked in once and the autism-program-specific-teacher has checked in once. We’ve never had an IEP meeting in 3 years. Backdated IEP-like documents and literally blank progress reports were nefariously uploaded to parent connect after an audit, but the substance of them did not apply to my son and also included an incorrect diagnosis. The very basic common sense best practices for working with neurodivergent people are absent in the autism-specific program in our district. My son has become so anxious and depressed that he’s nearly stopped eating and has lost 10lbs this month – he was slender and had fallen off his growth curve in the first place. The doctors keep asking us “what is the school doing??” —nothing!“– Anonymous parent
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“September start up was one of the worst we have had so far. My daughter had lost all of her trusted adults at school due to layoffs and was expected to start with all new staff as our district believes that students should be able to work with anyone. This was so stressful and triggered some of the worst anxiety of have ever seen in my child and zero support from out district, we had no other choice but to enrol in online learning . Since our district doesn’t even offer online learning anymore, we had to switch out of our district completely so my child could receive proper adaptations and support supports. Not only has this affected her mental health, but it has taken a toll on our family in general as I have had to leave my job so I can support her with online learning, leaving us with only one income.” – Anonymous parent
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“My 5-year-old son has Type 1 diabetes and has been asked by school not to attend school for more than two hours a day because there’s no one trained or available to safely support his medical needs. The isolation has been devastating for him and for us. Every day he’s reminded that his disability means exclusion, not inclusion. We’ve been told his safety can’t be guaranteed, so access to education has become conditional. It’s exhausting to keep explaining that my child’s right to be at school safely, equitably, and fully included is a human right, not an optional service.” – Anonymous parent
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“My five-year-old son is receiving 3–4 different EA supports in a single day because the school hasn’t been able to figure out consistent support. When he does have assistance in class, that support is shared with two other children who require more intensive help, leaving my son with even less support. At lunch and recess, he has no supervision at all — which has already resulted in him running off the field once. I later found out that, instead of addressing this properly, the school placed him in a sectioned-off area where he couldn’t access the rest of the playground. To me, this feels like segregation rather than inclusion — the opposite of what schools are supposed to practice. Thinking that this might be our journey for the next 12 years is overwhelming.” – Anonymous parent
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“My child has suffered in self-esteem, self-determinism, and mental health concerns. They also hate school. Because of teacher attitudes, they now think that they won’t be able to have a good, well-paying career and also feel very ashamed of their diagnosis. They’re also a lot more cynical towards thinking people will help them and not judge them. The insistence on having Grade 9’a immediately start to self-advocate, when they already have school-related anxiety, is ridiculous. My child feels embarrassed every time they have to remind teachers in front of other students of their accommodations, which is quite frequent, and many times they just give up. My child (and I) has had to battle with teachers to get their accommodations allowed, and the accommodations are quite simple (more time on tests, able to work in quiet space if needed, body breaks, etc). I’m worried that my child may hurt themselves, might drop out of school, and/or never be motivated to find work that they are good and enjoy, BECAUSE of how the school system, high school in particular, has treated them.” – Anonymous parent
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“A lack of resources landed my child alone in a locked storage closet (without my knowledge or consent!).” – Anonymous parent
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“Transitioning into middle school, the model is completely different. The support we had access to in elementary school for sensory regulation for my G designated child with learning disability doesn’t exist in his current school. They have an academic support block that doesn’t work for a demand avoidant kiddo with ADHD. We had an early IEP meeting with the school counsellor, but so far none of our requests have been supported due to our child not needing “intensive supports”, but he’s at high risk for dropping out of school already– he missed all last week and now we’ve found out the one contact we had that my son felt connected to, this specific counsellor is leaving and I have to meet again with his new case manager and get everything going again and repeat all advocacy- but nothing has been put into place anyways due to lack of supports. It’s so frustrating- around and around just to be told there’s no access/support/body to help.” – Anonymous parent
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“A 16 year old child who was non-behavioural with learning disabilities received little to no support in middle school and is now majorly struggling with school, has about a grade 4 math level, has major anxiety and easily overwhelmed. Is struggling with mental health issues and on the verge of being a drop out due to school avoidance. Due to them being non-behavioural, no addiction issues, they don’t qualify for an alt school and can’t handle regular school.” – Anonymous parent
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“My child has zero supports in the classroom. Unable to read and write, there is no support for him to even write his name on his paper in grade 2. I collect his papers and work through them with him in the evening. We are exhausted, we are stretched so thin. My child is aware he is behind, and his confidence and self esteem is non existent and is now refusing school because of the lack of support and connection. Designation, flight risk, and psych ed incoming.” – Anonymous parent
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“My son started high school, gr. 9 last Sept. He was only allowed to attend a total of 19 full days between Sept-Jan. Because of his needs, specifically his learning disabilities, that were not being met-they refused any support or accommodations unless he was confined to the Learning Resource Room for his allowed 2-3 hours a day. No class time or instruction allowed. In late January after an incident with another student who was bullying him, he was not allowed to return at all. We were given the option of online which is not realistic for him, or to attend an alternative school for troubled youth. My son now works full time at 15 and says he lost his childhood because of not being allowed to go to school like other kids-this was his school story for the last 4yrs. He knows he will likely have to wait until he’s 18 to do any schooling now. Our child not being allowed to attend and everything else that has gone into trying to work with people who don’t seem to care at school has caused significant trauma, impacted our mental health, emotional health, my physical health has taken a hit due to the stress and financially…Well can’t make money to support your family when your constantly called away from work or have to be available to pick up/drop off for the couple hours a day your child is allowed to attend.
It’s ruined my faith in systems meant to support our children.” – Anonymous parent
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“My guy went from bell to bell support g designation in grade 8 to 0 support in grade 9. Nothing academic is done with him anymore.” – Anonymous parent
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“No functioning laptop at school has prevented my son from familiarizing himself with Google classroom materials when he’s at home (where he feels safe). I’ve had to purchase a laptop for him. Note: my son is at home doing online courses. He cannot do this without supervision so I can’t work.” – Anonymous parent
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“Never having the proper EA support, has resulted in a kid that lacks confidence, thinks they’re stupid, and hates school. Major anxiety around school.” – Anonymous parent
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“My Grade 6 daughter’s mild diagnosis has escalated to fight-or-flight violence due to accomodations not being used. Daily exclusion in sensory room or back room. I am not sure she is learning anything. She has been sent home causing financial loss to me as a single working mom.” – Anonymous parent
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“……an undiagnosed invisible disability for my youngest and more lack of support, three years behind at school, accused of being lazy and not trying hard enough, resulted in unjustly removed and attempted suicide in effort to get help.
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When is it going to be enough?
These are innocent children. They haven’t done anything wrong. Disability is a natural part of human variation. They don’t deserve this. Their families don’t deserve this either.
What has to happen for the government to realize that not properly funding an equitable education system is doing way more damage to society and creating more dependency on all systems in the future?
Not funding an education system is systemic oppression for a chosen group of people. I think this is systemic abuse. These are human rights violations.
We can change this.
So what can we do?
Parents, if your children are being negatively impacted by the lack of resources and support in the school system, I encourage you to tell your story to the BC Human Rights Commissioner. Their office welcomes with open arms the stories of people with lived experience. They use people’s experiences as a way to guide and shape their work.
The reality is that advocacy will always fall on us to bring awareness to the issues we are facing. Like it or not, people with privilege wouldn’t be able to guess this stuff, even if they wanted to. It’s too far out of their scope.
I cannot tell you the number of times people in government have told me, “Kim, if it’s as bad as what you say it is, we would see more people filing complaints.” We need to muster whatever energy we have left and write that email to the BC Human Rights Commissioner. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Don’t worry about rambling. Just spill it all out. If you are aware of someone in your life who you think needs to have their story told, sit with them. Offer to type it out in an email while they talk it out. Be the ally. Support them in speaking their truth.
Send it in. Subject heading: Speaking my truth – We need help.
I can’t tell you how many parents are advocating and doing what they do because they never want anyone else’s child to experience what theirs did.
You are powerful. And your children are worth it. And other people’s children are worth it too.
If you are an ally, please write to your MLA. We need all the support we can get.
Within weeks, he stopped entering the classroom. They called us daily, threatening to call 911 if we didn’t come quickly enough.
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.
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.