Sept 18, 2023, Burnaby Now (BC): Letter: These B.C. children are being excluded from education "These children are denied support, show their stress and anxiety through their behaviour, then are excluded because of it." https://www.burnabynow.com/opinion/letter-these-bc-children-are-being-excluded-from-education-7561717
I empathize with parents about having two weeks of hardship with their child's gradual kindergarten entry. This is because my son wasn't allowed to attend school with a full day of kindergarten until May. That was only after I fought and appealed their decision not to allow my son to be at school for more than two hours.
Children with disabilities and additional support needs are routinely not allowed to be at school for a full day along side their peers. Schools most often point to "unsafe behaviour" when making these decisions. In reality, these children are denied support, show their stress and anxiety through their behaviour, then are excluded because of it. With my own child, I was told directly that he could not have 1:1 EA support that I knew he needed to be in school.
School districts and the Ministry of Education want you to believe that these circumstances are rare. I assure you they are not. Districts don't even keep track of students that they don't allow at school for a full day. The longer a child is excluded, the more anxious they become, and their behaviour is in fact exacerbated….
The Ministry of Education allows this exclusion by upholding district autonomy over their own students educational placements. Although The School Act says students with "special needs" should be in their neighbourhood school along their peers, it also says unless the educational needs of the student need to be provided elsewhere. This vague wording allows the districts to interpret this how they wish, and the Ministry of Education says they have no jurisdiction over the educational programs of "special needs" students that districts choose to provide….
Districts say they don't have enough funding to support these students. The Ministry of Education say funding has increased and they have no control over what each individual district does with it. So they just point fingers back and forth, while children go without an education and families endure continued hardship…..
