Kamloops mother speaks after district ignored daughter’s dyslexia for thirteen years

‘She was failed’: Mother speaks out after Kamloops student’s dyslexia ignored tell the story of Heather Morrison. She spent thirteen years asking teachers and principals to assess her daughter for learning disabilities, watching her child move through kindergarten to graduation while reading at an elementary level, her distress mounting with each deflection, each dismissal, each year of unmet need that compounded into educational abandonment so total that Morrison now describes it as failure—institutional failure, parental failure, a failure so encompassing that her daughter graduated unable to comprehend the texts required for university.

The private assessment Morrison finally secured after graduation confirmed what she had known since her daughter was five years old: severe dyslexia, reading comprehension at an elementary level, mathematical understanding similarly arrested, all of it preventable had the Kamloops-Thompson school district chosen to respond to a mother’s repeated, informed, increasingly desperate requests for evaluation and support.

The signs appeared in kindergarten and never stopped

Morrison recognised the signs immediately: her daughter fell behind from the beginning, wrote numbers and letters backwards through elementary school, came home crying in third grade because she felt the other students were smarter, asked to do homework in the hallway so they wouldn’t see her fail. Her teacher that year reported excessive bathroom breaks and lack of attention—behaviours Morrison understood as escape routes from a classroom where her daughter could not comprehend the material.

Morrison flagged these struggles repeatedly, shared the relevant family history—her daughter’s grandfather had dyslexia—and requested assessment, expecting the district to take responsibility for evaluation. The district never placed her daughter on a waiting list to see a school psychologist.

Teachers gave her high marks while she failed to understand

Morrison’s daughter passed each grade with high marks, known to teachers as kind, quiet, unassuming, a student who tried hard and didn’t disrupt the class. “The teachers could see her trying and they just let it slide,” Morrison explained, describing assignments she would have failed that received B grades, a pattern of social promotion that allowed her daughter to advance while her actual learning needs went unaddressed.

School staff suggested Morrison pursue private cognitive assessment, but the cost—five thousand dollars—exceeded what she could afford as a single mother. When Morrison pushed again in grade twelve, recognising that university would require formal accommodations, the school counsellor didn’t find assessment necessary.

The assessment came too late to prevent harm

Morrison secured a private assessment after graduation, and the results quantified the extent of harm: her daughter had graduated prepared for neither university nor independent learning, requiring remediation so extensive that Morrison’s college savings will fund programmes teaching her daughter how to read rather than the degree she had hoped to pursue.

The district denied Morrison an interview after she wrote to express her anger, responding instead with a statement claiming commitment to “inclusive, accessible learning environments” while citing privacy policies that prevented comment on Morrison’s concerns.

Bonnie McBride, president of the district parent advisory council, describes Morrison’s account as “a great example of school exclusions,” explaining that districts push families toward private assessment despite legal obligations to accommodate students as soon as needs are identified. The BC Ombudsperson is currently investigating how school districts across the province are failing to accommodate students with disabilities, with a report expected by spring 2026.

Morrison’s daughter remains, by her mother’s account, “one of the most upbeat, happy humans I’ve ever met in my life,” her spirits lifted now that she can acknowledge her struggles openly, now that the pressure to perform comprehension has been replaced by structured support—support that should have been provided thirteen years ago.