In British Columbia, we are told that the education system is improving. Budgets are rising. Inclusion is a stated priority. And yet, for families whose children require consistent, sustained support—especially those who are disabled or living with complex trauma—the lived experience is defined by absence, delay, and denial. There is a growing chasm between the public narrative of investment and the private reality of harm. This is not merely a funding crisis. It is a systems failure, where the very architecture of governance has become a mechanism for rationing care.
“In 2016-17, the last school year for which we have audited spending data, the funding flowing from the Ministry of Education to school districts for special education covered just 58 per cent of what school districts ultimately spent on special education—a shortfall of $328 million.”
— BC Teachers’ Federation
“Inclusive education typically costs around $350 million more than the province allocates to school districts for special education each year. School districts must find the money somewhere to close that gap, which often means cutting important programs and services.”
— BC Teachers’ Federation
“Crucially, data also indicates that even if provincial inclusive education funding was increased to meet spending, it would not be enough. The 2024-25 BCTF Membership Survey[vi] found that only 13% of teachers feel that students with disabilities or diverse needs are having their needs met. As one teacher shared, ‘our greatest challenge in our district is not having the funding or EA support to properly manage and/or support real inclusion.’”
— Institute for Public Education
“The Board of Education encourages and adopts practices that enable the district to attract, retain, incent, and reward qualified, high-performing employees who are critical to the delivery of quality public education programs to students in School District No. 39 (Vancouver). A key component of this approach is the development and maintenance of a framework for executive and exempt staff compensation that is rational, defensible, competitive and able to be effectively administered.”
— Vancouver School Board Executive Compensation Report 2023–24
The shortfall is longstanding and quantifiable. As early as 2016, the Ministry of Education covered just 58% of what school districts spent on special education. Districts were left to bridge the gap through general operating budgets, which translated into cuts elsewhere. The consequences are clear: unmet needs, unsupported educators, and students pushed out of classrooms—not because they do not belong, but because of a lack of funding and training.
As of 2024, the annual funding gap for inclusive education stands at $350 million. That figure is not abstract—it takes shape in evacuations, coercive restraints, hallway exclusions, and educational plans that are written, promised, and never implemented. We waste our breath in meetings that are performative. It is visible in teacher burnout, in parents who must become full-time advocates, and in children who come to believe that their needs are a burden.
Meanwhile, the machinery of school governance marches on. Senior leaders approve executive raises, extend their administrative protections, and emphasise the importance of retention and institutional continuity. This dissonance—between how the system treats its executives and how it treats its most vulnerable students—is not lost on families. It signals that those at the top are more concerned with managing risk and preserving credibility than with meeting their core obligations to children. Perhaps, they must be compensated handsomely—to justify their complicity in something so morally indefensible.
-
Real leaders lead by example
In May 2025, the Vancouver School Board (VSB) quietly enacted wage cuts that stripped contracted workers—specifically bus drivers and special education attendants—of their living wage top-ups. At the same time, VSB senior leadership quietly accepted significant raises. This decision will result in a…
Administrators are making impossible choices—ones no ethical public institution should be forced to make. When budgets are tight, they are asked: would you rather retrofit buildings for seismic safety or fund the one-on-one support needed to keep a disabled child regulated and included? These are not morally equivalent options, yet they are weighed as though they are. The result is a rationing logic where individual human needs—especially those of disabled students—are treated as expendable, deferred in the name of broader, more “efficient” priorities. Safety becomes an abstraction. Inclusion becomes optional.
We are left to wonder—when government is meant to serve us—why are these equivalencies being made at all? No one should have to choose between seismic safety and basic disability accommodations. These are seatbelts. They are non-negotiable.
We are left to wonder—when government is meant to serve us—why are these equivalencies being made at all?
And this is not just a short-sighted harm. It is a deferred crisis. When schools deny children the support they need, the system may appear to save money—but only by offloading the cost to other ministries. Parents wind up calling the police on their dysregulated teens. Children turn to harmful coping strategies, like vaping or drugs, after internalising the belief that they are bad—because that is what they learned at school. A public system collapsing in slow motion sends vulnerable children ricocheting between silos. What we are witnessing is not fiscal prudence—it is cost transfer. From education to healthcare. From education to justice. From inclusion to abandonment.
A public system collapsing in slow motion sends vulnerable children ricocheting between silos.
What we are witnessing is a shift in institutional logic. Districts no longer see their role as providing universal support. Increasingly, they behave like American insurance companies—focused on gatekeeping rather than care, managing risk rather than meeting need. Mitigating financial losses to legal action.
“Children with disabilities and diverse needs have the right to meaningful education. They have a right to feel a sense of belonging in their school community and be supported by policies and procedures that value the success of all students.”
— Institute for Public Education
Why is this happening?
The question is: why don’t school districts fight it? Why don’t they go to the province and demand more? Why don’t they stand beside families instead of between them and the help their children need?
The short answer: they can—but they don’t.
The long answer? We can only speculate:
1. Political risk aversion
School boards are technically autonomous. But in practice, they are embedded in a hierarchy of political relationships—with the Ministry of Education, with trustees, with senior staff networks. Publicly confronting the province can threaten their perceived competence and internal access. So maybe they self-censor. They present balanced budgets at all costs. They sacrifice classroom roles quietly. They manage harm behind closed doors.
2. A culture of institutional self-preservation
Rather than reflect honestly on how many children are being failed, boards often prioritise optics. They fear appearing chaotic more than they fear perpetuating harm. Executive compensation packages are maintained while essential supports are cut. The Vancouver School Board’s 2023–24 compensation report details expansive pay protections and incentives for its executives—amid widespread service shortfalls.
This is not a crisis of funding alone. It is a crisis of moral priorities.
3. Bureaucratic capture
Many senior administrators and trustees are career professionals deeply embedded in the education ecosystem. They move between boards, ministries, and nonprofits. Their reputations—and futures—depend on staying aligned with government messaging. Perhaps, they see themselves as stewards of order?
Are we really spending more?
Yes—on paper. But those increases are absorbed by inflation, compliance costs, administrative expansion, and unfunded mandates. More money does not mean more support. The funding for inclusive education has stagnated in real terms. The result? We are spending more to deliver less—especially for children with disabilities.
[In April 2024] “The Vancouver School Board voted 7 to 2 to adopt a $600 million annual budget for 2024-25. COPE Trustee Suzie Mah and OneCity Trustee Jennifer Reddy voted to reject the budget. ‘I am firm in my decision to vote against this budget,’ said OneCity Trustee Jennifer Reddy. ‘It does not give me any confidence that we are using every tool we have to support Vancouver students with their educational needs. When I hear trustees validate building up a reserve fund while students go without supports, I know we are not values aligned.’ ‘This budget does not meet the needs of the students in our district,’ said COPE Trustee Suzie Mah. ‘We have heard from the public, parents, and other stakeholder groups and they all said that support for special needs students and the lack of teachers and support staff were critical issues that needed to be addressed in this budget. There is nothing in this budget that addresses this.’ Trustees Reddy and Mah both expressed disappointment with the final budget – both the process and the content.”
— OneCity Vancouver
The budget
The Vancouver School Board (VSB) approved its 2024–2025 financial plan on May 1, 2024, with a total budget of $784.95 million. This budget encompasses expenditures across operating, special purpose, and capital funds, aligning with the district’s commitment to enhancing student learning and well-being.
- Student Enrollment: The VSB anticipates serving 52,803 students in the 2024–2025 school year, marking an increase of 1,122 students (2.17%) compared to the previous year. media.vsb.bc.ca
- Revenue Sources: The majority of the district’s revenue (92.11%) is projected to come from the provincial government, primarily through the Ministry of Education and Child Care operating grants. Tuition fees, predominantly from international students, are expected to contribute 3.75%, while other revenues, including school-generated funds, will account for 2.37%. media.vsb.bc.ca+2media.vsb.bc.ca+2media.vsb.bc.ca+2
- Expenditures: Salaries and employee benefits constitute the largest portion of expenses. Notably, the budget includes allocations for:
- Digital Literacy: Reallocating 1 FTE teacher and 1 FTE exempt position from the Safe and Caring Schools team to support digital literacy initiatives.
- Music and Arts Programs: An investment of $130,000 to enhance music and arts education.
- In-Classroom Technology: Allocating $250,000 for new classroom technology to support modern learning environments. media.vsb.bc.ca+1ABC Vancouver+1 ABC Vancouver
- Special Purpose Funds: The budget includes $94.92 million in special purpose funds, covering various programs such as the Classroom Enhancement Fund, CommunityLINK Grants, and the Feeding Futures Fund. media.vsb.bc.ca+1media.vsb.bc.ca+1
- Capital Projects: Significant investments are planned for capital projects, including facility enhancements and equipment purchases, funded through a combination of Ministry capital grants, operating funds, and special purpose funds. media.vsb.bc.ca
While the district may highlight new investments in music and arts education, the actual figures are often tokenistic—amounting to a drop in the bucket. On paper, they may sound promising in a press release. In practice, they do little to restore what has been stripped away over years of austerity. Families and educators see the gap between the headlines and the classroom reality.
Do we trust Trustees?
To understand the present crisis in public education, we must also examine the elected stewards of our schools—trustees. These individuals are tasked with defending the public interest, representing families, and holding the system accountable. Yet their power is bounded, not only by provincial funding constraints but by the legacy of political decisions made over the past two decades.
Much of what trustees inherit today can be traced back to the austerity era ushered in by the BC Liberal government under Premier Christy Clark and Gordon Campbell previously. These administrations redefined public education funding, entrenching a “fiscal responsibility” narrative that justified cuts, downloads, and a hollowing-out of classroom supports. Despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2016 that restored contract language for class size and composition, the damage from years of austerity lingers. Resources were never fully replenished, and the cultural logic of scarcity remained deeply embedded.
Faced with these conditions, trustees have responded in markedly different ways. Some—particularly in past boards—attempted to push back. They passed motions calling for more support staff, named the funding gap explicitly, and advocated for families at risk of being failed by the system. Their efforts were often constrained by bureaucratic inertia, provincial oversight, and internal division, but they demonstrated that moral clarity was still possible within governance. But for many it was still too little too late.
More recently, under the ABC-majority board in Vancouver, the tone has shifted. The prevailing mode is managerial, not visionary. Trustees frame decisions as technical rather than political, avoid direct confrontation with the province, and often treat public concerns as communications problems rather than as substantive policy failures. Their budget documents speak of “efficiencies” and “optimisation” while entire programs vanish and students are left unsupported. For many families, it feels as if the board is managing decline—not resisting it.
This is not merely about political ideology; it is about will. Trustees can name the crisis. They can publish data that makes harm visible. They can refuse to balance budgets that abandon children. Some have tried like, trustees Jennifer Reddy and Suzie Mah, but their voices remain outnumbered.
What needs to change?
Change is possible. But it will not come from technical adjustments or polite negotiation. It requires trustees willing to confront power, challenge the Ministry, and treat inclusion as a non-negotiable right—not a line item to be managed.
1. Boards must become public advocates
Boards need to stop managing decline and start naming harm. That means:
- Passing motions that demand targeted funding
- Publishing data on unmet needs
- Speaking publicly and clearly about the impact of underfunding
2. The public must see how budgets create harm
Families should not be forced to decode bureaucratic obfuscation. Districts must disclose:
- Staffing cuts by school
- Wait times for support
- Incidents of isolation, restraint, or evacuation
These are not unfortunate exceptions. They are systemic outcomes of political choices.
3. Media and families must hold districts accountable
Boards will not act unless pressured. Families must organise. Journalists must follow the money—not just in Victoria, but at every board table across the province.
There is no neutral ground
To do nothing—to manage within shrinking margins and frame it as professionalism—is to participate in a quiet, distributed form of violence.
The child in crisis is not the problem. The child who runs, bites, or screams is not the problem. The problem is that we have built a system that sees need as threat, and support as optional.
Boards can demand more. They can name what is happening. But they won’t—unless we make it impossible for them not to.
The real deficit is the children who disappear
Parents say that things sometimes improve in high school—once you’ve fought, once they see you’re not going away. But by then, many children have already learned:
- That asking for help results in punishment
- That their distress must be hidden
- That being “difficult” is more dangerous than being silent
Those who are finally offered flexibility often receive it when they’re already depleted—what one parent described as “the walking dead.”
This is not flexibility. It is surrender. And it comes too late.
The school board may not be running a fiscal deficit. But it is running a justice deficit. A trust deficit. A care deficit. Moral decrepitude is amassing.
And the accounting is done in lost potential, fractured families, and classrooms that run on fear instead of curiosity.
What would it take for VSB to stop denying crucial supports?
It would take political courage. It would take moral clarity. It would take public pressure, data transparency, and relentless insistence from families, educators, and journalists alike.
It would take treating inclusion not as a rhetorical goal, but as a non-negotiable right.
Until that happens, the deficit will keep growing. Not just on paper—but in nervous systems, in relationships, and in futures.
And we will all pay for it.
