Compliance discourse vs. disability justice in BC’s education system

Official VSB documents reveal an emphasis on student compliance and disciplinary consequences, with little mention of disability accommodations. For example, the VSB’s District Code of Conduct underscores “a fair and consistent range of consequences, including suspension and change in educational programming, for student misconduct” media.vsb.bc.ca. The Code enumerates expected student behaviours and infractions (e.g. attending regularly, no bullying or vandalism), and specifies that failure to adhere will result in punitive measures media.vsb.bc.ca.

Nowhere in these conduct guidelines does it mention adapting expectations or supports for students who cannot meet the rules due to disability-related needs. In effect, the absence of any reference to accommodations sends a message that all students must conform to uniform behavioural standards or face discipline.

The district’s administrative framework further mirrors a corporate, compliance-driven mindset – VSB even has departments titled “Risk Management and Privacy Compliance Services” and “Business Development,” indicating a focus on liability and efficiency much like a business vsb.bc.ca. This bureaucratic tone reinforces that challenges are to be managed (or mitigated) rather than supported holistically.

Likewise, Surrey’s policies frame student behaviour in terms of compliance and rule enforcement. The Surrey Schools Code of Conduct explicitly states that “disciplinary actions arising as a result of students not adhering to the Code of Conduct…may include loss of privileges, detention… and/or suspension from school,” with various officials (parents, district staff, police) to be notified of serious breaches surreyschools.ca. This language focuses squarely on penalising “misconduct,” without acknowledging that what looks like misbehaviour may in fact be a manifestation of a disability (e.g. a meltdown due to sensory overload or an impulsive action due to ADHD).

The uniformity of consequences – and lack of any built-in pause to consider a student’s individual learning or support plan – exemplifies compliance discourse. In such a framework, unmet needs are effectively rebranded as wilful non-compliance. The priority is maintaining order and adhering to policy, rather than examining why a student is struggling to meet the expected behaviour. Surrey’s approach, like Vancouver’s, treats discipline as a first resort; it does not require staff to check whether the student had appropriate support or accommodations in place before punishing the “offence.”

These examples from B.C.’s two largest districts illustrate how “compliance discourse” permeates leadership documents. The emphasis is on conformity to rules and managing student conduct issues, rather than on flexibility or understanding. By default, codes of conduct are written in neutral terms – applying to all students equally – which in practice means they silence disability-related context. A student who fails to sit still, blurts out answers, or refuses to do a task is simply labeled as breaking the rules. There is no clause saying, for instance, “if a behaviour is linked to a disability or diverse learning need, staff will first explore appropriate accommodations or interventions.” In short, the official discourse is about student compliance with behaviour standards, not about systemic adjustments to meet student diversity.

“Running like a business” – the liability mindset

Another hallmark of compliance discourse is the way some districts approach disability issues as a liability or risk to manage. The Vancouver Board’s departmental structure (noted above) is telling – the existence of a Risk Management division vsb.bc.ca suggests that supporting students with disabilities may be viewed through a lens of mitigating legal risk (e.g. avoiding human rights complaints) rather than proactively embracing inclusion.

In a compliance mindset, providing accommodations can be seen as something one must do to comply with minimum legal requirements, as opposed to something done because it is morally right or educationally necessary for the child’s success. This mentality tends to breed minimalism – doing only what is “necessary” to avoid trouble – instead of creative, student-centred problem-solving. Families and advocates often sense this when they encounter bureaucratic resistance to accommodations, as though the school’s goal is to check the boxes rather than truly meet the child’s needs.

For instance, in one recent case a Surrey family alleged the district “failed to incorporate medically recommended accommodations into the student’s IEP” and instead disciplined the child in a manner that put them at medical risk surreynowleader.com.

While most of that human rights complaint was dismissed on technical grounds, the tribunal did admonish that “accommodation must be done on a case-by-case basis. It is not one-size-fits-all.” In that case, the school board had defended itself by saying the child’s plan was in line with provincial standards, but the tribunal noted the district could “reasonably [have] done more” surreynowleader.com.

This illustrates the compliance mindset at work: the district was focused on meeting the letter of provincial policy (i.e. doing no more than what a typical student with that designation might get), rather than truly listening to the child’s unique needs. A business-like approach treats accommodation as a bureaucratic duty – perhaps even an inconvenience – whereas a justice-oriented approach would treat it as an integral part of educating that student.

It’s also worth noting that families often perceive they must “fight for every dollar of support” as if advocating for a child were like wrangling with an insurance company. One parent in the recent Still Left Out survey remarked that “the system is marginalizing families…Our kids are not the challenge – the challenge is the system” rcybc.ca.

This powerful quote highlights that parents feel the processes are adversarial, set up to deny or delay support until absolutely forced. In other words, some school districts operate as if their primary objective is to conserve resources and enforce rules, and only accommodate when absolutely required – akin to a business minimising liabilities. This stands in stark contrast to what we would expect if the system were truly centred on children’s wellbeing.

The human cost of compliance discourse

When support needs are reframed as behaviour problems, students with disabilities inevitably suffer educational and emotional harm. Instead of receiving help, they are pushed out or penalised, leading to a cascade of negative outcomes.

The Representative for Children and Youth’s 2023 report Still Left Out exposed just how widespread this problem remains. According to the RCY’s research, the current system is reaching “fewer than half of those who need supports and services.” In fact, an estimated 80,000 children and youth with disabilities in B.C. are not receiving the supports they require rcybc.ca.

This staggering figure (which doesn’t even include kids with certain diagnoses like ADHD that aren’t officially “designated”) means thousands of students are essentially left to fend for themselves in schools that are ill-prepared to include them. Compliance-driven school cultures simply label these students “difficult” or “disruptive” rather than recognising unmet needs.

The consequences are dire. Families report that some children are prevented from attending full days or regular classes, effectively excluded because the school says it “cannot meet their needs.” Families are told “your child is being ‘asked’/told to stay at home because the school cannot meet their needs” – for example, being limited to shortened hours or barred from field trips due to lack of support bcedaccess.com. In many cases, it’s essentially a suspension by another name: the child is not welcome at school because their disability-related behaviours or needs are perceived as an inconvenience or liability.

Even more alarming, some students who do attend school face inhumane disciplinary measures like seclusion or restraint when they become overwhelmed. A 2017 follow-up survey by Inclusion BC found “routine use of restraint and seclusion in schools across the province” despite non-binding provincial guidelines meant to curb these practices inclusionbc.org.

The majority of students subjected to these practices had special needs designations inclusionbc.org, meaning it was their disabilities that triggered the incidents.

Parents reported incidents of children as young as five being pinned down, locked in isolation rooms, tied to chairs, or kept in solitary confinement for hours inclusionbc.org – all of which caused physical and emotional trauma inclusionbc.org. In most cases, parents were not satisfied with how schools responded, and nearly half said they eventually removed their child from the school entirely as a result inclusionbc.org. These extreme outcomes underscore how a compliance mindset (“the child isn’t obeying, so we must regain control”) can escalate into outright abuse when disability-related behaviours aren’t properly understood and accommodated.

Furthermore, the cycle of punishment often replaces what should have been intervention and support. Instead of getting a functional behaviour assessment or a calming sensory space, a child in distress might get suspended for “wilful defiance” or sent home on an “indefinite break” while the school scrambles for solutions.

The RCY’s survey of over 1,000 families in 2023 found that 75% have little to no confidence their child will get the services they need in the next few years bcedaccess.com. Many parents described being exhausted by constant advocacy and “wearing multiple hats” (caregiver, case manager, legal advocate, etc.) just to secure basic accommodations bcedaccess.com. Tellingly, one parent lamented, “Burnout is very, very real. The system is broken and I am too tired to figure out how to fix it.”

When schools treat supports as a scarce commodity to be rationed – or view a student’s difficulties only as misbehaviour to correct – families are left in crisis. In sum, compliance discourse not only fails to meet students’ needs, it actively compounds their exclusion: children are punished for the system’s failures.

Grounding education in a disability justice discourse

Shifting from a compliance paradigm to one of disability justice would transform how schools approach student behaviour and support. Disability justice is a framework pioneered by disabled activists that goes beyond basic legal accommodation rights. As defined by the Centre for Family Equity, “Disability justice goes beyond legal rights or access — it calls for collective care, interdependence, and the dismantling of ableism alongside racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of systemic oppression. It centers the experiences of those most impacted by injustice and affirms that all bodies — minds and ways of being — are worthy and whole.” centreforequity.ca.

In practical terms, grounding education in disability justice means re-centering the system around the student (especially those most marginalised) rather than around rules. It means asking, whenever a child is struggling: “What do they need and what is our responsibility to provide?” – instead of “Why won’t they just comply?”

Here are some key shifts that would occur if disability justice informed school policies and leadership decisions:

• Reframe “misbehaviour” as communication of need: Rather than defaulting to punitive codes of conduct, schools would first ask what a student’s behaviour is telling us. For instance, if a neurodivergent student leaves the classroom or refuses work, a justice-oriented approach considers sensory overwhelm, anxiety, or learning frustration as the root issue and responds with support. District Codes of Conduct should be amended to explicitly require staff to consider whether unmet access needs are behind a behaviour before applying any disciplinary consequence. In other words, policy language must acknowledge that what looks like defiance may in fact be a request for help. This could be as explicit as a clause saying: “If a student’s conduct may be disability-related, the school must investigate and implement appropriate accommodations to remove barriers prior to discipline.” Such a requirement is not only good practice but aligns with the duty to accommodate in law. Under the BC Human Rights Code, schools have an obligation to accommodate a student’s disability to the point of undue hardship before limiting their participation. As advocacy groups note, “before exclusion… the duty to accommodate must be fulfilled,” which means schools must identify the barriers and create a plan to support the student’s needs bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com. Compliance discourse treats discipline as a first step; disability justice would make it the last resort, used only when all supportive measures have been tried and genuine safety concerns remain bcedaccess.com.
• Embed supports in every response: A disability justice approach would ensure that even when discipline is necessary, it comes with supports, not instead of them. For example, if a student’s behaviour poses immediate safety issues, a short-term removal might occur concurrently with arranging additional help (a behaviour consultant, mental health support, an urgent IEP meeting, etc.). There would be no more instances of kids being sent home for days or weeks with zero educational programming. Districts could be required to document what accommodations or interventions were considered in any suspension or exclusion. Publishing data on disciplinary actions alongside data on support provisions could shed light on whether students with disabilities are disproportionately being punished in lieu of receiving help. Transparent reporting of, say, the number of suspensions of designated special needs students versus the number of updated IEPs or support plans, would make it harder to ignore patterns of neglect. This kind of accountability measure was suggested in spirit by the Representative’s report – which essentially implied that if 80,000 kids are unserved, those 80,000 shouldn’t just be disappearing from schools; their outcomes (often suspensions or failures) need to be tracked and addressed.
• Invest in training: Disability justice in education prioritises proactive, compassionate strategies over punishment. British Columbia actually has a wealth of resources, such as trauma-informed practice (such as the Inclusive Education Handbook and training modules used in some districts inclusionbc.org). However, these are effective only if educators receive proper training and leadership expects their use. This was a key recommendation from Inclusion BC’s research: to provide provincial support for training all teachers, support staff, and administrators in non-punitive behaviour management inclusionbc.org. If, for example, every principal were well-versed in understanding autism or trauma-related behaviours, they’d be far less likely to interpret a situation as “insubordination” deserving suspension, and more likely to respond with empathy and problem-solving. Building a truly inclusive school culture requires that staff have the tools to meet diverse needs. Leadership can set the tone by making clear that relationship-building, understanding, and skill-teaching are valued above strict rule enforcement. In practical terms, this might mean expanding specialist support teams, hiring more inclusive education staff, or incorporating coaching for classroom teachers on adapting instruction – all of which treat student variance as expected and normal, not as an aberration.
• Center student and family voices in policy-making: A disability justice approach holds that those who are most affected by policies must have a say in creating them. For school districts, this means actively involving students with disabilities and their families (as well as disability rights advocates) in developing behaviour support policies and inclusion initiatives. Rather than top-down “codes of conduct” written only by administrators and lawyers, we could see co-developed guidelines that reflect real experiences. For instance, a district might convene an inclusion committee or working group – as some have started to – where parents and students share where things go wrong and how to improve. The goal would be protocols that prevent conflict and misunderstanding. If a student with an emotional regulation challenge knows they can go to a chill-out corner when upset (as outlined in their support plan), the “need” for a disciplinary referral might never arise. By listening to disabled students about what helps them succeed (and what harms them), schools can replace the ethos of “compliance at all costs” with one of belonging and respect. In Vancouver, a caregiver-led working group recently produced the “Advocating for Equity” report calling for exactly this kind of collaboration and transparency vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org. They highlight, for example, that better communication with families and consistency in support staff would dramatically improve student outcomes vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org. Grounding education in disability justice means treating families and students as partners rather than adversaries – a partnership where the student’s right to inclusion is the shared goal.
• Uphold the “duty to accommodate” as a guiding principle: Legally, B.C. schools are already obligated not to discriminate on the basis of disability, which entails accommodating students’ disabilities to the point of undue hardship (Section 8 of the BC Human Rights Code). A justice-oriented discourse would weave this principle into the fabric of everyday decision-making – not simply as avoiding legal breaches, but as a moral imperative. Practically, this could mean that any time a serious disciplinary measure is contemplated for a student with identified (or suspected) disabilities, a specific review takes place. For example, require that a district inclusive education leader sign off, confirming that all reasonable accommodations were tried and that the proposed consequence is necessary and equitable. It might also involve training school administrators in understanding their legal duty: many cases in recent years (documented by advocacy groups like BCEdAccess) have shown that schools sometimes exclude kids without even convening an IEP meeting or updating a behaviour plan – steps that are clearly expected by human rights jurisprudence bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com. A disability justice lens treats the failure to accommodate as the true “misconduct,” in a sense – the system’s misconduct, not the child’s. It places accountability on the school: did we do enough to enable this student’s inclusion? If not, the onus is on the school to change, not on the child to “suck it up.” This is a profound shift from the compliance mentality, flipping the script so that conformity of the system to the child is the focus, rather than conformity of the child to the system.

In sum, grounding education in disability justice means consistently asking: “Is this a matter of noncompliance, or an unmet need we haven’t addressed yet?” It means viewing diversity of behaviour and learning style not as threats to order, but as natural parts of a school community that can thrive with the right supports. A school district truly informed by disability justice would likely still have rules and expectations – but those would be flexible and responsive, applied with discernment and compassion. Consequences for harmful actions wouldn’t disappear, but they would always incorporate learning and restoration, and they would never be given in a vacuum that ignores disability. Importantly, the voices of disabled students would guide what respect, safety, and inclusion look like in practice. As one mother urged, “Why not try just giving us the right support and see how that goes?”. That challenge encapsulates the promise of a disability justice approach: if we replace compliance-for-its-own-sake with care, access, and human dignity, we create schools where every student can genuinely belong and succeed – not by squeezing themselves into a mould, but by being fully themselves.

Sources: The analysis above draws on school district policy documents (e.g. VSB and Surrey codes of conduct) and provincial reports. The Vancouver School Board’s Code of Conduct Resource Book emphasises disciplinary consequences for “misconduct” media.vsb.bc.ca, while Surrey’s official website likewise warns that violating conduct codes may result in suspension or other punishment surreyschools.ca. These policies make no mention of disability accommodations. In contrast, B.C.’s Inclusive Education Policy Manual (Ministry of Education) urges that programs be designed to enable students with disabilities to meet their educational goals through individualised support www2.gov.bc.ca. The gap between policy and practice is highlighted by advocacy findings: a 2023 survey by the Representative for Children and Youth found that fewer than half of children with support needs are getting services, implying tens of thousands are left out rcybc.ca. Families express frustration that they face exclusion and inadequate support – BCEdAccess reports that 80,000 disabled students in B.C. receive no support at school, and 75% of families are not confident this will improve bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com. Inclusion BC’s Stop Hurting Kids II report documents continued use of restraint/seclusion on students with special needs, calling for mandatory training in positive behaviour supports instead inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org. Legal and human rights sources (e.g. BC Human Rights Tribunal decisions) affirm that one-size-fits-all approaches are not acceptable – accommodation must be individualised surreynowleader.com. Together, these sources make clear that moving away from compliance discourse toward disability justice is both an ethical obligation and supported by expert recommendations. The end goal is an education system where support is the default and no student is punished for the system’s inability to accommodate.