Compliance discourse

Compliance discourse—the rebranding of support needs as behaviour problems—pervades British Columbia’s education system when students who cannot meet arbitrary behavioural expectations are punished rather than scaffolded. Codes of conduct emphasise conformity and silence disability-related needs, even as the Inclusive Education Services Policy Manual affirms that supports should be based on individual learning profiles and not on perceived misconduct vsb.bc.ca www2.gov.bc.ca.

Recognizing compliance discourse tactics

Schools often rely on narrow behaviour definitions that ignore underlying barriers to learning. For example, district codes of conduct list infractions without referencing accommodations for sensory, communication or processing differences, effectively labelling unmet access needs as willful noncompliance. Meanwhile, the Inclusive Education framework promotes tiered supports, yet many principals and teachers default to exclusionary discipline before engaging positive behaviour support strategies outlined in provincial resources www2.gov.bc.ca www2.gov.bc.ca.

The cost of compliance discourse

When systemic failures are reframed as personal misbehaviour, students lose access to essential interventions and face cycles of punishment. The Representative for Children and Youth’s 2023 “Still left out” report found that fewer than half of children and youth with identified support needs receive services in a timely manner, with many subjected to seclusion or suspension instead of receiving accommodation plans—underscoring how compliance discourse compounds exclusion rcybc.ca.

Strategies to counter compliance discourse

1. Reframe policy language. Amend district codes of conduct to include explicit references to unmet access needs, requiring staff to consider accommodation plans before applying disciplinary measures www2.gov.bc.ca.
2. Mandate positive behaviour support training. Implement provincially funded professional development on positive behaviour supports and trauma-informed practices—such as those detailed in BC’s Inclusive Education Handbook—to equip educators with alternatives to punitive responses sd44.ca.
3. Publish discipline and accommodation data. Require school districts to report annually on disciplinary actions alongside accommodation requests and implementation rates, making visible any correlation between unmet needs and punitive outcomes rcybc.ca.
4. Leverage the duty to accommodate. Use section 8 of the BC Human Rights Code to challenge disciplinary decisions that ignore documented access needs, compelling schools to treat roots of behaviour as service imperatives rather than misconduct.
5. Engage co-development fora. Convene collaborative policy-design workshops with students, families and practitioners to co-author behaviour support protocols that prioritise access over compliance.

Conclusion

Reframe: is this noncompliance—or unmet access needs? Only by naming and dismantling compliance discourse can British Columbia ensure that every student’s behaviour is understood in context, and that supports—rather than sanctions—become the first response to distress.