What would it really cost to fix the problem?

I’ve spent years digging through balance sheets and bank statements, reconciling every line, following every cent until the story revealed itself. In one year alone, I accounted for more than 32,000 transactions for a large, member-based organisation—and that kind of immersion leaves a mark. It teaches you to see not just the price of things, but the cost of not doing them. And right now, I can see the losses stacking up in public education—losses we pretend are savings.

Because while school districts talk about “affordability” and “prioritisation,” I see something closer to structural negligence:

• the routine exclusion of children from classrooms and peer relationships,
• the erosion of trust between families and educators,
• the churn of underpaid staff through burnout and moral injury, and
• the massive downstream costs absorbed by health care, social services, and—devastatingly often—the criminal legal system.

This isn’t just a moral failure. It’s a financial one. And it’s time we said it plainly:

the current system is bleeding public money while failing children.

This post is my attempt to answer a simple question with a complicated truth: What would it actually cost to fix school exclusion? To address it systemically, so that every child who wants to learn can show up to school and be included. Not just technically enrolled. Included.

Let’s run the numbers. And let’s not look away from what they tell us.

Math for the kids

For a bunch of adults that were supposed to pass mathematics, we aren’t very good at costing public education. What follows is thoughts on true costs of fixing this situation.

Challenges in class size and composition

Here are a few of the challenges facing K-12 BC education:

Complex needs in every classroom

 British Columbia’s public schools embrace inclusive education, meaning students of all abilities learn together in regular classrooms.

However, this often leads to classrooms with a wide range of needs. A single class of ~25 students can include multiple children with learning or behavioural challenges, neurological differences, trauma or other medical complexity, far beyond the historical “3 designated students” guideline goteamkate.com.

Teachers report that alongside a few officially diagnosed students, there are typically several others showing significant needs but without formal diagnoses or funding in place goteamkate.com.

In fact, thousands of B.C. children sit on waitlists for assessments and supports, meaning many enter school undiagnosed and without the help they requireinclusionbc.org.

One parent survey found that by mid-year, 16% of students who should have had an Individual Education Plan (IEP) still did not have one in place bcedaccess.com, highlighting how many children’s needs are going unmet under the current system.

Inadequate support staffing

The high complexity in classrooms has not been matched by support personnel. The number of Education Assistants (EAs) and specialist teachers has not kept pace with the growth in students with special needs.

For example, Vancouver schools saw a 43% increase in high-needs (“low-incidence”) designated students since 2016, but only an 18% increase in EAs vancouverdpac.org.

District budget figures show that by 2023/24 Vancouver needed about 1,140 EAs to support all its funded special-needs students, yet only ~1,000 were on staff vancouverdpac.org. Because of this shortfall, EAs must be spread thin: one EA is often assigned across multiple children and classes bcedaccess.com.

Support is triaged to the most acute cases (medical, safety, personal care), leaving many students who require instructional support with no EA help at all vancouverdpac.org. As Vancouver DPAC notes, this leaves many students who require instructional or emotional support with no educational assistant help at all. But let’s be honest about what “acute” really means in this system: it means visible, urgent, and legible to the people in charge. It means injuries, seizures, toileting. It does not mean distress, dysregulation, sensory overwhelm, or quiet refusal. And that definition is not neutral—it is sexist, ableist, and saturated with bias. The needs most often dismissed as “non-urgent” are disproportionately associated with girls, with racialised children, with those who mask or internalise. We have built a system that only responds to crisis, and then only to the kinds of crisis it feels like it can control.

Likewise, specialist resource teachers (learning support teachers) are stretched with high caseloads – in Vancouver the ratio is roughly 1 resource teacher per 232 students vancouverdpac.org – making it difficult to give each class or teacher the guidance they need.

Finally, school counsellors are in short supply: on average there is only about 1 counsellor per 693 students in BC, far from the 1:250 ratio recommended by experts adamolsen.ca. This means mental health and behavioural needs often go unaddressed due to sheer lack of available counsellors. All of these gaps create a “perfect storm” where classroom teachers are left almost alone to manage diverse and complex learners.

Benefits of smaller class sizes for inclusion

Nearly all research agrees that smaller class sizes improve student outcomes, especially in an inclusive settingaccessibility.com. Educators simply have more time and energy to give each child individual attention. Many experts point to 18 students per class as a key target for general education, and suggest treating 18 as a maximum in inclusive classrooms accessibility.com.

In fact, when a class includes a higher proportion of vulnerable or neurodivergent students, the optimal size may be closer to 12–15 to ensure everyone gets sufficient supportaccessibility.com. By contrast, many BC classes today have 26 students, which is considered a medium-to-large class and not conducive to fully supporting diverse needs accessibility.com.

Reducing class sizes to ~18 or below would yield several benefits:

• More individualised instruction: 
  • With fewer students, teachers can get to know each child’s strengths and struggles in depth. This “laser focus” helps in early identification of learning disabilities (e.g. dyslexia, dyscalculia) or autism/ADHD traits, as well as spotting mental health issues early accessibility.com.
  • In a smaller class, a teacher is more likely to notice that a student is struggling or behaving differently and can prompt an assessment or intervention sooner.
  • Early support is crucial – for example, catching learning challenges or anxiety issues in elementary years can prevent larger crises later accessibility.com.
• Better classroom management and inclusion: 
  • An 18-student cap means fewer disruptions, less distress, and more manageable behaviour dynamics. Teachers in smaller classes report it’s far easier to maintain a calm, orderly environment where all students – including those with behavioural differences or disabilities – can participate.
  • There is more flexibility to adjust seating, form small groups, and give one-on-one redirection as needed, which keeps neurodivergent students included rather than isolated.
  • In contrast, in a packed class of 28–30, even minor issues can escalate simply because the teacher cannot intervene in time.
• Stronger relationships and social outcomes: 
  • A smaller class fosters a tighter-knit community. Teachers can build trusting relationships with each student and encourage peer connections.
  • Research notes that small groups help students with autism or those who are shy/reserved to form friendships in a less anxious setting accessibility.com.
  • With only ~15–18 peers, it’s easier for a child with social communication challenges to get to know classmates and be accepted, whereas in a large class they might be on the fringe. Thus, reducing class size directly contributes to the social-emotional inclusion of students with diverse needs.

In short, smaller classes create the necessary conditions for true inclusion – giving teachers the bandwidth to differentiate instruction and giving students the breathing room to thrive academically and socially. Many jurisdictions aiming for inclusive education have concluded that “smaller class size is the key component to achieving inclusive education” accessibility.com accessibility.com.

Investing in support

Adjusting class size alone is not enough. Well-resourced staffing for inclusion is equally critical. As Inclusion BC has emphasised, “Inclusion doesn’t mean parking children in a class without needed supports and expecting the teacher to meet their needs” bcedaccess.com. It means providing the human support necessary for every learner. We recommend several staffing improvements (with evidence-backed justification):

• At least one full-time EA per 18 students: 
  • Every K-12 classroom should have a dedicated Education Assistant throughout the day, in addition to the teacher. A trained EA in the room can support students individually or in small groups, assist with behaviour management, and ensure that adaptations from a student’s IEP are implemented in real time.
  • Currently, many classrooms have no EA at all or only a shared aide for a portion of the day, and one EA often has to assist multiple students across different classes bcedaccess.com.
  • This is inadequate. An EA’s presence is often the deciding factor in whether a student with disabilities can physically attend and participate in school – without an adult to help, “many kids would not be able to physically attend school” at all, one advocacy report noted bcedaccess.com.
  • EAs provide vital services such as scribing for a child who cannot write, assisting a deaf/hard-of-hearing student with communication, administering medical procedures (e.g. insulin for a diabetic child), helping a student regulate emotions, and facilitating social interaction with peers bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com. These are tasks a classroom teacher simply cannot do simultaneously while teaching the whole class. 
  • Guaranteeing one EA per class would ensure that support is always on hand. In classes with a higher number of students with special needs, additional EAs (beyond one) should be allocated as required. For example, if a cohort of neurodivergent friends ends up in the same class and each needs significant support, that class might have 2–4 EAs assigned. This flexible staffing allows students to stay with their friends without overwhelming a single aide. Currently children are viciously separated from their friends, in the name of composition, compounding social difficulties in the name of classroom control.
  • The bottom line is that no student should be “left out” due to a lack of support personnel. (Notably, Vancouver’s 2025 inclusive education review showed that by prioritising only the most acute cases, many students who needed academic support got no EA help because of EA shortages vancouverdpac.org. This scenario would be avoided if each class had an adequate number of EAs to start with.)
• Regular access to resource teachers: 
  • In addition to in-class EAs, resource teachers (also known as special education or learning assistance teachers) should be more available to each classroom.
  • These specialists have training in strategies for diverse learners and can work with the classroom teacher to adapt curriculum, provide targeted instruction, and coordinate student IEPs. Currently, provincial policy only guarantees a very limited number of resource teachers (the ratio was set at 1 per 342 students in the past, though some districts like Vancouver have about 1:232 due to restored contract language) vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org.
  • In practice, one resource teacher often serves an entire grade or several hundred kids, making only infrequent visits to any one classroom. We recommend lowering this ratio significantly – for example, having one resource teacher for perhaps every 3–4 classrooms.
  • In an elementary setting, this could mean a resource teacher is assigned to a cluster of classes and can co-teach or pull small groups in each of those classes on a rotating daily schedule.
  • Even a few hours per day of resource support in a classroom can make a big difference: it allows for intensive remediation (e.g. reading intervention with a trained specialist), helps with assessing students who might need formal designations, and gives the classroom teacher on-the-spot guidance to better support each learner.
  • By contrast, when a resource teacher is responsible for hundreds of students, many kids’ needs fall through the cracks or their IEP goals are not properly supported.
  • Increasing these positions will directly improve the implementation of inclusive education plans. It’s worth noting that Vancouver has seen no increase in resource teacher numbers even as the number of students with disabilities has sharply grown, leading to overloaded caseloads vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org. This trend must be reversed by investing in more specialist teachers.
• Full-time school counsellors: 
  • Every school should have a full-time counsellor (or more, for larger schools) to address student mental health, social-emotional learning, and behavioural challenges.
  • Presently, BC’s counsellor-to-student ratios are unacceptably high – about 1:693 on average adamolsen.ca – meaning a single counsellor splits time among multiple schools or hundreds of youth.
  • The recommended standard by the BC Teachers’ Federation and the American School Counselor Association is 1:250 adamolsen.ca, a ratio shown to improve student wellness outcomes. A counsellor on staff can provide one-on-one counselling for anxiety, depression, or behavioural issues, run social skills groups, consult with teachers on behaviour plans, and connect families to external supports.
  • These services are especially crucial for neurodivergent students (who often experience anxiety or social difficulties) and those who have experienced trauma. If we fail to staff schools with adequate counsellors and psychologist support, we see the consequences: mental health hospitalisations among youth have been rising adamolsen.caa damolsen.ca, and many students “have limited to no access to mental health support at school” under current conditions adamolsen.ca.
  • To truly include all students, their emotional and psychological needs must be met – which requires more counsellors. A good goal is at least one counsellor per elementary school and 2–3+ in each secondary school, with ratios adjusted for school size to approach 250:1. This would mean hiring hundreds more counsellors province-wide adamolsen.caa damolsen.ca, but the payoff is a safer, more supportive environment where issues can be addressed before they escalate. As one MLA put it, the status quo “1:693” ratio are decades old and “a travesty” given today’s mental health crisis adamolsen.ca.

In summary, smaller class sizes plus robust staffing create a synergy: each class becomes a well-supported learning community, instead of an overstretched teacher trying to do it all by mortgaging their nervous system.

Research and best practices consistently show that when teachers have manageable class sizes and backup from EAs, specialists, and counsellors, inclusive education works – students with disabilities thrive and their typically-developing peers also benefit from a richer, more individualised learning experience inclusionbc.org.

No one-size-fits-all

While implementing the above improvements, it’s important that policies remain flexible to meet students’ needs. Inclusion in K-12 should not be about rigid formulas (which can inadvertently exclude kids); it should center on student choice and support following the student. In practical terms, this means schools should accommodate situations where a group of neurodivergent friends or several students with disabilities want to be in the same classroom. The answer must not be “No, they can’t be together because that would be four IEP students in one class which is against the rules.” Instead, the answer should be “Yes, they can learn together – and we will allocate the necessary EAs and resources to that class to make it successful.”

In BC’s past, there was a policy limiting K-12 classes to no more than 3 students with special needs (unless exceptions were made). This was introduced via Bill 33 (2006) as a way to address class composition issues, but disability advocates raised serious concerns that a hard cap could undermine inclusioninclusionbc.org. Indeed, if strictly enforced, such caps can lead to students being shunted to other classes or even forced out to specialized programs whenever the “magic number” is exceeded.

Inclusion BC warned in 2016 that simply restoring class composition limits without providing resources would “create new barriers” and result in “even more children being shut out” of their neighbourhood classrooms inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org.

The key is funding and flexibility: rather than making the child fit the system, the system must flex to support the child. If one class happens to have a higher concentration of needs, then give that class extra support staff (additional EAs, consultative time from a resource teacher, etc.) so that all students in it can succeed together. This approach aligns with the principle that inclusive education is a right, and students shouldn’t be moved or separated just because of bureaucratic ratios inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org. They should be able to stay with their peers, and the adults must bring the necessary support to them.

Not only does this benefit students socially (being with friends), but it also reflects real-world diversity. Classrooms should mirror the community – some will have more kids who need extra help, some fewer – and funding models should accommodate that variability rather than forcing an artificial balance. By “funding following need,” schools can avoid the trap of fickle or one-size-fits-all rules. In practice, this means maintaining some flexibility around the 18-student class size guideline or the distribution of designated students, as long as support is correspondingly adjusted. A well-resourced class of 20 with five high-needs kids (and multiple EAs and co-teachers) can be just as or more effective than a class of 18 with one EA. The ultimate goal is equity: every student, in every class, gets what they require to learn.

A path forward for inclusion

Transforming BC’s K-12 system to truly meet these ideals will require significant new investment and thoughtful planning – but it is achievable, and the outcomes justify the cost.

Restoring and improving class size limits, if done with adequate funding, will “go far in resolving some of the most chronic challenges” in our schools inclusionbc.org. We must ensure that any new class size or composition policies are fully funded and designed with inclusion at the forefront, not as an afterthought inclusionbc.org. This includes hiring more staff and possibly rethinking budget priorities to put money where it directly impacts students (for example, redirecting funds from stop-gap measures or administrative overhead into front-line supports like EAs and specialist teachers).

Crucially, all interest holders – families, educators, support staff, and students themselves – should be involved in shaping these measures. Inclusion is not just a numbers game or a destination; it’s a commitment to each child’s dignity and potential and the work is ongoing.

As Inclusion BC and the Representative for Children and Youth wrote, inclusion is not only a legal and moral obligation – it is best practice for education bcedaccess.com. Decades of research affirm that well-supported inclusive education benefits all learners, with or without disabilities inclusionbc.org. When we lower barriers in the classroom, provide proper support, and let children of all abilities grow up learning side by side, we create a better learning environment for everyone.

In summary, the recommendations are clear: smaller classes (around 18 or fewer students), one or more EAs in every class, regular access to specialist teachers, and a robust presence of counsellors. Implemented together, these changes would profoundly improve BC’s K-12 system. They would ensure that no child is lost in an overcrowded, under-resourced classroom. Instead, each student would be seen, supported, and included as a valued member of their class community. This vision is within reach if we choose to “bow” to what evidence and experience overwhelmingly recommend – that we invest in inclusion now for the betterment of all. It’s time to make that choice, and with it, make our schools places where every child can learn and belong.

Sources:

1. Vancouver DPAC Inclusive Education Working Group, “Advocating for Equity” (Jan 2025) – data on growth in students with special needs vs. EA staffing vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org and EA allocation shortfalls vancouverdpac.org vancouverdpac.org.
2. Inclusion BC, “BC Failed a Generation of Students” (Nov 2016) – discusses class size/composition court ruling and need for funded solutions inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org inclusionbc.org.
3. Inclusion BC & Rep. for Children and Youth Op-Ed, “All children deserve quality education” (Oct 2014) – emphasises that true inclusion requires sufficient supports bcedaccess.com.
4. Accessibility.com, “Smaller Class Sizes Are the Only Path to Inclusive Learning” (Aug 2022) – outlines benefits of small classes (magic number ~18, better individual attention) accessibility.com accessibility.com.
5. BCEdAccess Society, “EAs Are Essential for Equitable Education” (May 2025) – real parent and educator testimonials on the crucial role of Education Assistants and the impact of shortages bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com bcedaccess.com.
6. Adam Olsen, MLA – Blog post (Apr 4, 2023) citing BC counsellor ratios of 1:693 versus recommended 1:250, calling for more school counsellors adamolsen.ca adamolsen.ca.
7. GoTeamKate blog, “Chaos in the Classroom…Full-Inclusion Policy” (Feb 2016) – describes a typical inclusive class composition with multiple diagnosed and undiagnosed students, illustrating the reality teachers face goteamkate.com.
8. Inclusion BC, “Kids Can’t Wait” campaign – notes thousands of children waiting for assessments and therapies in BC, resulting in late or missed diagnoses and support delays inclusionbc.org.
9. BCEdAccess, “Forced Out” Survey Report (2017) – found 16% of parents said their child did not have an IEP by mid-year, and reported on lack of supports leading to children being excluded or sent home bcedaccess.com.

Are they worth it?

I can’t believe that still needs to be asked—let alone answered—but in policy rooms and budget meetings, that’s the quiet question beneath every conversation about inclusive education. Are these kids worth the extra staffing, the extra time, the architectural upgrades, the training, the hard conversations? My answer is yes. Every single time. Because if we only fund the children who make things easy, who else are we leaving behind? And what kind of society are we choosing to build?

We talk so much about the cost of inclusion—as if it’s indulgent, optional, something that must be justified—but we rarely talk about the cost of exclusion. And those costs are everywhere. They’re in the emergency rooms flooded with preventable mental health crises. They’re in the police budgets ballooning to respond to behaviours that began as unmet needs in a kindergarten classroom. They’re in the case files of social workers, the waitlists for youth housing, the cycle of surveillance and punishment that replaces real care when children are pushed out of places that should belong to them.

School exclusion isn’t just a moral failure. It’s a pipeline. And we know where it leads. There is a direct and well-documented relationship between exclusionary discipline practices and later involvement with the criminal legal system—a path often called the school-to-prison pipeline. But the truth is, it starts long before suspension. It starts the first time a child is told, implicitly or explicitly, that their presence is conditional. That they are too much. Too hard. Not worth the extra effort. That message sinks in, and it stays. It shows up in anxiety, school refusal, breakdowns in family stability, and chronic underemployment. It compounds across systems until entire families are destabilised.

And let’s talk about families. Because exclusion doesn’t just harm children—it reshapes the entire ecosystem around them. When schools fail to provide support, parents step in. One parent leaves the workforce. Another scales back hours. Families spend down savings, abandon career plans, sell homes, or relocate in desperate search of a better fit. These are not abstract losses. This is brain drain. This is lost innovation, lost income, lost civic engagement. When we exclude disabled children, we often lose their parents, too—brilliant, high-capacity people forced out of sectors that need them.

Meanwhile, in the private sector, something striking is happening. Microsoft, SAP, EY, and other global firms have launched targeted hiring programs for neurodivergent employees—not out of pity or compliance, but because they recognise the value. These companies understand that attention to detail, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, and sustained focus are assets—if environments are adapted to support them. Public schools, by contrast, still treat these same traits as liabilities. That’s not just unjust. It’s economically incoherent. We are spending public money to suppress and discard the very minds our future economy needs.

So when people ask what it would cost to truly support inclusive education, I want to flip the question: what are we paying right now to not do it? How many billions are we spending across siloed ministries—health, justice, housing, children and family development—just to manage the fallout? How many lost years, how many broken futures, are we calling a savings?

Because the truth is, exclusion is not free. It is staggeringly expensive. And it is costing us not only in dollars, but in potential—in everything these children could have offered, if we had only made room. 

What would it really cost to end exclusion in BC schools?

It’s a question I’ve heard asked with a sigh, a shrug, or sometimes a smirk—an unspoken assumption that inclusion is too expensive, too ambitious, too idealistic to be anything more than a political talking point. But when you’ve lived the fallout—when you’ve watched children unravel in classrooms that aren’t designed for them, when you’ve lost hours, jobs, health, and hope trying to plug the holes left by an underfunded system—you start to see the question differently. Not as a hypothetical. But as a budget line we’ve been avoiding for decades.

So I decided to answer it.

If we are serious about ending exclusion, the question is no longer whether we can afford it—but whether we are willing to act. So let’s talk concretely: what would it take to do better next year than we did last year? What specific public investments would actually move us from harm mitigation to structural inclusion?

Hire the staff we already know we need

To meet a realistic baseline for meaningful inclusion, BC would need to ensure:

• One Educational Assistant for every 18 students
• One Resource Teacher in every classroom for at least 2 hours per day
• One School Counsellor for every 250 students

These targets are not idealistic. They are grounded in the daily reality of what inclusion actually requires. Yet current staffing levels—where disclosed—fall dramatically short. The BC Teachers’ Federation reports caseloads of up to 700 students per counsellor. Inclusion BC has documented widespread gaps in EA support, even for students with the most complex designations. And resource teachers—whose job is to coordinate and adapt instruction—are stretched so thin that their support is often symbolic.

Without addressing this staffing crisis head-on, the promise of inclusion remains just that—a promise.

Fund training that actually equips staff for inclusion

There is currently no protected provincial commitment to inclusive education training. And yet we know—through research and lived experience—that trauma-informed practice, neurodiversity-affirming pedagogy, and behaviour de-escalation skills are essential for reducing exclusion. Every school should be resourced to provide ongoing professional development, embedded mentorship, and collaborative learning environments that help staff unlearn punitive norms and move toward supportive, relationship-based approaches.

This is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite for cultural change.

Invest in accessible infrastructure—not just buildings, but belonging

BC is planning major school capital investments over the next five years. But without specific funding earmarked for accessibility and inclusive design, these investments risk reinforcing existing barriers. Every school—new or old—should be physically and communicatively accessible, with inclusive features such as ramps, elevators, sensory regulation spaces, visual communication supports, and calm rooms designed with student dignity in mind.

Inclusion must be designed into the environment—not retrofitted as an afterthought.

Inclusion is not a cost—it’s a safeguard

We are often asked what it will cost to end exclusion. But rarely do we ask what it costs to keep it going. Every year, exclusion ripples outward, driving up the need for crisis intervention, medical care, youth justice involvement, and child welfare services. Parents are forced to leave the workforce. Children fall through the cracks. Schools lose trust. Communities absorb the fallout.

When we fund inclusion, we don’t just change schools—we change outcomes across the entire public system.

• Mental health crises become less acute and less frequent when children feel safe, supported, and understood at school. Emergency interventions drop when distress is met with care instead of punishment.
• Youth justice involvement often begins with school exclusion. When we reduce suspensions, expulsions, and isolation, we interrupt the pipeline that leads to police contact and criminalisation.
• Social service and child protection systems are strained when school becomes a site of conflict and despair. More inclusive schools mean fewer family breakdowns, fewer out-of-home placements, and less long-term involvement with the Ministry.
• Lost parental productivity is one of the most overlooked costs of exclusion. When schools cannot support a child, families step in—often at the expense of careers, income, and stability.
• Long-term underemployment and disability reliance begin with educational failure. Supporting disabled students to thrive in school builds pathways to adulthood that do not end in marginalization.

These ripple effects matter. They have financial consequences, yes—but more importantly, they shape lives. And every time we delay action, the debt grows deeper.

The truth is, funding inclusion is not a burden—it is a correction. It is a way of doing what we should have done all along: designing a system that expects difference, plans for it, and embraces it as a source of strength.