Accountability
Accountability is the difficult, necessary practice of being answerable to those you affect—especially when the impact is one of harm, exclusion, or silence—and it asks more than compliance, more than apology, more than damage control; it asks for a relationship with truth, and a willingness to change.
In the context of schools, accountability means that staff, administrators, and districts face the realities of their decisions, that they stay present to the consequences, and that they do not disappear into procedural obscurity when a child’s well-being has been compromised.
It is neither punishment nor performance, but a form of relational integrity—an orientation toward justice that begins when those in power stop defending their image and start making amends.
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Flourishing as an ethical imperative
Like many of you, I caught CBC’s Ideas episode the other day, where philosopher Angie Hobbs spoke about the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia—a term sometimes translated as happiness or welfare, but more richly understood as human flourishing. In a world flooded by crisis, it may seem indulgent or impractical to contemplate the good life,…
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The truth shall set us free: healing from institutional violence in BC public schools
Healing doesn’t begin with massages or mindset shifts. It begins with telling the truth about what was done to us—about what it means to watch your child collapse under institutional betrayal, to be praised for your composure while they take away his lifeline. The system demands civility while delivering harm. This essay is a witness…
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Disgusted with myself: how school advocacy erodes self-compassion
Some days I feel my own face harden, the jaw locking and the air leaving my lungs in a clipped exhale, the eyes narrowing into a refusal that feels like muscle memory. It is the same recoil I have seen across the meeting table, the same signal that too much has been brought into the…
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15 red flags your child’s school is running the playbook on you
How to spot coercive proceduralism before it drains your energy, your trust, and your child’s future. You may have been advocating for your child for months—attending meetings, responding to emails, following every process they set out—yet the accommodations you discussed never seem to appear in the classroom. You might notice your child’s struggles at school…