Compliance culture
The school-wide expectation that students conform without question—regardless of their developmental stage, disability, or distress.
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Recent BCHRT decisions expose systemic failures
After reading through a couple of of the recent BC Human Rights Tribunal findings, here are some thoughts: Ongoing delays erode trust Several rulings show how procedural deadlines and scheduling gaps thwart families seeking essential supports. In one decision the Tribunal dismissed parents’ allegations about inadequate consultation and discontinued specialist services because the events in 2017 and 2018 fell…
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The days my children cried, and I told them it would be okay
When your trust has already been broken—by people who were supposed to care for you, protect you, believe you—every new betrayal lands like confirmation. I didn’t come to school meetings as a blank slate. I came with a trauma history. So when they dismissed my child’s needs, ignored the signs, or punished their distress, it…
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When school discipline undermines trust at home
There’s a problem in our schools. You’ll see it on a child’s face when they come home. You’ll hear it in the way they describe something that left them feeling humiliated, angry, or confused—and often, all three at once. It happens when school staff use discipline strategies that completely contradict the values a student has…
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School District 48 (Sea to Sky): a neurodiversity-informed policy critique
SD48 conduct decision flow (simplified) ⚠️ Critical analysis ✅ Strengths ❌ Gaps Neurodiversity lens: how the policy holds up Dimension Assessment Notes Disability justice ✅ Partial Equity and accommodation are mandated, but process and supports unspecified Neurodivergent alignment ⚠️ Weak No mention of executive function needs, sensory regulation, impulsivity, masking, or meltdown management Protection from…
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SJ Burnside Continuing Education (SD61): a neurodiversity‑informed policy critique
SJ Burnside Education Centre is an Alternative Education program serving youth aged 13–18 in a small-group, flexible setting. Its published Code of Conduct emphasises high standards of conduct, honesty, integrity, and cooperation during all school-sponsored activities. It explicitly promotes peaceful problem-solving, community engagement, and maintains a personal device policy (e.g., cell phones may be removed if abused). Student Code of Conduct SJ Burnside conduct decision…
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Rot at the root: Why POPARD must be dismantled from the top down
When I first objected to the strategies POPARD proposed, I tried—truly—to assume good intent: that if I just gave them the right information, the clearest language, the most generous interpretation of their mandate, they would course-correct and stop pushing reward charts onto an already-traumatised child. I wrote careful emails, cited the psychologist’s diagnosis, offered specific…
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He doesn’t go from zero to sixty
“He’s not a car,” I said, exasperated, after someone described Robin as going from zero to sixty. The withering look I received in return was pure disgust—as though I had interrupted a sacred adult ritual, as though I may as well have had a huge boil in the middle of my forehead, oozing pus. But…
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Support is a bridge
What happens when schools pretend the bridge is whole. The appearance of help “She gets check-ins from the area counsellor once a week.”“We’ve made sure the classroom teacher is aware of her IEP.”“We’re doing everything we can within the current resources.” These are the phrases they recite—softly, professionally, as though reassurance were a substitute for…
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Shut it down: Why POPARD cannot be trusted to support neurodivergent children
We asked for help.We got a behaviour chart. We invited experts into our child’s life, hoping they would help school staff understand his anxiety, his trauma responses, his fiercely sensitive nervous system. We asked for relational strategies grounded in respect and attunement. We shared research. We named his diagnosis. We explained, in plain terms, what…
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How regressive school policies limit inclusion
On the first day of school, it all looked so promising that it seemed almost too good to be true—the hallway bulletin boards overflowed with vibrant slogans about kindness, leadership, and community belonging, while the principal’s welcome message spoke in glowing terms about student voice, shared responsibility, and the promise of a positive school culture…
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Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
Pathological Demand Avoidance is a neurobiological profile of autism rooted in anxiety, autonomy, and nervous system threat perception. For children with PDA, even simple requests can register as danger. A question, a suggestion, a cheerful invitation—all of these may activate a survival response, because the child’s nervous system experiences demand as threat. When this pattern…
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Collective punishment: it doesn’t work, but still it happens
Written by Dr Penny Rabiger, in 2016, this personal yet incisive piece, discusses the challenges the persistence of collective punishment in schools, despite its well-documented ineffectiveness. Drawing on both professional insight and a child’s perspective, the post illustrates how these tactics damage trust, inhibit learning, and punish children for behaviours beyond their control. The author…
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Restraint and isolation in British Columbia schools
Physical restraint and isolation—sometimes termed “seclusion”—remain legally unregulated in British Columbia schools, even as provincial guidelines seek to limit their use to moments of extreme risk. Physical restraint is defined as any method of restricting a student’s freedom of movement to maintain safety, while seclusion involves involuntary confinement in a space from which the student…
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When autistic girls fawn and schools look away
They told her to be polite while she was being harmed. Now they call her difficult for saying no. Jeannie never screamed—never yelled or stormed out or flipped a desk or tore paper into confetti; instead, she froze, and in that freezing, she vanished from their view. No one interrupted the boy when he joked…
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The cost of compliance – the foundational critique and case for change
When children are dysregulated, the response from educators is too often punitive. For neurodivergent students in particular, the cost of these responses is high: shame, trauma, social exclusion, and a deep erosion of trust. But it does not have to be this way. Restorative alternatives are not new. They are ancient practices found in many…
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Collective punishment in schools teaches the wrong lesson
Imagine you’re at work, focused on your tasks, when your boss announces that no one can leave until two distracted coworkers finish their work. You’d be outraged, right? Yet, this exact approach—punishing an entire group for the actions of a few—is sometimes still used in elementary classrooms. In a recent article, Blair questions the pedagogical…
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A teacher’s perspective on collective punishment
In this powerful TikTok video, Mr Trayvon reflects on his own past use of collective punishment in the classroom—and why he no longer believes it serves students. With candour and humility, he acknowledges the harm these practices cause, particularly to children already carrying the weight of trauma, neurodivergence, or social marginalisation. His shift away from…
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Why collective punishment doesn’t work
Group punishment doesn’t fix behaviour – it just makes kids hate school, in The Conversation. explains that collective punishment might seem effective in achieving short-term compliance, but is both unfair and ineffective in the long run. This article explains: Key takeaway: Collective punishment may offer a quick fix, but it erodes trust and fails to…
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Why i started this campaign
As a solution architect and parent of disabled children, I’ve seen the public education system from both sides. What I’ve found is not a system in crisis—it’s a system functioning exactly as designed: rewarding compliance, punishing difference, and quietly discarding those who don’t fit. This post explores how exclusionary practices like collective punishment persist in…
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She’s agonised inside and that doesn’t count?
Much of this unfolded in 2022 and 2023, during a period when my daughter remained undiagnosed as autistic, unsupported in any formal way, and largely invisible to the school system. The patterns described here continue to shape our lives. In this essay, you’ll hear the cautious hope I carried—that a formal diagnosis would unlock the…
