Designed for denial
Designed for denial describes systems structured so that refusing accommodation is the path of least resistance, the default outcome, the architecturally embedded response to requests for support. These are systems where saying no requires no justification, no documentation, no oversight, and no consequence, while saying yes requires the requester to overcome multiple redundant barriers, satisfy gatekeepers who are not accountable for their decisions, prove need to parties who are professionally invested in skepticism, and exhaust themselves navigating processes deliberately constructed to produce abandonment while performing consideration.
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Kamloops mother speaks after district ignored daughter’s dyslexia for thirteen years
‘She was failed’: Mother speaks out after Kamloops student’s dyslexia ignored tell the story of Heather Morrison. She spent thirteen years asking teachers and principals to assess her daughter for learning disabilities, watching her child move through kindergarten to graduation while reading at an elementary level, her distress mounting with each deflection, each dismissal, each…
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Three contexts, one experience: why autism debates fracture
The fracture happens before anyone finishes speaking. One person describes autism as neurological difference observable through brain imaging and cognitive testing; another person describes autism as diagnostic category that unlocks resources within rationed systems; a third person describes autism as lived experience of navigating a world built around neurotypical assumptions about communication, sensory processing, and…
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The return of functioning labels: How austerity turns advocacy into competition
A parent recently posted about profound autism, describing the experience of having her son’s reality erased when people say that “profound autism” doesn’t exist. Her frustration is legitimate—parents of children with intensive, lifelong support needs face profound institutional abandonment, and “profound autism” names a reality that deserves recognition and resources. But her post also illustrates…
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Why I won’t stop in 2026
The principal used collective punishment against my child almost two years ago, and yet I remain unreconciled to what she did. People suggest moving on, starting fresh, forgiving. Schools are obsessed with ‘fresh starts,’ framing each September as reset opportunity, as though institutional harm dissolves at arbitrary calendar boundaries. My daughter carries what happened in…
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The principal’s casualness reveals authorisation to harm
When a principal cancelled my daughter’s volleyball game with bureaucratic ease, her comfort while causing harm revealed systematic institutional authorisation.
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Your child’s teacher crossed a line. The school shrugged. Now what?
Every time my phone lights up with a call or email from the school, my stomach drops. I brace automatically: Is it another subtle threat? Another criticism of my parenting disguised as “concern”? Another make-work task to “fix” a problem they created? After years of this, I’ve learned to navigate school communication in a state…
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Designed for denial the architecture of accommodation refusal
Designed for denial describes systems structured so that refusing accommodation is the path of least resistance, the default outcome, the architecturally embedded response to requests for support. These are systems where saying no requires little justification, documentation, oversight, or consequence, while saying yes requires the requester to overcome multiple barriers, satisfy gatekeepers who are not accountable…
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A multi-lens analysis of accommodation denial in BC Schools
When the school handed me a garbage bag filled with jackets at the end of the year, it was evidence of a failed executive function accommodation. When I was handed a box containing hundreds of dollars of fidgets, it was evidence of a regulation accommodation that had been denied. There’s a lot of reasons an…
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Children as witnesses in institutional spaces
Children do not match the institutional fantasy of the perfect witness. Schools expect crisp chronology, tidy sequencing, and emotion-free narration. What children offer is perception—sharp, immediate, and grounded in the sensory truth of what happened. I learned this when my daughter was still in elementary school, when a playground supervisor grabbed her arm, twisted it…