Institutional Harm
When harm is built into policy and procedure—not an accident, but an outcome.
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Not sick. Not fine. Not supported. Sexism in Vancouver School Board.
They said she was doing well. They said it with the softness of authority — that practiced tone that suggests neutrality while sidestepping consequence — a tone I’ve come to recognise as institutional, not personal, and absolutely not maternal. They said she was fine because she was quiet. Because she didn’t scream. Because she didn’t…
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The bait and switch: What inclusion really looks like at the VSB
Every September, I walk into school meetings with the same cautious hope. We’ve done everything right. The diagnoses are up to date. The IEP is in place. The reports are filed — more than thirty of them over the years, from audiologists, psychiatrists, speech-language pathologists, behaviour consultants, and occupational therapists. You’d think that would mean…
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The end of the school year never feels like a celebration
We are scouring the comments for signs that our kids are OK. Supported. Happy. Trying not to spiral when we read ‘developing’ or ’emerging’ or don’t see the words, ‘It was a pleasure to have your child in my class this year.
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The poison of silence: on complicity, healing, and speaking the truth
I had so much pain stuck in my chest and throat. Cancelled screams. Unsaid truths. Every meeting where I stayed quiet, every time I swallowed my words to seem reasonable, every time I hoped that portraying myself a certain way might stop my children from being harmed—those moments didn’t disappear. They got stuck. I stopped…
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We shouldn’t be enemies
I took my daughter for a manicure this week. She’s graduating from grade 7. A milestone. A moment that felt almost ordinary—slideshow, applause, plastic chairs, nervous grins—and yet there was nothing ordinary about what it took to get there. Vocabulary for what happened Class change She spent seven months of this school year outside the…
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Advocacy toolkit: resources for families navigating school harm
Some of us arrived at advocacy slowly—one red flag at a time. Some of us were pushed into it suddenly, when everything fell apart. Some of us have been writing emails in our heads for years. Some of us are just now finding the words. Wherever you are in the process, this toolkit is for…
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If I could: A letter to my daughter before another school meeting
If I could catch you before you fall, I would. If I could make them understand—make them see you as you truly are—I would. You are doing so well, in so many ways. If I could make you feel the pride you deserve, the pride I feel when I look at you, I would. But…
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Drawn and quartered: Sibling trauma, institutional containment, and the erasure of care for families with multiples
When you are the parent of twins—especially autistic/ADHD twins—you learn very quickly that the education system can’t hold both of them at once. Support is rationed. Attention is rationed. Empathy is rationed. The school system does not say this aloud, of course. It claims to treat every child as an individual. But as soon as…
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Not everyone gets a slideshow
He should have been graduating too, but he isn’t. After years of support that never arrived, of being punished for distress instead of helped through it, my son left school quietly—while the world carried on with its ceremonies, its slideshows, its celebrations of children who were never forced to disappear in order to survive.
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Language to start a revolution
Our library of tips offers a concise, alphabetically organised toolkit for recognising and challenging the systemic forces that shape student experiences in British Columbia’s public schools. Whether you’re new to education advocacy or a seasoned ally, this series—spanning the ABCs of engineered scarcity and the ABCs of regressive punishment, with the ABCs of access coming…
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Maybe tomorrow: reflections on goal post shifting and the economics of access
There were accommodations on paper and endless lip-service meetings. But none of it happened in the classroom. And every time we did what was asked—another intake, another form, another plan—the goalpost moved again. We weren’t asking for miracles. We were asking to be seen as disabled. And instead, we were told to be more positive,…
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No apple pie for you!
School is exhausting when you are autistic. The noise of kids and shouting makes it hard to focus. The bright lights in hallways and classrooms overwhelm me and break my brain. When someone speaks, each word feels like a puzzle I must solve. Sometimes it feels like I’m communicating through a sheet of ice! A…
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“Too much”: on allergy, autism, and the systemic erasure of care
There is a quiet solidarity among parents whose children are considered too much for school. Some of us carry medical kits. Others carry binders of psychological assessments. But all of us carry the same invisible burden: a system that treats our children’s needs as optional—and our vigilance as overreaction. This is the story of two…
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How narcissism and PDA collide in the wreckage of trust
Some children refuse control because control has always felt like violence. Because control has worn the face of love and left behind a residue of shame. Because adults said, “this is for your own good” while ignoring tears, violating autonomy, and insisting that compliance was safety. For these children, especially those with a PDA profile,…
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When energy returns: on finding purpose, refusing silence, and recovering from institutional harm
When I could barely rise from the couch, I believed my exhaustion was depression. Now I see it was the cumulative harm of years spent silencing myself in hostile institutions, suppressing truth to protect my neurodivergent children. The body remembers this violence; it registers as a weight on the chest, a fatigue that resists all…
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Don’t get stuck in ‘working it out’ purgatory
Time is money, as they say—but in the world of school advocacy, it’s mostly mothers paying the bill. They spend their work breaks writing emails. Their nights gathering documents. Their weekends holding their children together after another week of being failed. They do this unpaid, unsupported, and unseen. The cost isn’t just measured in hours—it’s…
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The ABCs of engineered scarcity
A learning module for educators, caregivers, and community members resisting austerity logic in public systems. Engineered scarcity operates like a slow haemorrhage, draining public education of the resources it owes every child while masking that attrition behind soothing administrative dialects; this primer sets out to rupture that façade by naming, in alphabetical precision, the tactics…
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The price of being the one who says the hard thing
There is a moment that plays out in a thousand variations—at school pickup, on the playground, during track and field events—when a parent turns to you, warm and casual, and says, “How are things?”, and for the briefest fraction of a second, you forget the rules and answer honestly. You begin to speak—not with rehearsed…
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I brought my lunches in yoghurt containers
I brought my lunches in yoghurt containers—garlicky stir-fries, bright with tamari and heat—and sat beside children with white bread and bologna, quietly learning that normalcy was measured in silence, sameness, and smelllessness. I wasn’t bullied. I was strange. And strangeness, in childhood, is its own kind of exile.
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The devastating impact of collective punishment
This is what collective punishment looks like. It teaches children that their belonging is conditional. It tells disabled students that when they slip up, they will not only be punished, but publicly shamed. And it tells their classmates that inclusion is dangerous—that proximity to a neurodivergent peer puts them at risk.
