Loss of faith in institutions
The long-term emotional fallout of repeated failures. For many families, it’s not a single event but a pattern — the slow revelation that your child’s safety is optional in the system’s eyes.
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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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Why clarity gets punished
I’ve written about documentation, tone policing, gatekeeping, gaslighting, institutional betrayal, and grievability and legitimacy separately, butsometimes it helps to see those pieces in conversation—because together, they reveal something larger. This post draws together the threads of clarity, competence, and credibility, and asks: why do systems recoil when mothers speak plainly about harm? Why does it…
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The architecture of exclusion: how schools erase, silence, and wear down families
Schools are supposed to be spaces of inclusion and support—but for many families, especially those raising disabled or neurodivergent children, advocacy is met with a wall of politeness, professionalism, and performative listening that hides a deeper violence: rhetorical control. One of the most common tactics is tone policing: the redirection of attention from a parent’s concern…
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Not a stick in the mud
When I told another mom recently—someone kind, someone well-meaning, someone whose son used to play with mine back when things were easier—that I was feeling fragile about him being home since March, and that it had all gotten heavier than I expected, she responded gently and said, “Would he like to come over for a…
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Trust as performance: when schools want deference, not dialogue
One of the most infuriating parts of being gaslit by my children’s elementary school was the repeated suggestion that I simply didn’t trust them enough. That the reason my child was struggling wasn’t because support was missing, or harm had occurred—but because I had failed to signal trust. Failed to pretend everything was fine. As…
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Right to no discrimination
Every child has the right to learn and belong at school without being treated unfairly because of who they are. In British Columbia (B.C.), this Right to No Discrimination means public schools must welcome all students on equal terms, regardless of their race, Indigeneity, colour, ancestry, place of birth, religion, family background, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability,…
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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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Comparison of Provincial and Territorial rules on collective punishment in schools
Across Canada, policies on student discipline vary widely—but only one province, Nova Scotia, has taken the decisive step of explicitly banning collective punishment in schools. In April 2025, Nova Scotia revised its Provincial School Code of Conduct Policy to require individualised responses to student behaviour, affirming that group-based discipline is not just ineffective but unjust.…
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You’re not wrong: reflections on motherhood and advocacy
This piece is for the mothers who have become unrecognisable to themselves in the crucible of advocacy—those who perform calm while their bodies tremble with rage, who write polite emails through tears, who scream in the car and smile in the meeting. It is for the women whose clarity was framed as aggression, whose persistence…
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How to lodge an education appeal in British Columbia
Filing an appeal in the Vancouver School District is not for the faint of heart. It’s like falling on glass slowly. Emotionally draining by design. But for some families, it is the only path left. I’ve filed several myself. Sometimes, my child got a little more support. Other times, I walked away empty-handed but still…
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“Urgent: Third Request” — what to do when schools ignore your emails
You write the email. You name the problem. You describe, in detail, what your child is experiencing and what they need to be able to participate. You’re respectful, clear, and solution-focused. And then—you wait. For many families, especially those raising disabled or neurodivergent children, this scenario is far too familiar. The moment you speak up—especially…
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Regulation isn’t colouring a box: how neurotypical emotion models can harm autistic kids
The Zones of Regulation chart is made of four tidy boxes—blue, green, orange, red—a short list of emotions, each offering the illusion of clarity, simplicity, legibility. It’s a system that looks soft, friendly, and progressive, but that often functions as a mechanism for shaping children’s expressions to fit the comfort and control needs of adults,…
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Coerced sibling care in public school inclusion
The school saw twins and imagined comfort. What they created instead was coerced care—using my daughter’s body to regulate her brother without consent, without safety, and without repair.
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The problem with the appeals process
When something goes wrong at school—when a child is excluded, harmed, or unsupported—families are told to “work it out with the school first.” That sounds reasonable on paper. But in practice, it’s vague, unstructured, and often retraumatising. I’ve gone through the Vancouver School Board (VSB) appeals process more times that I’d wish upon anyone. Here’s…
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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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What families learn from the inside of exclusion
We weren’t trained for this. We were not briefed, warned, or prepared. We entered the public school system, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like most parents do—with trust, with hope, and with a belief, however weathered, in the promise that schools would try to do right by our children. What we didn’t understand was how quickly that…
