Scarcity logic
The belief that educational support is a finite resource to be rationed—used to justify exclusion, gatekeeping, and systemic neglect.
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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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What would it really cost to fix the problem?
We talk so much about the cost of inclusion—as if it’s indulgent, optional, something that must be justified—but we rarely talk about the cost of exclusion. And those costs are everywhere: in emergency rooms, in overburdened case files, in classrooms where distress goes unseen. When schools can’t support disabled students, families fall apart trying to…
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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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On graduation and the grievability of disabled children
I’ll try to be normal at my daughter’s graduation, even as I grieve a system that quietly erased her twin and expects no one to notice.
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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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What spoons can’t explain
The spoon theory was a revelation once. A metaphor for invisible disability. A way to say: I don’t have limitless energy. Every action costs. But like all metaphors, it eventually failed me. It suggests I have a drawer of spoons to begin with—something measurable, something I can manage. Something that implies I am in control.…
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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 scarcity script: how manufactured famine shapes public education
British Columbia’s public schools are not suffering from a natural shortage—they are operating under a system of manufactured scarcity. This blog explores how austerity, rationing logic, and institutional self-preservation create harm for disabled students and their families. Drawing on thinkers like David Graeber, Wendy Brown, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Mariana Mazzucato, it reveals how scarcity…
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Engineered famine in public education
In British Columbia schools today, we are not facing a behaviour crisis—we are facing a famine of care. This essay weaves together personal memory, systemic critique, and deep empathy for teachers and families alike to ask why our schools are starving the very relationships that children need to learn and thrive. It calls for an…
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Balancing budgets by denying disabled kids support
In British Columbia, we are told that the education system is improving. Budgets are rising. Inclusion is a stated priority. And yet, for families whose children require consistent, sustained support—especially those who are disabled or living with complex trauma—the lived experience is defined by absence, delay, and denial. There is a growing chasm between the…
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We did everything right, but we were failed
Introducing Robin’s story and the cost of manufactured scarcity In British Columbia, the promise of public education is being quietly dismantled. Not with headlines, not with declarations—but with slow erosion, strategic omission, and institutional neglect.
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The slow boil: delayed support and collective punishment
I think a lot about lobsters, wrestled from the sea and placed in cold water that slowly heats—do they wonder if it’s getting hot in there? How do they decide where the line is and begin to panic? Is it a thought or pure instinct? In kindergarten, my son arrived with a history of trauma…
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Few of us remain our best selves in a room starved of air
If you are a parent of a neurodivergent child, you can recite the script before the phone even buzzes. “[Child] had a very good day and really showed leadership with the younger kids” Pause. “But in the afternoon [Child] had some unexpected behaviour. [Child] is waiting at the office.” Praise is meant to help us feel that…
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Dear other mom, I’ve got a few things to say
I know you’re trying not to make it worse. You write the careful email. You show up composed. You give everyone the benefit of the doubt. You try to keep the tone warm, even when your stomach turns. You’re doing everything you can to stay in the conversation—because you believe that if you’re reasonable, they…
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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…
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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…
