Why are disabled children still being excluded from BC public schools after 8 years of NDP government?
The BC NDP inherited a profoundly broken system from 16 years of BC Liberal austerity and chose to manage the optics of that brokenness rather than confront its scale, fund its repair, or tell the truth about how long genuine transformation would require.
They’ve increased education funding and created policy frameworks like the Framework for Enhancing Student Learning. But they’ve positioned inadequate progress as achievement, emphasised “historic investments” without acknowledging whether those investments are sufficient, and created accountability structures without enforcement mechanisms that would compel districts to stop excluding disabled children.
The result: disabled children continue being room cleared, placed on partial schedules, kept home informally, and excluded through mechanisms that operate beneath official visibility—while the government reports “continuous improvement.”
Didn’t the BC NDP promise to do better than the BC Liberals?
Yes. And in some ways they have—education spending has increased, equity gaps are at least acknowledged in policy, and frameworks like FESL exist where the BC Liberals created nothing.
But “better than the BC Liberals” is not the standard. The standard is: do disabled children have what they need to access education? And the answer, observably, is no.
The BC NDP positioned themselves as the progressive alternative that would resource public education adequately, support teachers, and prioritise equity. Eight years in, teachers are still alone with impossible ratios, disabled children are still being excluded, and families still have to hire private advocates to access public education.
That gap between promise and reality is the problem.
Is this article saying the NDP is as bad as the BC Liberals?
No. The BC Liberals systematically gutted education funding, stripped collective agreement protections, and created the conditions that made exclusion inevitable. The BC NDP did not create this crisis.
But the BC NDP has chosen how to respond to it. They’ve chosen incrementalism over urgency, optics management over honest reckoning, and continuous improvement rhetoric over enforcement that would compel districts to stop excluding disabled children.
That choice—to position inadequacy as achievement, to create frameworks without teeth, to measure success by spending announcements rather than student outcomes—has consequences. It gaslights families, exhausts teachers, and abandons disabled children to systems that continue harming them while reporting progress.
The BC NDP is not the same as the BC Liberals. But they are also not adequate to the crisis they inherited.
What the NDP inherited
What exactly did the BC NDP inherit from the BC Liberals?
Sixteen years of systematic underfunding and policy choices that made exclusion structural:
- 2002 contract changes: The BC Liberals removed class size and composition limits, allowing districts to place unlimited numbers of high-needs students in classrooms without adequate support. This created conditions where teachers could be alone with 28 students, five with intensive support needs, and no educational assistant.
- Chronic underfunding: Districts responded by cutting EAs, reducing specialist positions, increasing assessment wait times, and finding ways to exclude students whose needs exceeded available resources.
- Exclusion as pressure valve: Room clears became routine. Partial schedules became accommodation strategies. Informal exclusion became how the system managed scarcity.
By the time the BC NDP took power in 2017, schools were already under-resourced, teachers were already overwhelmed, disabled children were already being excluded, and the infrastructure of harm was already built.
So the NDP didn’t create the problem—why is this their fault?
Inheritance doesn’t determine response. What the BC NDP chose to do with that inheritance—how they narrated the problem, resourced the solution, measured progress, and how honest they were about transformation timelines—those were political choices.
They could have said: “We inherited a crisis. Fixing it requires sustained investment for a decade. Disabled children will continue experiencing harm during that period, which is unacceptable but honest. We’ll measure success by student outcomes, not budget announcements.”
Instead they said: “Historic investments. Continuous improvement. Record funding.” And positioned inadequate progress as achievement while disabled children continued being excluded.
That’s not the same as creating the problem. But it’s also not adequate to solving it.
Understanding “historic investments”
What does “historic investment” actually mean?
It means spending more than the BC Liberals spent—which is measuring against a baseline of profound inadequacy.
When you inherit a system that was systematically starved for 16 years, restoring funding to barely adequate levels is not transformation, it’s triage. And when increases don’t keep pace with enrolment growth, inflation, and rapidly rising designation rates, calling them “historic” obscures more than it reveals.
The government says they’ve invested $489 million in “learning supports”—isn’t that substantial?
It sounds substantial. But context matters:
- Is this adequate to current need? (No observable evidence that it is—teachers still report impossible ratios, EA shortages persist, assessment wait times remain measured in months)
- Does this remediate decades of underfunding? (No—it’s incremental improvement from a crisis baseline)
- Does this keep pace with increasing need? (Designation rates are rising rapidly, especially post-pandemic)
The question isn’t “is this more money than before?” The question is “do disabled children have what they need?” And when disabled children are still being room cleared, still on partial schedules, still waiting months for assessment—the answer is no.
Why does the government keep emphasising spending if it’s not adequate?
Because “historic investments” allows them to position themselves as having solved a problem that families and teachers experience as ongoing and acute.
It’s politically easier to announce spending increases than to admit those increases remain insufficient. It’s more comfortable to talk about continuous improvement than to acknowledge disabled children are experiencing harm right now while we gradually build capacity.
But this gap between rhetoric and reality gaslights families. When the government says “record resources” while your child is on a partial schedule, you question your perception: Are we imagining the problem? Are we ungrateful?
No. The problem is real. The investments remain inadequate. And the government’s choice to position inadequacy as achievement makes advocacy harder.
The Framework for Enhancing Student Learning
2020’s Framework for Enhancing Student Learning (FESL) is a policy structure requiring districts to:
- Develop strategic plans focused on student outcomes
- Report annually on outcomes for priority populations including disabled students
- Engage with communities
- Demonstrate “continuous improvement”
The ministry reviews district reports and provides “capacity-building supports.” Districts must visualise data on academic outcomes disaggregated by student population.
This sounds rigorous. It deploys the language of evidence-based decision-making and equity-focused accountability.
If the Framework exists, why are disabled children still being excluded?
Because the Framework creates the appearance of accountability without enforcement mechanisms that would compel districts to change.
What the Framework does NOT do:
- Establish measurable targets for reducing exclusion (no requirement that room clears decrease, partial schedules become rare, attendance gaps close)
- Require tracking or reporting of exclusionary practices (room clears, partial schedules, restraints, seclusion—all invisible in required reporting)
- Provide dedicated funding for improvement (districts must reallocate existing inadequate resources)
- Establish automatic consequences when districts fail disabled students (enforcement is “communicate, facilitate, cooperate, direct”—only the last involves compulsion, rarely used)
- Operate on timelines matched to childhood urgency (review cycles unfold across years while children experience harm now)
The Framework is performance management infrastructure without performance standards. It allows the government to point to policy and claim accountability while disabled children continue being excluded.
Why doesn’t the Framework require reporting on exclusion?
Because comprehensive exclusion data would expose what districts cannot afford to acknowledge:
- Room clears concentrate where staffing is inadequate
- They increase in direct proportion to EA cuts
- Same children experience repeated evacuations without receiving support
- Certain disabilities trigger clears at rates meeting legal definitions of discrimination
- Some districts manage without normalizing evacuation, proving adequate resourcing produces different outcomes
This visibility would activate legal mechanisms districts prefer to avoid. It would provide evidence for Human Rights complaints. It would require districts to explain why children require emergency procedures multiple times weekly in schools claiming to provide appropriate support.
The Framework’s data architecture is designed to measure outcomes of exclusion while refusing to measure exclusion itself.
Can the Framework be fixed?
Yes, but it would require fundamental redesign:
Establish measurable targets:
- Attendance equity within 3 years
- Room clear reduction to near-zero within 5 years
- Assessment wait times under 60 days within 2 years
Mandate comprehensive transparency:
- Quarterly reporting on partial schedules, room clears, restraints, attendance by designation
- Accommodation approval/denial rates
- Assessment wait times
- Family satisfaction data
Provide adequate, dedicated funding:
- Staffing grants for EAs, psychologists, support teachers
- Professional development funding
- Infrastructure funding for sensory-friendly design
Implement automatic consequences:
- Districts exceeding thresholds enter mandatory remediation
- Persistent failure triggers financial redirection, potential trustee appointment
- Timeline: quarterly monitoring, annual escalation—not multi-year cycles
Measure success by outcomes:
- Are disabled children attending full-time?
- Are room clears rare?
- Can families access accommodation without hiring advocates?
Until these changes happen, the Framework remains what it currently is: accountability theater that enables ongoing exclusion while districts report “continuous improvement.”
Why accountability fails
Why doesn’t anyone seem responsible when disabled children are harmed?
Because the Framework’s governance structure deliberately disperses accountability through multiple organisational layers where no one is ultimately responsible.
When a disabled child is excluded:
- Teacher says: “I’m alone with 26 students, no support”
- Principal says: “District hasn’t allocated sufficient staff”
- District says: “Working within ministry funding constraints”
- Ministry says: “We’ve provided resources and frameworks; implementation is district responsibility”
Everyone is responsible, so no one is responsible. The harm dissipates through organisational layers where each actor can truthfully say “I’m working within my constraints” even while the collective outcome is profoundly harmful.
Where does the funding actually go?
Money flows through multiple decision points where it can be diverted:
Ministry allocation → District general revenue (not earmarked for disability support)
↓
District decisions → Administration overhead, consultants, technology systems
↓
School allocations → Principal discretion, competing priorities
↓
Classroom support → Maybe reaches disabled students, maybe redirected when staff absent
Meanwhile, accountability flows upward through reporting that triggers no enforcement:
- Teachers report “doing our best”
- Schools report “progress”
- Districts report “alignment with strategic priorities”
- Ministry reports “continuous improvement process functioning”
The two systems—funding flow and accountability flow—never connect to ensure money produces outcomes for disabled children.
What truth-telling would require
What should the government be saying instead of “historic investments”?
Honest reckoning would sound like this:
“We inherited an education system where disabled children are routinely excluded, teachers are unsupported with impossible ratios, assessment wait times prevent early intervention, and families must become adversarial advocates for basic accommodation.
Fixing this requires sustained investment beyond current levels for at least a decade. We need thousands more EAs, hundreds more psychologists, retraining of the entire teaching workforce, and physical infrastructure that accommodates sensory diversity.
We’re committed to this work, but disabled children will continue experiencing harm for years while we build capacity. That’s unacceptable, but it’s honest.
We’ll measure success by outcomes: Are disabled children attending full-time? Are room clears rare? Are wait times measured in weeks not months? Can families access accommodation without hiring advocates?”
This is not what the government says. And the gap between rhetoric and reality has consequences.
What would adequate funding actually look like?
Truth-telling would require publishing what adequate resourcing costs:
- How many additional EAs, psychologists, support teachers needed to meet current need?
- What would reducing assessment wait times to 60 days cost?
- What would eliminating partial schedules require in staffing?
- What’s the gap between current spending and adequate resourcing?
- What’s the timeline for closing that gap with measurable interim targets?
The government hasn’t published this analysis. Without it, “historic investments” is meaningless—we don’t know if we’re at 60% of adequate, 80%, or 40%.
Why doesn’t the government just admit the truth?
Because admitting inadequacy creates political vulnerability. It’s easier to announce spending increases than to say those increases remain insufficient. It’s more comfortable to emphasise continuous improvement than to acknowledge disabled children are being harmed while we gradually build capacity.
But choosing political comfort over honesty has costs: it gaslights families, exhausts teachers, prevents transformation (if the problem is framed as solved, there’s no pressure for more), and abandons disabled children to systems reporting “progress” while excluding them.
What could change
What could the government do differently?
1. Tell the truth about scope and timeline
- Conduct and publish comprehensive needs assessment
- Acknowledge current investments remain insufficient
- Commit to sustained funding for 10+ years
2. Establish enforceable standards
- Measurable targets with timelines
- Mandatory exclusion reporting
- Automatic consequences when districts exceed thresholds
- Quarterly monitoring, not multi-year cycles
3. Fund what’s needed
- Multi-year plan to hire 5,000+ EAs, 500+ psychologists, 1,000+ support teachers
- Capital funding for sensory-friendly design
- Intensive professional development (not one-off workshops)
- Family advocacy support
4. Measure success by outcomes
- Stop announcing “historic investments”
- Start reporting: attendance rates, room clear rates, wait times, accommodation approval rates, family satisfaction
- When metrics improve, announce progress
- When they don’t, acknowledge failure and escalate
Is this politically possible?
Yes. Voters respect truth-telling. They understand inherited crises can’t be solved overnight. They appreciate honesty about timelines and investment needs.
What voters don’t respect: being told a problem is solved when their lived experience contradicts that claim. Being asked to trust “continuous improvement” while their children are being excluded. Being positioned as unreasonable for expecting the government to prioritize children over political comfort.
Progressive governance doesn’t require choosing between honesty and electability. It requires choosing honesty as the foundation of effective policy.
For families
Am I imagining that things are still really bad?
No. Your child’s exclusion is real. The gap between government rhetoric and your lived experience is real. You are not being unreasonable, ungrateful, or difficult.
The system is inadequate. The government knows it’s inadequate. They’ve chosen to manage the appearance of that inadequacy rather than fund and enforce transformation.
Why does the government keep saying they’ve made “historic investments” when my child is still on a partial schedule?
Because “historic investments” measures against BC Liberal austerity, not against adequacy to need. Because spending more than before is politically easier to announce than admitting more remains insufficient.
This gap between rhetoric and reality is gaslighting. It makes you question your perception: Are we imagining the problem? Are we ungrateful?
No. The problem is real. The investments are inadequate. And positioning inadequacy as achievement is a political choice that has consequences for your family.
What should I do?
Keep advocating. Keep documenting. Keep demanding better.
When the government announces historic investments, remember:
- Investment ≠ adequacy
- Frameworks ≠ enforcement
- Continuous improvement rhetoric ≠ urgent intervention
Your child cannot wait for improvement cycles that unfold across years. They need protection now, accommodation now, inclusion now.
You are not imagining the problem. The problem is real. It persists not because solutions are impossible but because the government has chosen incrementalism over urgency, optics over honesty, political comfort over the protection disabled children need and deserve.
Where can I learn more?
- End Collective Punishment in Schools – advocacy resources, family experiences, policy analysis
- BCEd Access – disability rights advocacy and support