We appreciate the hard work being done by #bced stakeholders to accelerate the timeline so that families will know sooner what fall could look like. We are, however, concerned to hear advice to families to reach out if their children are immunocompromised, for a few reasons. https://twitter.com/cbcnewsbc/status/1281051198913761280

1. Schools know who these students are. We expect them to reach out, and early, to create the required Continuity of Learning Plans. Families should not have to initiate these conversations. At the beginning of the pandemic we conducted a survey that made a few things clear:

41% of respondents said they had not received any offers of educational support or programming by April 8th. 58% had not been offered Education Assistant support.

By May, when we ran our next survey to check in, 39% of students with #disabilities still had not been given educational support. Over 51% of respondents were not receiving Education Assistant support.

We ran a final check in survey June 10th. Nearly half of respondents felt support had diminished since school reopening, and nearly half of students were still not receiving EA support.

We'll be releasing a compilation report of our #bced exclusion tracker surveys through this complex school year in the next week. But back to the concerns of families of children and youth with disabilities:

2. It's not just students who are immunocompromised who may have different needs due to their disabilities and barriers caused by the pandemic. A news article cannot cover all of this but we want to be clear that all students have the right to equitable access to education.

This is covered under #HumanRights and it means, particularly for students with disabilities, that they may need different ways to access that education during #COVID__19

The educational program provided by @bcedplan needs to address equitable access in all modalities. We hope that this has been a significant part of the discussions that are ongoing, along with internet connectivity, trauma-informed practice, space and staffing issues, and more.

We realize this was likely intended to be a helpful remark but we cannot emphasize strongly enough how deeply upsetting it was to families to feel burdened once again with the need to advocate rather than being able to expect #bced schools and districts to do the right thing.

3. Finally, we put forward a request to the Select Standing Committee On Finance and Government Services for an external body to oversee the Ministry of Education because all of the work of advocacy sits on the shoulders of families. @carolejames

Families of children and youth with #disabilities already have so many demands on their time, and challenges that they face. And if we add other factors such as poverty, racism, and more, those barriers are multiplied. @InclusionBC

So many families will not have the capacity, for so many reasons, to pursue this. They will not be aware their child is supposed to have a Continuity of Learning Plan. They will be afraid of retaliation. @FSIBC

#bced schools and districts need to be reaching out to these families proactively. They need to be prepared to teach EVERY student from the first day of school in September. We say this every year, but it has never been more important. #AllmeansALL #InclusionMatters