This week, we were fortunate to have Chantelle Morvay-Adams from BC EdAccess join our class. BC EdAccess is an organization devoted to advocating for and supporting people with disabilities and their families within the BC education system. Chantelle brought a lot of her personal experience navigating issues of access within the education system into the discussion which I think added a really important lens to her presentation. We have been talking about accessibility in other classes as well and this was a really great reminder of our responsibilities as teachers to address the needs of all students in the classroom.

BC EdAccess Exclusion Tracker

BC EdAccess has created an exclusion tracker for students and/or their families to report instances where they have been excluded from school activities or school altogether. The purpose of this tracker is to confirm the existence of exclusion within the school system, examine the types of exclusion that take place, and to empower students and families with the tools they need to self-advocate. I found it really eye-opening the level of exclusion that students with disabilities are experiencing in schools. In the 2021- 2022 school year, 4760 incidents of exclusion were reported.

“In order to eliminate the discriminatory practice of excluding children with disabilities, we must continuously expose how, when, and where it happens in schools.”

Nicole Kaler, Chair, BC EDAccess

Below is a list of some of the ways that students are being excluded within the B.C. education system that have been reported through the tracker:

  • Only being allowed to attend for a partial day
  • Not being allowed to attend school until an EA is available
  • Excluded from field trips
  • Excluded from extracurricular activities
  • Excluded from certain courses because materials are not adapted
  • Excluded because of concerns over adherence to COVID safety protocols

Moving Towards Equity and Inclusion

After Chantelle spoke, we had discussions in small groups about some of the systematic barriers that exist within the education system and how we might dismantle them and create inclusive classrooms. Some of the ideas that came up in this discussion and that have come up in other classes are listed below.

  • Asking students and families how you can best support them
  • Creating and maintaining open lines of communication with families
  • Google Read-Write text to speech plug-in
  • Speech to text technology in Google Docs
  • Newsela news articles with a variety of reading levels and text to speech
  • Closed captioning on YouTube and in Zoom
  • Using FM systems for learners who are hearing impaired
  • Recording classes for students that cannot be physically in class