A report from Child, Youth and Seniors' Advocate Kelly Lamrock says school districts have been withdrawing education services from hundreds of the most high-needs, vulnerable children, and the practice has gotten out of control.
The report, entitled A Policy of Giving Up: How New Brunswick Schools Illegally Stopped Educating Hundreds of Children, and Why Government Needs To Protect Vulnerable Children, looks at the practice of placing children on partial days, where for all or part of the day, while their peers are in school, children are sent home with no educational services at all. Lamrock's investigation found that, while the practice was once rare, there are now more than 500 children being denied an education for most of the week.
"The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development just released an education plan placing a focus on school attendance, because children who are not in school quickly fall behind academically and are at risk of a range of issues from drug abuse to poor mental health," said Lamrock. "Yet we found hundreds of cases where school districts are just sending their most vulnerable children home without any services for part of the day. It is bad practice, it is illegal, and there needs to be accountability and oversight."
The report shares numerous stories of the partial-day practice reaching the point where children were not receiving an education. In some cases, children were attending school fewer than 10 hours a week for over a year. In other cases, parents lost jobs and families lost homes because the parents were unable to work. In one case, a child was told to stay home from school in Grade 6 even though he had been recently removed from his family home; the child wound up never returning to school.
"In many cases, we found that schools were placing conditions on the child to prove themselves fit to educate, yet the school took no responsibility when the child continued to struggle to meet the learning targets," said Lamrock. "There were no additional services, no change in techniques. To this day, districts do not track the impact of partial days on the children or whether or not children placed on partial day succeed or just disappear. It is a policy of giving up on the children most in need."
The investigation found that children in care were nearly 20 times more likely to wind up on partial days and be told not to come to school, which Lamrock said raises issues of whether the government is advocating for children in its care. He also noted that there is no legal authority in the Education Act for a school to send a child home with no educational services at all. Section 8 of the act states that the Province of New Brunswick shall provide free school privileges to any resident meeting the age requirement. Lamrock said when he asked what allowed for children to be denied educational services, when the Education Act says they must be provided, the department claimed it was a "variation of the learning environment" - which, Lamrock said, raises legal questions.
"I think this should be evident: a variation of a learning environment means that the child is still in some environment where they are learning," said Lamrock. "If they are home with no educational services, they are not in a learning environment. They are home. If you order a meal in a restaurant and they use chicken instead of beef, that is a variation. If they send you home with no food at all, that is not a variation. That is a refusal.
"It is allowable to provide different services in another location, if it is temporary, targeted and effective. It is not allowable to send the child home without an education."
Lamrock's recommendations include creating a fund for appropriate services for children who cannot be accommodated in the common learning environment; better teacher training on inclusive practices and policies; better co-ordination between government departments to ensure a wider range of services to help high-needs children; and stronger oversight and reporting rules to keep districts from simply putting the most vulnerable children on never-ending partial days.
Lamrock also provided a legal guidance memorandum to school districts to provide more consistency and guidance on when children can be educated outside the common learning environment for targeted, temporary and effective interventions aimed at helping them succeed in the classroom with their peers. Lamrock also announced that, in 12 months, his office will begin doing spot audits to see if the situation has improved and will look at legal options to clarify the law if districts continue to break it. However, the advocate did say he was hopeful of positive collaboration with the department.
"I have shared a draft report and had discussions with senior leadership at the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development," said Lamrock. "I think there is a shared understanding that the practice of partial days has gotten beyond what should be happening. And I do believe that the leadership knows that we need to support teachers and schools with resources, training and clear direction. I am letting the legislative assembly know that the department will need support and resources to make sure that our most vulnerable children are not just sent home when they need an education."
