What’s Behind the Curtain: The Reality of BC’s Inclusive Education Categories

 

Behind the public promise of inclusive education in British Columbia lies a system of gatekeeping, deficit-based categorization, and financial maneuvering that too often leaves students without the support they need and parents scrambling for answers.

At the heart of the issue is the Ministry of Education’s funding model, which ties dollars to disability diagnosis. On paper, it’s meant to ensure inclusion, but in practice, it reinforces exclusion.

Parents are led to believe that to access most learning supports in BC schools, a student must fall into one of the Inclusive Education Categories. Certain diagnoses, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Deaf or Hard of Hearing, or Intellectual Disabilities, are included in categories that bring a specific amount of designated funding. But many other diagnoses, such as ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, or complex trauma, either fall outside these categories or are pushed into the vague and overburdened Category H: Intensive Behaviour or Serious Mental Illness.

Category H is a catch-all category, and often a placeholder for students who are struggling but haven’t yet received a formal diagnosis because many families are stuck on multi-year waitlists, navigating an underfunded assessment system. And while these students wait, they are denied support under the guise of policy and process.

In BC, a child must first be pathologized before they can be supported. We have built a system that withholds help until a problem is formally named, and then leads parents to believe that help is only available if the diagnostic label matches a narrow list. This is the cost of tying money to diagnoses. When we use a deficit lens that makes access conditional, we lose kids along the way.

Parents are often told that seeking an assessment is the only way to access support. The child’s needs are visible and real, yet without a diagnosis that fits neatly into a funding category, schools claim there is nothing they can do. I have seen it happen again and again—students clearly struggling, educators advocating on their behalf, only to be told “no” because the paperwork isn’t in place.

I have watched these children move from grade to grade, passed through a system that fails to support them. The waitlists for assessments stretch on for years. And when the diagnosis finally comes, it only confirms what was already known: this child needed support all along. The label changed nothing about their experience, except now it gives the system permission to act.

But how many years did that child struggle while waiting? How much harm was done in the meantime?

For some, the damage is lasting. By the time support arrives, the message has already been internalized: you are the problem. The constant push to “try harder” becomes the substitute for accommodations. The environment remains unchanged, and the burden is placed squarely on the child.

This is the reality of a system that requires diagnosis before compassion. A system that pathologizes children instead of supporting them. And it’s not just inefficient. It is unjust and unethical.

Parents are routinely told, “There is no funding for your child,” or “Your child only qualifies for half-day support” after finally receiving funding. These statements are not just misleading, they are dehumanizing. The idea that a child’s right to education can be sliced in half based on a dollar amount reflects a system that is more concerned with managing scarcity than meeting student needs.

We must also challenge the widespread myth that funding equals an Education Assistant (EA). It doesn’t. The allocation of Inclusive Education funding is up to each district, and EA time is only one possible use. There is no guarantee that your child will receive any direct support. In fact, many case managers are carrying caseloads far beyond what is reasonable, and the result is that responsibilities are offloaded onto already overwhelmed classroom teachers.

This trickle-down support model places impossible demands on teachers, who are increasingly being pressured by district management and superintendents to stretch limited resources further and further. As teachers burn out, corners are cut. Accommodations are delayed or denied. Misinformation is passed on to parents sometimes intentionally, but other times out of sheer survival.  

When resources are scarce, it brings out the worst in people. Teachers start protecting one another because they know how thinly they are being spread. But while adults scramble to stay afloat, it is the kids who drown.

The problems are compounded by collective agreement limits on class composition. Language that restricts classrooms to a maximum of two designated students from Categories A to G sends a dangerous message: that disability is a burden. Category H students, despite often requiring significant support, are not even counted in this composition formula, rendering their needs invisible in staffing decisions.

This framework doesn’t protect inclusion. It limits it. It is rooted in ableism, assuming that more than two disabled students in a classroom will tip the balance, and that their presence is inherently disruptive to others. This is not inclusion. It is quiet segregation, wrapped in policy language.

This is what happens when we design systems around diagnosis instead of need. When support is contingent, not consistent.

Funding deadlines are another hidden barrier. If your child receives a diagnosis after the ministry’s cutoff date, you are told they will have to wait for support. Schools withhold support not because it’s right or legal, but because they are told it’s not in the budget.

Parents are then fed the lie: “We will support your child when the funding comes.” But education is not conditional. Accommodations are a legal right, not a budget line item.

This system doesn’t just fail to include, it actively harms. Students are forced to adapt to learning conditions that are often discriminatory and deeply dysregulating. They are expected to mask, to manage, to use strategies that place the burden on them to cope, rather than placing the responsibility on schools to accommodate.

When a child is told they cannot be supported until they are assessed, we are not meeting them where they are; we are abandoning them. When a child is told they only qualify for half a day of help, we are not meeting their needs; we are telling them they are only partially deserving. As if their diagnosis somehow disappears after lunch. When strategies replace accommodations and diagnoses replace understanding, we lose sight of the very purpose of education.

The public image of BC’s inclusive education system may be one of equity, inclusion, and support. But behind the curtain lies a model of rationing, discrimination, and deficit thinking.

We must stop confusing policy with principle.
We must stop accepting diagnosis as a prerequisite for support.
We must stop pretending that a funding formula equals inclusion.

Because real inclusion is not about paperwork.
It is about presence, participation, and belonging.
And belonging should never depend on a diagnosis or a budget.