Gatekeepers, Not Allies: The School-Based Team and Your Child's Right to Support

The School-Based Team (SBT) is meant to be a collaborative, problem-solving group that works alongside classroom teachers to support student learning and well-being. In theory, the SBT helps teachers implement strategies, coordinates additional support, makes decisions about referrals to specialists, and determines how limited resources are allocated. These teams are supposed to meet regularly in every school to ensure students get the help they need.

That is the theory.

But in practice, the SBT has become one of the biggest barriers to support in the education system.

Far too often, students are brought to the team without their families even being notified. Concerns are raised. Decisions are made. Referrals are delayed or quietly denied. And the very people most impacted by these decisions, families and students, are often left out of the room.

Yes, there is typically a referral process, an agenda created in advance, and roles like a chairperson and a note taker. There should be a process for documenting what is discussed. But these procedures rarely translate into transparency or meaningful action for families.

At the head of the table is almost always the school principal. Not a neutral facilitator, but a gatekeeper balancing limited resources, district priorities, and political pressures. When the team is led by someone tasked with protecting the institution, it rarely serves the best interests of children, especially those who are neurodivergent, disabled, racialized, or otherwise marginalized.

When resources are stretched thin, the SBT becomes a bottleneck. Only the most urgent cases make it through. The child who is quietly struggling? The one masking their anxiety or falling through academic cracks without disrupting the class? They are told to wait. Teachers leave with more forms to fill out, more data to collect, but no actual support.

Educators often describe these meetings as disheartening and performative. They enter hoping for collaboration and leave feeling dismissed. Meanwhile, the child continues to struggle, sometimes for months or years, while the system debates whether they qualify for help.

And when solutions are offered, they tend to focus on managing the student, not changing the environment. Compliance is prioritized over dignity. Trauma-informed approaches and structural changes are rarely on the table. The underlying message becomes clear: the student is the problem.

This is not inclusion. This is rationed support.

When a School-Based Team meets about your child and does not include you, it is a systemic failure. It is a process that lacks transparency and accountability. It protects the institution instead of the student and leaves families misinformed and excluded from critical decisions.

No decision about a child should ever be made without their family. No process claiming to support students should be used to justify delay or denial.

It is time to stop pretending that School-Based Teams are automatically inclusive or collaborative.

When access depends on gatekeeping, it is not a team. It is a barrier.

Families, put it in writing at the very start of the school year: you expect to be informed and included in every SBT meeting where your child is discussed. Your voice belongs in the room.