RedforBCED: When the Care We Wear Doesn’t Match the System We Build

Yesterday, teachers across the province wore red to support public education and to highlight their return to the bargaining table. RedforBCED was meant to symbolize unity. Yet the slogan printed across so many shirts, “Kids Matter. Teachers Care,” reveals a deeper tension that we cannot ignore if we are serious about building an inclusive education system.

We all agree that kids matter. Investing in young people is one of the most important commitments a society can make. But the uncomfortable truth is that we still do not invest in all children equally. While some students flourish under a system built for them, others, particularly disabled students, continue to experience exclusion, shortened days, inaccessible classrooms, unaddressed support needs, and systemic barriers that undermine their right to an education. So when we say “kids matter,” we must ask: Which kids? The daily fight many families face just to secure basic access for their disabled children makes it impossible to believe that all kids matter in practice, especially when this message becomes loud only during bargaining.

And this question reveals an even deeper contradiction. Why is “kids matter” elevated as a rallying cry during negotiations, yet the same organizations that wear it proudly hesitate to fully support human rights in practice? It is difficult to reconcile a slogan that claims all kids matter with an educational landscape shaped by ableism, systemic bias, and decisions that consistently reinforce inequality.

The second half of the slogan, “teachers care,” is even more complicated. Care cannot be proclaimed by one side of a relationship. Nel Noddings reminds us that a caring relationship exists only when the person on the receiving end actually feels cared for. That means teachers’ intentions, while important, are not enough on their own. Families whose children are repeatedly removed from class, denied supports, or told to stay home because the system cannot accommodate them are not experiencing care, no matter how many t-shirts insist otherwise. Disabled students who are restrained, secluded, or disciplined for struggling in environments that were never designed for their needs certainly do not feel cared for by a system that consistently fails to support them.

This is where the gap between declaring care and practicing care becomes impossible to ignore. The BCTF’s lack of support for the full repeal of Section 43, the clause in the Criminal Code that still permits corporal punishment, makes this contradiction painfully clear. If teachers collectively refuse to advocate for the removal of a law that allows physical force against children, especially disabled children who are disproportionately harmed by it, then “teachers care” becomes a slogan without substance. Care has limits when it stops at professional interests. Conditional care is not care.

If teachers want to stand on the moral authority of caring, especially during bargaining, then that care must extend beyond slogans and toward a full rights-based approach to education. It must include a commitment to dismantling the structural inequities that continue to harm disabled students. It must confront the ways in which exclusion, partial days, seclusion rooms, and inaccessible curriculum violate children’s rights. And it must demand systemic transformation, not just improved working conditions.

What becomes clear is that care cannot be something we put on a t-shirt during negotiations and quietly set aside the moment those negotiations end. If care is meaningful, it must shape everyday practice, not just bargaining rhetoric. A system that truly centres students, especially disabled students, shows its care through accountability, transparency, and a willingness to fight for their rights even when it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, or politically costly.

Yesterday’s sea of red could have been a unifying moment. Instead, it highlighted a divide. We do not need slogans that comfort adults. We need a movement that centres the rights, voices, and lived experiences of disabled students who have been consistently overlooked. Care is not something we declare. It is something students must feel. And they will only feel it when the system shifts from sentiment to action, from symbolic gestures to real accountability, and from selective advocacy to an unwavering commitment to the rights of all children.

If teachers truly care, and many deeply do, then now is the time to show it by embracing a rights-based public education system where every child’s dignity, safety, and belonging are non-negotiable. Only then will “kids matter” be more than a slogan. It will be a promise we finally keep.

And this is precisely why we need a unified statement that reflects a shared commitment to human rights, disability justice, and equity for all students. A statement that does not appear only during bargaining and disappear once the contract is settled. A statement that does not centre adult comfort but collective responsibility for the wellbeing and inclusion of every child. “Kids Matter. Teachers Care” is not that statement. It does not capture the courage, solidarity, or systemic accountability that true transformation requires. We can do better, and students deserve better.

A unified message must begin with the truth: every child has the right to access their education without discrimination, without exclusion, and without harm. Until we are ready to rally around that, we are not unified at all.