Where There's a Will There's a Way: Medical Exclusions and Section 91 of the School Act

What was meant to protect has become a tool for exclusion. Section 91 of the School Act was written to help schools respond to issues affecting the health and welfare of students, including communicable diseases and mental health concerns. Yet today, this same section is being misused to remove students with disabilities, not because they are contagious, but because they are different. The clause that permits exclusion for a “mental or emotional condition that would endanger the health or welfare of other students” is now being used to justify pushing students out instead of supporting them through inclusive, rights-based approaches.

The language originally intended to manage public health risk has been repurposed to manage disability. Terms like endangerment, risk, and health and welfare, once used to control the spread of illness, are now invoked when a student struggles with distress, anxiety, or dysregulation. A policy designed to protect communities from disease is being used to control behaviour, particularly behaviour connected to disability-related needs.

This is not about health. It is about stigma and avoidance. Instead of recognizing that distress or behaviour may be a natural expression of disability, schools are interpreting these needs as a danger to others. A student showing overwhelm or emotional distress is not a threat to welfare. They are a child communicating that they need support. Yet the system continues to use this section of the School Act as a convenient mechanism for exclusion rather than an obligation to intervene with care and understanding.

This misuse has led to the disproportionate exclusion of disabled students across British Columbia. Students with disability-related needs are being told they “cannot attend” until they are deemed “safe.” Section 91 has become a loophole to avoid formal suspensions, allowing schools to remove students without triggering documentation, oversight, or accountability. The language of health protection is being weaponized to disguise discrimination as safety, erasing students’ right to education under the guise of policy compliance.

The School Act itself contains vague and harmful language that enables this misuse. It states that a principal or teacher may exclude the student from school "until the student delivers to the board a certificate signed by the school medical officer permitting the student to return to the school.” This provision places the burden on families to prove that their child is “safe enough” to attend, rather than requiring schools to demonstrate that they have met their duty to accommodate.

The word endanger has become dangerously elastic. When a student experiences a meltdown, shutdown, or emotional crisis, they are too often labelled a risk. Yet what is truly endangered is their right to an education. This vague and subjective interpretation allows discrimination to hide behind the language of care. It transforms systemic failure, such as understaffed classrooms, inadequate training, and lack of support, into the student’s problem to fix. Instead of asking “What do we need to do differently?” schools ask “What’s wrong with this child?”

Under the BC Human Rights Code, disability, including mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions, is a protected characteristic. Students cannot be excluded because of their disability or the behaviours that arise from it. Schools have a legal duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship, and human rights obligations always supersede internal policies. When Section 91 is used to remove a student whose behaviour is linked to disability, it is not protection; it is discrimination.

Too often, families are told their child cannot return until they are “safe.” But whose safety is being protected? In many cases, safety becomes a stand-in for convenience, allowing exclusion to appear compassionate. It is easier to send a student home than to address the lack of resources, professional learning, or systemic bias that caused the situation in the first place.

Compounding this injustice, many students excluded under Section 91 are not provided with the educational program the law requires. The School Act clearly states that “if a student is removed or excluded from school under subsection (3) or (5), the board must continue to make available to the student (a) if the student is enrolled in more than one educational program, the educational program for which the board is responsible, or (b) in any other case, an educational program.” In reality, this legal requirement is routinely ignored. Students are sent home without meaningful instruction, without support, and without accountability. Their right to education disappears quietly, without a suspension, without documentation, and without recourse.

This is not protection. It is systemic discrimination.

True inclusion demands more than good intentions. It requires accountability, courage, and a willingness to confront the harm caused by outdated policies and ableist practices. It means recognizing that the presence of a disability can never justify exclusion, and that distress is not a danger to others but a signal that the system itself must adapt. Inclusion is not optional, it is a legal and moral obligation.

Human rights are not conditional. They are the foundation upon which every educational decision must rest. When a child is excluded because of a mental or emotional disability, it is not a matter of safety, it is a matter of discrimination.

Where there’s a will to exclude, the system will always find a way. But where there’s a will to include, to understand, to accommodate, and to uphold human rights, there is always a better path forward.

Mental disability is not contagious. But fear, stigma, and exclusion are, and they spread far too easily in schools that have forgotten what inclusion truly means.