A frustrated and exhausted parent, Danielle Kellough, the mother of a 10-year-old child with complex needs, pulled her daughter out of public school system during the pandemic disruption. Giving voice to her painful experiences has now made her the public face for growing concerns that Nova Scotia’s highly-touted inclusive education system has tears in its fabric.
Forced by circumstances to home school her daughter, Kellough is one of a small group of Nova Scotia parents of students, mostly in the middle elementary grades, who have surfaced, once again, expressing concerns that ‘inclusive education’ is failing their kids. Simmering below the surface since 2020, the situation was identified in the Auditor General’s June 2024 school violence report and has now been amplified by inclusion advocates and reported in the regional media.
Confusion persists over what the N.S. inclusive education model provides in terms of mainstream and support programs and what it can deliver. Introduced in stages, since September 2020, the four-year $60-million inclusive education policy initiative is now facing public scrutiny for the first time. (It’s never far from my mind as volunteer board member for the past 12 years at Churchill Academy, one of the province’s three designated special education program schools).
Every student has the right to a public education and that’s affirmed in the Canadian Charter of Rights. Section 4.2 of the Nova Scotia inclusion policy states: “Every student, including those with special needs, should receive full-day instruction every day, with flexibility based on the student’s individual strengths and challenges.” That’s not the case, judging from parent advocates and frontline staff.
It is no longer happening in Nova Scotia, in spite of hundreds of teaching assistants and learning centre teachers being hired since 2018 in a concerted attempt to introduce a far more extensive ‘multi-tiered system of supports’ providing mainstream integration, one-to-one support, and alternative program options within a school.
Growing numbers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or presenting with more complex needs are falling through the cracks. Five years ago, it was reported to Nova Scotia Parents for Public Education, off-the-record, by their card-carrying teacher members. Now, in the wake of the pandemic, the support system has holes and more and more kids are being kept home or struggling along on what are termed “partial day or week plans.”
Deputy education minister Elwyn LeRoux has responded with a rather matter-of-fact explanation. “Our inclusive education policy does not say every student needs to be in every classroom every single day or all of the time,” he told CBC News Nova Scotia. He’s acknowledging, it appears, that four years after its implementation, the policy remains “misunderstood” by parents and the public.
LeRoux’s summary assessment passes the sniff test, but it’s cold comfort to parents whose priority, each and every day, is to minister to the pressing needs of their severely learning challenged, periodically hard-to-calm, and frequently frustrated children.
Rough Transition to Inclusive Education
Nova Scotia’s current inclusive education policy originated with the exemplary and well-received Commission on Inclusive Education (2017–2018) and its March 2018 “Students First” report (Njie, Shea and Williams, 2018). Within a year, the Nova Scotia Teachers Union was raising concerns about “a lack of collaboration and transparency” focusing on the speed and process of implementation. An internal and limited scope implementation review (2019-2020), conducted by a University of Ottawa team led by professor Andy Hargreaves with Jess Whitley and Trista Hollweck, did unearth a whole thicket of complications.
Forward momentum in 2019-20 was completely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, just as hundreds of staff were being hired and everyone was adjusting to new or reassigned roles. Classroom teachers were anxious about being expected to “teach all students” in their classrooms, many without the benefit of much faculty of education coursework or recognized special education certificates.
Shifting of roles and job descriptions of teachers, specialists and education assistants was fraught with overlap and confusion, breeding school-level tensions over “role identities.” No further departmental review was ever shared with the public.
Taking Stock – What’s Been Accomplished?
Five years after the initial rollout, Auditor General Kim Adair took a stab at assessing its effectiveness in her alarming June 11, 2024 report on the widespread and unchecked incidence of school violence, the prevalence of disrupted classrooms, and lapses in provincial education oversight.
Comparing Nova Scotia classrooms in 2018, when teachers and support staff identified serious concerns, with today (2022-23), the AG reported that the number of teaching assistant positions rose from 1,772 in 2016-17 to 2,636 in 2022-23 (or an increase of 49 per cent) and learning resource teachers grew from 902 in 2016-17 to 1,034 in 2022-23. Yet not much has changed because, seven years later, educators were “still experiencing similar challenges.” Staffing-up has not produced the anticipated results.
Sources of Confusion
Implementing inclusive education is far more complex that it appears from the outside. It’s a contentious field dominated by two competing philosophies and reform priorities, neatly represented by the all-inclusive classroom ( exemplified in ‘Universal Design for Learning’ UDL) and the more pragmatic alternative, full continuum of supports (best known as “Response to Intervention” (RTI) or “Multi-Tiered System of Support” (MTSS))
Vocal parent activists, empowered by New Brunswick-based Inclusive Education Canada, are staunch supporters of establishing and maintaining an all-inclusive classroom, strictly in line with human rights law, and removing ‘alternative settings’ or rationing access to external programs and resources. That approach was fully considered and rejected by the N.S. Inclusive Education Commission five years ago. What Nova Scotia adopted was MTSS and that’s what’s being implemented in all elementary schools.
Today far more children are being identified requiring intensive services or classroom accommodations, mostly driven by the dramatic increase in the sheer numbers of children with diagnosed conditions or language learning challenges.
The reported incidence of autism order diagnosis across Canada is now 1 out of every 50 live births, for example, meaning the average school with 300 to 400 students is currently serving at least 6 to 8 kids with serious, ongoing learning challenges. It’s a credit to the leadership and tireless work of Cynthia Carroll of Autism Nova Scotia and her staff that most are more accepted and supported, to varying degrees, in our schools.
Well-intended advocacy, supported by Inclusive Education Canada, is not always helpful because, while it gives voice to legitimate human rights concerns, the prescriptions proposed by IEC researchers such as Jacqueline Specht and activist scholars always revert back to the same formula – the promise of an all-inclusive classroom supported by an education assistant for every child presenting with a wide range of learning disabilities. Putting more adults in the classroom has not worked so far, at least in Nova Scotia.
Fully Inclusive Classrooms — Now Unattainable?
What’s abundantly clear in Nova Scotia is that fully inclusive classrooms have become unattainable, especially in the wake of the pandemic crisis. Speaking on a June 2024 Inclusive Education Canada webinar, Child Advocate Kelly Lamrock cited the two key reasons: the incredible challenges of teaching and managing today’s complex classrooms and the lack of sufficient, focused and sustained resource support to make that transition. Pandemic education fallout in the form of persistent learning gaps, child mental health issues, social media addiction, and disruptive classrooms has all made matters worse.
Five years on, it’s time for a comprehensive, arms-length provincial review of inclusive education policy implementation. Let’s take a hard look at the persisting barriers and discontinuities, repair the tears in the fabric, and ensure that every child has meaningful access to public education.
*A shorter version of this commentary appeared in The Chronicle Herald, August 1, 2024.
What explains the gap between theory and practice in Canadian inclusive education reform? Where does the confusion over inclusion arise? How representative is Nova Scotia of the problem of implementing inclusive schooling for everyone? To what extent has the pandemic fallout and its collateral damage made it unattainable in Canada’s schools?