09/04/2026
Here is another email I received containing important information, fact checked as factually accurate. It concerns those times a school seeks to have a child sent home, the result of behavior or lack of resources. It speaks to your rights and the school's responsibilities.
This is posted with the permission and anonymity of the writer. Please share to inform others:
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Parents need to know.
As a former school board employee, here is something I want every parent to understand as we head back to school:
A phone call asking you to pick up your child because of their behaviour is not automatically a suspension—and it is not something you should accept without asking questions.
Ask:
Is my child being formally suspended?
Are they being formally excluded or “refused admission”?
If so, where is that decision in writing? What is the reason, how long will it last, what is the plan for their return, and what are my appeal rights?
If neither of those things is happening, ask what policy or authority the school is using to require you to remove your child.
Yes, safety matters. Sometimes a situation is serious enough that a child genuinely needs to leave the building.
But sending children home cannot become the default behaviour-management plan simply because there aren’t enough staff available to support them.
For some children, going home is exactly the outcome they wanted. Meanwhile, the parent is the one facing the real consequence—leaving work, scrambling for childcare, losing wages and, in some cases, risking their job because the school cannot manage the situation.
A structured response at school—with supervision, schoolwork, reduced stimulation, accountability, support and a plan to repair and return—may be far more effective than simply sending the child home.
And let’s be very clear: staff shortages are going to push this issue hard this year.
Our provincial government had months to negotiate. Instead, Ontario students and education workers are returning to school without new collective agreements, while school boards are cutting the very people who support students, manage escalating behaviour and help keep classrooms safe.
Fewer staff does not mean parents automatically become the emergency staffing plan.
This is not about attacking exhausted teachers, educational assistants, administrators or office staff. They are being handed an impossible situation too.
This is about a chronically underfunded system shifting the consequences onto children, families and the remaining frontline workers—and hoping nobody asks too many questions.
So get informed.
Ask questions.
Request decisions in writing.
Know the difference between a request and a formal suspension or exclusion.
And do not allow anyone to intimidate you out of advocating for your child.
Because “we don’t have enough staff” is a government failure.
It is not a behaviour plan.
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