Grace, whose last name is withheld to protect her child’s identity, filed the lawsuit on June 16, almost four months after it was made public. Police were called to John Sweeney Elementary School to de-escalate an incident involving her child. The child, who was in kindergarten at the time of the incident, is also mentioned as a plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, with Grace as his guardian. The lawsuit seeks $ 1 million in damages, legal costs and any further relief that may be offered by the courts. A copy of the lawsuit was received by CBC News. “They victimized my son, they criminalized him, they brought him up as an adult; they did not accept him in their white space,” Grace told CBC News. “My child was never allowed to become a child. He was discriminated against because of his race and color. Hopefully, they did not completely take the child out of him.” The lawsuit, filed in Ontario Supreme Court in Kitchener, alleges that the school board also failed to ensure that staff had an understanding of racism against blacks and could respond to black students with cultural sensitivity. He claims that the school board failed to meet the child’s behavioral needs, implemented learning changes without his consent and ignored the family’s personal recommendations to help him. The WCDSB told CBC News it was unable to comment further on the matter as it could go to court. None of the allegations in the lawsuit or in the comments of the child’s mother have been proven in court.
“He was just a normal 4-year-old”
Immediately after enrolling the four-year-old in John Sweeney Elementary School in September 2021, the school accused the child of being “subversive and destructive,” according to court documents. Grace told CBC News that her child’s behavior was “appropriate” for his age. “He was just a normal four-year-old,” he said. The civil suit alleges that the school proceeded with a child safety plan without the approval of the family. The plan isolated the child from his peers and asked to be evaluated by an occupational therapist and receive a medical evaluation. Despite her disapproval of the plan, Grace contacted a child psychologist who said her son was too young to have any “substantial” effect on an assessment. Court documents also mention many cases in which the child allegedly did not take proper care, such as being denied access to the toilet and therefore getting wet or running into an unattended parking lot. “He is not the child in question. It has nothing to do with his behavior. It has to do with what the school did and what it failed to do,” Grace said.
The police called the child
On November 29, 2021, Grace, who had worked night shifts, missed a school call asking her to pick up her son within 15 minutes due to harassing behavior. He told the school he would be there in 25 minutes, court documents show. When she arrived, she learned that the school had called the police, who took her child home. “Why call the police for a four-year-old boy, in the name of God?” Grace told CBC News. “There is no reason to call the police for a four-year-old child.” He also said that his behavior was not different from any other time he was called to pick him up. “He went to the back of a car, like a criminal … What did he do to make it worth it?” The child was then “expelled” from school, that is, expelled, the civil lawsuit claimed. The lawsuit alleges that the school did not comply with its own police registration protocol. The protocol suggests that police can be called in for various incidents, such as assault, bomb threat and death. An incident classification diagram provided by the WCDSB shows the agreed protocol between the council and the Waterloo District Police on when police officers should be called to a school. (Waterloo Catholic District School Committee) After the incident was made public, the Ontario Minister of Education ordered a third-party provincial review of how the school board handled it. The review concluded with 14 recommendations to the council and five to the Ministry of Education on how best to tackle racism against blacks. Some of the recommendations to the council include hiring black experts to address student behavior problems and modifying policies to ensure that staff are disciplined for racist or discriminatory behavior. The school’s director of education, Loretta Noten, told a meeting in April that the council would review the recommendations for consideration and implementation. However, he said at the time, some of the recommendations went beyond the school board and would require provincial support. He described the provincial report as “a plan for further action against racism against blacks”. In an email Monday, a representative of the Catholic School Committee said some of the recommendations were already in effect when they were made by a government-appointed judge and all recommendations were discussed with a member of the justice ministry’s justice department. “But most importantly, there was a meeting with the Ministry of Education in April, as the government-appointed judge may not have fully understood what falls within the school council’s responsibilities and what action will require the ministry,” the e-mail said. post office. statement. He also said that in order for the school committee to take further measures, it should receive news from the Ministry of Education. “The school council first requires this information in order to proceed.” The spokesman said administrators would be briefed on progress on the recommendations and review in the autumn.
Mom wants all the recommendations in place
Grace said the school council’s response was not about injustices and wants the council to implement all recommendations. “What they did, they should be held accountable for it,” he said. Grace said she and her son were injured in the incident. “Kindergarten was something we were looking forward to. The whole family was happy. I was shopping. They were dancing. We took photos. [The school board] perverse [this] “the whole vision for my son,” he said. Political education suggests that the child experiences a range of psychological traumas, such as emotional trauma, humiliation, insomnia, distrust of those in power, disconnection, and an inability to enjoy life or engage in normal human interactions. He also claims that Grace is suffering physically, mentally and financially
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians – from anti-black racism to success stories in the black community – see Being Black in Canada, a CBC project that Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here. (CBC)
