“Collaboration” is often presented as a moral requirement, but it is not always appropriate — especially when serious harm is occurring.

Collaboration assumes shared power and good faith. Many complaint situations involve neither. When a school controls information, staffing, documentation, and timelines, collaboration can become a way of neutralising urgency rather than addressing it.

Collaboration is not appropriate when:

• your child’s safety is compromised
• restraint, exclusion, or discrimination is ongoing
• the school has already minimised or denied harm
• you are being asked to soften language instead of securing change

You can remain respectful without remaining collaborative. External complaint processes do not require relational harmony; they require evidence.

It is not your role to protect the school’s comfort while your child is being harmed.

See A parent’s complaint guide for BC schools: when to push and when to escalate