Blake Hunsley You're listening to within our reach a podcast by reachability association that focuses on accessibility, inclusion and leveling the playing field at work and in your community. My name is Blake Hunsley, and my co host is Shelley Alward MacLeod, and today we are joined by reachAbility's health and wellness coordinator Chelsea Coffin. In this episode, we'll be discussing the role of educational program assistants in the Nova Scotia public school system. Enjoy the episode.

Blake Hunsley Welcome to the within reach podcast. I am one of your hosts, Blake Hunsley,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod and I'm Shelley Alward MacLeod, and today we

Blake Hunsley have a very special guest with us. We have well to introduce yourself. Who are you? Who do we have? Hello.

Chelsea Coffin Thank you for having me. My name is Chelsea coffin, and I am the agency manager here at reachability.

Blake Hunsley You sure are. And today you're talking to us about something you have a lot of experience with. EPAs in the education system? Yes. So first of all, for people who don't love it when we throw acronyms right at the start of the episode, what is an EPA?

Chelsea Coffin An EPA is an educational program assistant. Yeah.

Blake Hunsley And so we should explain a bit too. So how do you have experience with with educational programming assistance? Yes. So

Chelsea Coffin I have an 11 year old daughter who requires an EPA, has had an an IEP. And for anybody that doesn't know what an IEP is, it's an individual education plan. She's had that since grade two in school, so I've been working with the Learning Center with EPA for the majority of her life. She was born with microcephaly, which essentially means that her head is a lot smaller than the average child, and with that comes a smaller brain, and with that comes some intellectual barriers, some she has a cognitive disability, right? Okay,

Blake Hunsley so what sort of an impact does an EPA have for your daughter in her, in her average day at school, an

Chelsea Coffin EPA is, is, is a support for her. I could go on and on about our education system and how teachers operate in the classroom. Teachers are taught to teach neurotypical children, and in this day and age, we don't have a whole classroom full of neurotypical children. So the main priority for EPAs is to take those who are not neurotypical and help them through the tasks, the routines, the work that they need to get done on a daily basis.

Blake Hunsley Okay, so the reason we're bringing this up today because we always tend to start an episode with an article for reference. Shell, you've read the article for reference here. Did you want to give us a quick summary of the situation from last year? Yes, so

Shelley Alward-MacLeod Well, first off, this article is in relation to the fact that the educational program assistants were looking to go on strike, and so that was, that was going to obviously cause some significant issues the province made, you know, some statements about the fact that parents might, might have support. It might affect that there was lots of might. There was not, like, any definitive what we're going to do. And some families were, you know, left having to try to find somebody to support their child. That was going to be a very costly venture. All this, you know, to say that kind of like, you know, tying into Chelsea's original comments about an EPA supposed to be a support system, you know, many years ago, right? The school system was created okay for just neurotypical, right? Like children who had any deficit whatsoever weren't even Welcome at school because they couldn't be handled and, you know, so we've come a long way in the fact that, you know, schools are supposed to be inclusive. So we've added these learning centers, we've added these educational program assistance, which may be called educational assistance in some school boards, even within Nova Scotia, they don't all have the same title. So that just goes to show you, we're still not all on the same page in our own province, right? They have different names, but for the purposes of this EPA and so, so that's you know. So that we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. Because, again, even within our province, even within the hrce, the Halifax Regional Center. They're not every school has access to the same thing. Not every school has a full Learning Center, right? They often will have maybe a teacher that's half Learning Center and half teaching. Right? Meaning they're not 100% available, okay to so if there are EPAs, the EPA may not have access. There may not evict, be a physical room called the Learning Center, right? So again, these are challenges, right, that we still have yet to to overcome. So having said all that, I want to give a little bit of background for those people that might be watching that don't even understand what the process is, because I think it's always fair to talk about if we have made some improvements, but like everything, there's a lot more improvements to be made. And then I think that this article and the you know, the looming strike, for our potential for strike, really started to highlight the cracks in that foundation, because I don't think, I don't think the average Nova Scotian realizes that the teachers aren't the only people in school, so it's the support staff. So while people are like, Oh, well, school's still going to be continuing, right? Just because there's no EPA is like the teachers can handle all that, but those are usually from people who don't have children that need to be supported by an EPA, right? Which is a large number, okay, of people. So, yeah, there

Blake Hunsley were 2500 students supported by EPA is, and I think, I think that was just, that be just HRC.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod That's just HRC. So that's

Blake Hunsley just Halifax region. That's that is a significant number then. And I know a lot of the issue when this was, and we should mention too, for anyone who missed this story at the time, the strike was averted, thankfully. So we, we did avoid the situation kind of at the 11th hour, but there were schools where the principals were quoted as telling some parents, it's not safe for your child to attend if their EPA is on strike. Now is that a situation that your daughter would have been in? Would it have been safe for her to attend without an EPA or possible? Or no, it

Chelsea Coffin was. Yes, it was and and they, they did go on strike for, oh, they did go, they do go on strike, yeah. So there were people left.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod Think it was like a week or something. It was like one school week, yeah, during what? I mean, I don't know how many, I can't remember how many days. Yeah, right, yes, the

Chelsea Coffin strike did happen fortunate. I mean, fortunately and unfortunately. It didn't impact my daughter a whole lot, but that's not her routine. I mean, everything within a school system is such a domino effect. You take one piece of the puzzle out and it's going to affect everybody else. So now she doesn't have her EPA, now she's not going to the Learning Center. Now she's in the classroom with everybody else, and that's not what she's used to, nor is the teacher used to that, which is just wild to me, because that's her teacher, and her teacher isn't used to teaching my daughter in in that way it to me, it like I said, it is such a domino effect, and this is what, this is what perplexes me. An EPA only needs to have a high school diploma, really. Yeah, a teacher needs a bachelor of arts and a Bachelor of Education. So why are we having folks who have a high school education, which there's absolutely nothing wrong with, with just having that. But with that comes lack of experience. Call it what it is, lack of education. So you're put in a room with the most

Blake Hunsley the most vulnerable,

Chelsea Coffin the most vulnerable kids, the kids that need the most support, and you don't really have a grasp of what you're getting into. And everybody is different. You have a kid with autism, you have a kid with microcephaly, you have a kid in a motorized wheelchair that can't feed themselves, go to the bathroom on their own. You know, there's just no way that you can come out with a high school education and be able to tackle all of that. Most teachers with a BED cannot tackle a piece of that, so it's set up to fail. This is why the EPAs are getting burned out. They're overworked, they're underpaid, therefore, yes, they should go on strike, but the bar needs to be raised higher. So I don't think it's on the EPAs. I think it's on the school system to demand a little bit more. But I think that's where that that's where it's broken, is nobody's demanding higher education. For EPA,

Blake Hunsley it's one of those things where it looks on the surface, when you first look at EPA, and you know, every, every child who needs one has an EPA, let's say, in the perfect world, in this system, that sounds great on the surface of it. I This is the first I've ever heard that high school is all you need. And again, nobody's maligning a high school education, but when you're talking about the most vulnerable students, I would have expected a lot more training than that. Yeah. Okay, so this is very interesting to me, because, yeah, you definitely, you clearly had some thoughts written on your face. When you sat down, I have many thoughts. I'm definitely, definitely starting to see why. Okay, so is this really just, is it really just more of something where they've tried to make it look like they've solved a problem then, because that's what it kind of sounds like

Chelsea Coffin to me, this, this is a band aid on a bullet hole, right? This will happen again, absolutely, the only that you can't point fingers at the EPA themselves. You have to point the finger at the educational system again. You need to raise the bar higher. It just it doesn't make sense to have people with lack of education, lack of experience dealing with the most vulnerable group within a school, yeah, make that make sense to me. It never has, and it never will, until things change, right? And

Shelley Alward-MacLeod you know to take it one step further that you know these EPAs that have, you know, a minimum amount of education, certainly, obviously have passion, because you just don't do this job like unless you you know, love to be in a helping and supporting nature. But Chelsea referred to the fact that her daughter's teacher Okay, which I find to be a bit of an oxymoron, because the teacher okay is really in name. Only you know that that child was in that class, and this is where I see some of the panicking starting Okay, not only for the parents in this case of the strike, but even, like at the school level, because the teachers okay would be saying to the principals, like to their school admin, if I don't have an EPA, I can't have those people in my class. Like because here's the thing, those the students, all the students might be in the classroom, right? They might spend some time in the Learning Center, but they might also be in the classroom, but when they're in the classroom, their EPA is sitting there right with them, okay? And oftentimes working with them on the activity that they're doing, right, and the teacher would have little to no interaction with the student. So now all of a sudden, the EPAs are going to go on strike, right? And here's this teacher, okay, who doesn't know? I mean, sure they know the learning plan, because they have to sign off on the learning plan, but they're they've not worked with it, they've not worked with that student, and now they're going to be responsible for that student. You're right. It's not safe, and it's not it's not a safe place, because now you're putting somebody responsible who doesn't have any idea, and they're going to learn on the go, right, right? And as Chelsea said, Every student has different requirements, well, and that seems pretty normal that we are starting to figure that out, because no two humans are exactly alike, right? And whether you have whether you have a disability, okay or not, your learning style is still different. So I think this sort of brought a lot of that to the light. I'd like to think, but that's my rose colored glasses, probably on them that that will force some additional change of you know, luckily, the strike didn't last long, and probably because of some of these are, I mean, let's face it, there was a lot, okay, of publicity, like a pushback, right? Not just from the parents, but at the school levels as well, right? So it shows the turmoil, like, you know that you're right. We think we've put a band aid. We think we have all these titles that we can say, Oh, we have a learning center, we have EPA, we support, but

Blake Hunsley do we and what happens if something interrupts that system? Because you're right, it is, and I can see it being difficult on a teacher who doesn't have that experience in the classroom as well. But thinking about your daughter and thinking about you know myself as a neurodivergent individual, and how change affects me. Like, how does, how does sudden change in her routine affect her? I can see that

Chelsea Coffin being incredibly destructive. Yeah, it's a nightmare. If I think for any neuro divergent person, routine is what keeps you together. When you throw that routine off, behavior changes, just routine changes. Everything is, is completely goes down the down the sink. It's, it's awful. And just in the article, you know, they talked about how EPA is, are the backbone of the educational system. Yeah. They're the backbone because they have to be, right? They're the backbone because you've appointed them to be shovel the shit, basically, to take on everything that you're either not capable of, don't have time for, and you're you're putting this load on people that simply do not have the capacity to do it. Yeah,

Blake Hunsley correct. And then when they try to strike what I presume you know most people are on your strike for is something close to a living wage. Then suddenly, the blame gets shifted onto the EPA as well. Look what you're doing to these children. Look at the costs that you're pushing onto in the article, they interviewed a single mother who was looking at $225 a day to have her child, to have one child supported at home while these EPA were on strike. And it's that seems very unfair to the EPA is for certain, but the whole situation is most unfair to the students. So what's the solution? Because we can't, we obviously can't tell somebody in any role, Hey, you can't strike. But right? And putting these kids in such a vulnerable neither, and

Shelley Alward-MacLeod let's just highlight that $225 a day, right? We talk about, you know, there's another flaw in our system. We talk about the fact that schools accessible to all like, right? And we, you know, we seem to be very proud of the fact that we've made it inclusive to all. Well, to have to, have to say that school is going to continue, and the school board's all proud of the fact that we're going to be able to continue school, even if there's a strike. Well, now school is not inclusive to all right? And now you're going to charge somebody $225 like to get an education daily, okay? Like the bare minimum, right? That that is some significant problems with the system, if you will. I was thinking, you know of Chelsea that you know this has brought a lot of things to light, and I know you've been working with this and the system for many years, like with with your daughter, we would have, you know, some listeners who have, who have children that will soon be entering the school system, that that will need the services will likely have some, you know, individual educational plan. What advice do you have for them? You had to navigate that. You have

Chelsea Coffin to be your child's advocate. When I when my daughter started school, I let them know she had a disability. I absolutely loved her elementary school, and I should note, she's in a junior high now, so things have changed drastically. It's like the older that kids get, kind of the more they want to veer away from the kids. Well, they're growing up. They should know how. No, my daughter's biologically almost 12, but is cognitively probably five or six. So you, you know, you have this, this almost, you know, five foot nine girl walking down a hallway. Yes, you're going to assume she's self sufficient. She can figure out where the bathroom is. She can, you know, she should be able to do all to do all this this. Don't assume. So that's number one. Don't assume what kids are capable of and what they're not capable of. But my advice would be to be their advocate, because you can't, you can't put your trust within the school. You know your child best. You know it's going to work, and you have to be the one to stand up and say, I don't like that, or that's not going to work. Or why are we doing this? That's the only way that it will work. See how you have to fight. That's what it's been for, like, the past 7, 7-8, years. It's just like fighting. Is

Blake Hunsley there anything you've seen over your time, because you've obviously been really engaged with the school system this whole time. Is there anything you've seen that's actually improved, that's measurably improved in your experience during that time? No, I was going to say, for anyone listening, I'm not getting an optimistic look here. No, that's really disheartening. In almost a decade, we

Chelsea Coffin have constantly but since she has started primary, but we've constantly been toeing the line between the system, coddling her and pushing her too far. It's like we can never find that sweet spot. You know, why are you opening her applesauce? She can do that. Why are you opening her water bottle? She can do that. Why are you sticking her in the back of the classroom with a worksheet, giving long instructions and saying, okay, good luck. Let me know if you need anything. Obviously, she can't do that. So sometimes I feel like I'm nit picking, but I just I want to shake them most of the time and say, Come on, like just have some common sense or get to know her. And that's she's either been extremely coddled, or she's been set up with extremely unrealistic expectations. Again, kind of you were talking about how inclusive schools should be? I was thinking about this yesterday, and when a child is suspended from school because of behavior, that's a consequence. You did something wrong. You're not allowed to come back to school. It's on your parents to figure out what's going to happen in that time, right? That's exactly what's happening here. So it's making these kids and you know, when EPA strike, it's making the kids and the parents feel like, Oh, this is a consequence. I did something wrong that's now on me to fill my child's time because my kids not allowed to go back to school, right? Those are not a suspension and a strike are not the same thing. And if you're

Blake Hunsley feeling that as a parent, guaranteed that your child is feeling that too. I can't go back to school

Chelsea Coffin and be with my peers. I can't be part of that routine because I'm not allowed to go back to school right now.

Blake Hunsley Yeah, and you're often talking about students who may have the hardest time understanding that that it's not their fault

Chelsea Coffin and they can't my daughter wouldn't be able to understand like I said, she was able to continue going to school? Was it beneficial? I don't really think so, but she was welcome. And I have a full time job, and my husband has a full time job, you know, we're not going to pay for child care. Again, she's almost 11, like she can't go to daycare, so it puts us in a really weird position. But it's not the same. It's not a consequence to the child. And how do you explain a child with any kind of disability that this isn't on you? You can't go back to school, but this isn't on you? Yeah, that doesn't make sense,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod So I'm thinking about, you know, when you said about advocating for for your child, because we are talking about like, well, first off, children, our most vulnerable part of the population, coupled with Okay children who also require support, right outside of just the normal parental support. This is a critical piece of, like our education system. It's a critical piece of, you know, eventually your daughter will be an adult, yeah, right. And it's about trying to, you know, help them understand support. It feels to me like when you said that there was no improvements that, but there's not a consistent process in the system. Almost. Kind of seems like a weird thing to say, but it's like the school system needs more education, on inclusion. What does inclusive education mean? Yes, so everybody's on the same page. Because I feel like, you know, you might lucky in one year where you get a teacher, an EPA in the Learning Center, and they're all on the same page, but then the next year, the child goes to another teacher who doesn't really know much about that, has to sign off on it, and then just kind of lets it fall to the EPA, so then there's not really, there's less support or whatever. And don't get me

Chelsea Coffin wrong, last year, she had an amazing team because they were all on the same page, and I think we just lucked out with a really compassionate understanding. Want to know more kind of human teacher, and we still keep in touch with her to this day, because she's she was fantastic this year. We don't have the same thing. We don't have a teacher that, in my opinion, really cares or wants to care. You know, I've got a classroom of like 29 other kids, three of them are on IEPs. And to go back to the topic of inclusion, my daughter being one of those three, they all sit together. Tell me that that's inclusive. So you've got all of the neurotypical kids sitting wherever they want to sit, but you're going to put the three that three that go to the Learning Center have an EPA. They're all sitting together. Yeah, spread them out. There's no goddamn reason that they need to sit together. They're sure there is. It's

Blake Hunsley a nice, casual way to stigmatize them for everyone and put that in the other kids heads nice and early, right? That's a horrible situation. It sounds like a small thing, but it's not. It's

Shelley Alward-MacLeod not as well. And I think that's, that's what we're really coming to here, and that is the fact that the we might say we're inclusive, right? It's, it's, it's the back to this. It's no different than workplaces where, you know, we, we use these button buzz words, but we're not really inclusive, because not everybody's on the same page. No, right? And we're not, you know, we're not applying the same, you know, rules. I mean, even just within from year to year, within the same school, okay? One school? In hrce and another school look very different as well. Okay? And then if you know, heaven forbid, if you have to move outside of HRC to another school board, you may have a whole other different set like for this in and of itself, okay? Shows that like it's broken. It is right, and people aren't. People aren't on the same page. I'm I, I, it's not that I disbelieve that teachers aren't educated, right? They are obviously educated, um, in being a teacher, right? But I don't know that they're educated in being a teacher of all children, and that, I think that's that's the key. That's the key because maybe you've lucked out as a teacher, and then the first four years of your teaching career, you've never had anybody in your classroom on an IEP, right? Then all of a sudden you have three people like, what do you do if you've never had any education? There's no process for that that is going to cause problems. Yep.

Blake Hunsley And what do you do when you have 29 keeps sticking with 29 kids is a lot in a classroom, especially when you have three that are on individual plans on top of that, and then we're it sounds like we're also missing. There's no passing along of information from year to year, even within the same school like the and I presume the answer is the same as it always is. There's no time and no resources to do this. But if we're going to talk like this article did, we had a lot of education officials saying, you know, education is a human right. That is our policy in Nova Scotia. Well, that's great. Having all the kids show up at the school. That does not mean they're all getting an education. That's that's very clear here. So where is the time being spent? Why isn't the time being spent having a teacher speak to the next grade up, teacher when we're transitioning a child into the next level and saying, Okay, this is what worked this year. This is what didn't this is what triggers some behavior. This is what really mellows this child out. This is going to make your job much easier. Yeah, you're not coming in blank and scared as a teacher, but we're not shoveling everything onto the poor EPA either. We're all taking some responsibility here

Shelley Alward-MacLeod well, and I think, I think that comes down to the fact that we keep riding on the fact, well, we have, we have change like teachers move around. People move from positions. So we're, we're forcing all of the continuity to be in a specific person's mind. So the Learn, if the Learning Center teacher has all of that continuity for all the children that can be passed back forth, that learning center teacher retires, that learning center teacher, all of a sudden goes to work at a school closer to where she lives. Finally got the dream job. Yeah, right. You know, like all those things, all of that knowledge goes with that particular teacher. You know, this is where you know, this is where I'm seeing that there's opportunities for processes to be in place, so that there is an automatic, you know, like, what is that continuity of of process for students as they move from one grade to another? And

Chelsea Coffin they Yeah, they do meet and they say, This is what worked. This is what didn't work for a for a neurotypical student, I think they all kind of sit round table, they give a check mark, Boom. Done like that. I had to do one with my with the Learning Center and the EPAs and the teacher right before school ended this year, and it was hell trying to get that meeting, because you need everybody in the same room, and it's like, oh, sorry, I have a million things to do. Oh, it's end of year. I have a million Okay, but why, like, why does this one fall to the bottom of the list? Why isn't it something else? That's

Blake Hunsley my point, and why is the onus all being put on the parent? And I'm not going to say the parent shouldn't have a level of responsibility here. Of course, every parent should, but your daughter is lucky to have parents who are very engaged with the education system, who know a bit about the inside of the system and a bit more about her particular needs. Not every child has that we know. We've all seen very bad situations with that. So if the education system is relying that much on parents to make this work even a little bit, how many kids are just getting absolutely failed from top to bottom through the system?

Chelsea Coffin Yeah, I mean it. I didn't find out until a few months later that they had my daughter on coffee cart, which is like a student, like two students go around and they sell coffee to the teachers. She was watching movies every day. She was like, going with the grade one and the grade primaries, to basically, like, sit with them and not even read with them, but just to, like, hang out and, like, help them get their boots on, which is, which is fine. But like, Why? Why is she not learning anything? You know, like, I'm all for social skills. And I told them social skills need to be improved. Move, but like coffee cart and movies every day like that. This is a daycare. You're basically giving me free daycare, which I don't want, I want her to learn something. It just goes back to the the standard that we have for EPAs. They're never they're never consistent, that turnover rate. I can't even tell you what that looks like. It is astronomical. Exactly as soon as they're in the door, they're out the door, and they have to hire a new one, and that one's like, Oh God, I didn't know what I was getting myself into out the door, in the door, right until that changes, there's not going to be any continuity, right? Yes,

Blake Hunsley which isn't going to change, of course, until we have, from the sounds of it, a massive investment, not just in paying these people proper wages to keep them around longer, but in educational training. You cannot have someone fresh out of high school thrown into this system. They need, they need to be prepared better than that, and

Chelsea Coffin not even, you know, obviously some fresh out of high school. But I've seen older EPA 40s and their 50s that haven't worked in this field throughout their adult life. There's only so much you can do with a high school diploma, so they're working those level jobs, and then an EPA position comes up. Oh, sweet. I get summers off, boom, I'll apply to that.

Blake Hunsley Yeah, oops, yeah, exactly

Unknown Speaker what it is, yeah. Okay, so

Blake Hunsley we're getting close to the end of our time here as a parent who's been through this for almost a decade now, and as someone who has strong, legitimate feelings, which I appreciate on the podcast every week, if we could ask you, what would be three changes that you think would improve the situation for your daughter in the Nova Scotia education system right now,

Chelsea Coffin and I think I've already kind of talked about them. One is raising the, you know, having a higher standard for EPAs education and pay. Number two would be for teachers and the Learning Center to have a better investment in that child's learning, getting to know that child a little bit more, and not just kind of placing them in that miscellaneous category that all children with disabilities in the school system seem to be placed in. And number three would just be for for parents to continue that open line of communication, don't don't back down, let the school know I'm not going anywhere. That's worked in my favor. I've had to stand up and raise my voice a couple of times, but you get heard, and that's when you start to see change. Is

Blake Hunsley there any kind of grouping or association for parents who are facing these kind of issues, if their children are on the individualized education plans or no not that I know that would be very interesting to see, like a parent teacher sort of separate for people who really need to be in there making a little extra change for their children. But again, it's also more responsibility on the parents. Yeah,

Chelsea Coffin I've certainly, you know, I have a couple of friends that are in the same position that I am with their kids, and, you know, we kind of band together and like, Oh, good job. I'm glad you did that. Or, you know, hey, you should try this next time. We kind of have our own little secret underground club, yeah, but nothing public. Gotcha.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod Okay. And there used to be, you know, to that point, there used to be student advisory, like like parenting, like the parent advisory committees, like for each school, and then they did away with those when they rebranded to the Centers for education and civil boards. But I see that they're bringing those back in some areas now. Some have been brought back for specific focus groups on they're building a new school, and they're getting putting together a student advisory, but I think they're hearing more and more okay that we need to have the parents, you know, input as to what's happening in this school, and if that comes back, and maybe there is some advocacy, like on parents behalf to force that to come back, then it would allow parents like Chelsea okay to sit on that committee to make sure, okay, that always the topic of inclusive education is being considered in whatever topic We talk about, we're gonna have a school fair. Okay? Well, what happens to the kids that are inclusive, right?

Blake Hunsley I think the thing these you said that stuck with me the most, Chelsea, is just to get to know for the teacher, to get to know your child, spend a little more time. I think that's not just for children too, with with disabilities of any kind in the school, but just not only how every kid learns differently too, but I saw a woman speaking yesterday, and she was talking about the things she wished her teachers had known about her in school, and she was Korean American. She said, for one thing, I wish the teachers had learned that the other Korean American girl in my class who looked nothing like me was not me, because for the entire year, we got each other's tests back, no matter how many times. They saw something about it. So yeah, getting to know, getting to know the children in your class for a number of different reasons, sounds like a struggle. Unfortunately, I think it comes back to numbers, but there are some teachers getting

Chelsea Coffin to know and stop taking pity. That's one thing that I've run into that drives me absolutely nuts. Is just because she has a disability doesn't mean you need to get down on your knees and talk to her like a little girl. She's still a human and she's still, you know, biologically, 11 years old. Let's, let's talk to her like she's 11 years old, and let's not again, put her in that miscellaneous category because she doesn't act like the rest of the classroom. You don't need to take pity on her. No,

Blake Hunsley having met her very briefly in future, if she's a tough, resilient, charming kid, has to be Yeah? Well, yeah, exactly. I can see where that's coming from. But also I would like to think that some teachers would see and recognize that, and, you know, kind of encourage, encourage what's already there when they're helping to do what they're supposed to be doing, building skills for her

Chelsea Coffin future. Yeah, I would love, I would love to see that. But the majority of the teachers have either kind of written her off or been like, oh, special little project, because she's a special little girl.

Blake Hunsley Special, our favorite word around Yes, yeah. Okay. Well, before I start swearing in response to the word special, as I usually do, why we call it there while we're still being semi polite, it's,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod time to bring the the voice of reason. That's me. We

Blake Hunsley talked to us before we started podcasting today. Actually, you are the one that holds us exactly.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod I'm the one who stops the podcast just before me. Anyway, this is, this was a very good topic to talk about today, because I think we, you know, we often talk about on the podcast, we're talking about, you know, a variety of different things that come up, but they all tend to talk about, like the workplace. And I think, well, obviously the school is the workplace, but we're actually talking about a different bit of inclusivity at the parent, child, school level, and I think that was very interesting for our viewers, to hear our viewers, our listeners. Yeah.

Blake Hunsley Okay, so we finished our podcast, and then we come back because we got talking, as we always do. But no, I want to talk because we talked about how resilient your daughter is and this is just a great story to show that, but to also show that there are big gaps outside of the school building too, in the system that where kids are being let down. So why don't you tell Shelley, I don't think I've heard this story about your daughter's big bus, school bus adventure.

Chelsea Coffin My daughter started at a junior high this year, and has started taking the bus. So, you know, we did a couple dry runs. This is where your bus stop is. This is where you're going to get on. We never really used the term school bus or big yellow bus. We just kept saying bus. Her bus stop happens to be at a metro transit stop as well, the Metro Transit bus. Oh, Lord, Metro Transit bus shows up before the school bus does. She's on her well, she's with a group of kids, and, you know, she sees a bus pull up. She's pumped, because this is her first time taking the bus. So she gets on the Metro Transit, not on the school bus. Metro Transit driver, not sure what he was on that day. Didn't think to question her, didn't think to say anything. You know, he sees a group of kids standing up waiting for a school bus, but lets her on anyways. I didn't know until after the fact that kids under 12 ride the bus for free. Yes. So she gets on the bus. She has a tile, kind of like an air tag, in her backpack, so we can track where she is. And we get a call from the school. Is Harper with you? Because we don't have her yet. I'm like, Oh, well, she's now a bus student. Maybe she's a little bit late. Okay, all of the busses are here. We're gonna take a look around the property. So now I'm starting to get a little bit worried. I go home, we're looking around the house. No Harper, she's obviously not the bus stop. School calls again. It's been an hour. By protocol, we have to call the police. So we're starting to panic. We get in the car, we start driving around our city. I'm going to every school within our vicinity. Maybe the bus went to the wrong school. There's no Harper. I'm grabbing kids. I'm shaking them, I'm looking at their faces, like, where's my kid? And Chris tries to track the tile again. We don't know that tiles only bounce off of, like, Bluetooth or other tiles, so it doesn't really work like, like an air tag. So we see the tile around the rotary like, kind of like in the water. And I'm like, somebody has her intrusive thoughts. They took her backpack, they threw it out the window, every possible worse thought you can think of. Anyways, we take a deep dive, and there is surveillance of her at the Mumford road terminal, getting a transfer and getting onto another bus. So this is now like two bus drivers that have been like, Oh, little girl with a backpack on, yeah,

Blake Hunsley using the transit system better than better than a lot of adults I've seen on their first time trying. She got

Shelley Alward-MacLeod a transfer. My kid has

Blake Hunsley never

Blake Hunsley she been on a public

Shelley Alward-MacLeod saw somebody else getting a transfer. She's like, Okay, on another bus because there's no school here.

Chelsea Coffin Yeah, so, yeah, somebody else did it. I'll get a transfer. Gets on the bus. Police are called. We're all in a panic. Okay, at least we've seen her on a bus. We have a very good friend who is a police officer, and he calls, and he says, I hear your daughter's missing. And I'm like, yep, freaking out. And he said, Don't worry, I'll find her as calm as that. I'm like, hey, whatever man like, I can't deal with this right now. Anyways, fast forward a couple of hours later, he finds her down on Barrington Street. We live in Spryfield. She's downtown on Barrington Street, and you know he says her name, you know who I am. Get my police car. We're gonna take you home. All that to say there is no protocol for kids. I mean, she there is access a bus, but that doesn't take you to school. There's no protocol for kids with cognitive disability. She's not in a wheelchair. She's not in crutches. There's no mobility issues, right? She, you know, she, she looks like your neuro typical 11 year old child, right? But she's not. And so people, I think, are just they assume too quickly, yeah. Oh, why the hell would an 11 year old get on a Metro Transit bus at, you know, 730 in the morning, exactly.

Blake Hunsley Yeah, gaps in adult logic aside, though, she learned a ton that morning,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod she's very resilient. It was maybe the best education she got on

Blake Hunsley Yeah, tell you right now, neither of my parents are in their 70s, could function on the bus system in the same way that she did. No, I was very impressed. So no, I think she was she

Shelley Alward-MacLeod worried, like, when you when she got home,

Chelsea Coffin I met her at the door crying. So I think she was like, oh shit. Well, yeah, I really I worried mom. So I think she was a bit worried too. But I think knowing her, she was probably like, what is going on? Like, where am I probably just, like, more enamored with everything that was around her, rather than, like, shit. Kept trying to be at school right

Shelley Alward-MacLeod now. Bus rides used to be a long process to get me to school. This is

Blake Hunsley what I have to do every day. You already have to watch her the first day of every school year. She's probably gonna be school or adventure, school or adventure.

Chelsea Coffin And the police officers kept saying, you know, did you guys get in a fight? Does she hate school? And I'm like, this kid, you know, I could say what I want about the school system. Yeah, she's a social butterfly, and she loves school. I'm like, no, she loves school. There's not a headache to get her to go to school. This is not her trying to get out of going to school. This is a big mistake. What's happening? Handle herself?

Shelley Alward-MacLeod Now, you know, now me, like, you know, looking back, because it's always easy to look back, like she was at the bus stop with a bunch of other kids. Okay, who saw her get on the bus? Didn't say a word, didn't say, We're didn't go to school and say, you know, like Harper, like, got on the Metro Transit bus. Like nobody told anybody, like, yeah, all along the way. Like, there were so many times where things could have happened, right?

Shelley Alward-MacLeod Yeah, there's Yeah, there were many opportunities,

Blake Hunsley except for your police officer,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod my girlfriend, the Metro Transit driver, okay, who picks her up. Okay? First day of school sees a bunch of kids standing there. Only one of them gets on the bus. Like, to me, that would have been the moment to say, are you supposed to be on the yellow the school bus? Yeah,

Chelsea Coffin the only reason,

Shelley Alward-MacLeod I mean, I realize some kids travel outside the area,

Chelsea Coffin right? But not at No, not when you're with a group, when you

Shelley Alward-MacLeod ask on the first day of school, because so many kids are confused about busses and stuff like that, right?

Chelsea Coffin And I know Metro Transit gets a lot of flack, but I have to give it to them. The police told me, you know, when it comes to not these kind of situations, because I don't think they happen often, but when there's missing children, the Metro Transit are often one of the first notified, and they take it very seriously. If the call is put out, they immediately pull over. They immediately, like, take a kind of surveillance of the bus to see if any child clicks the description. And that's how that happened, okay? And they said, you know, there's this 11 year girl, she's wearing a green dress with a purple. Jacket over it, and that bus driver pulled over on Barrington Street, stood up, took a look around, said, You fit the description. You come with me.

Blake Hunsley I know there's no onus on the kids in this story or on the bus drivers in this story to be looking out for someone like that, aside from social responsibility. So yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Listeners, try to do something nice, like pay a little bit of attention there in the world, if you see, if you see a child on their own, maybe question and

Shelley Alward-MacLeod not making us, not making, I think, you know, really good, a really good, you know, learn, learning lesson that not everybody, okay, that has, you know, some disability, okay, if they're not all visible, like, as you said, Your daughter five foot nine, she's taller than me, okay, and I'm far older than her.

Blake Hunsley Five foot nine? She's taller than me.

Shelley Alward-MacLeod eight, yeah, and, and, you know, would have gone on, would have presented as, like, a, you know, a teenager even, yeah, okay. And nobody would think twice about about that, right? Like we make assumptions that, Oh, you must know what they're doing. Yeah, right. So again, yeah,

Blake Hunsley be curious, ask, ask a polite question, the things you talk about all around all the time, right? Just be, just be curious and ask politely. It's not offensive, and you might really save a mom sanity some mornings out there, I'm so glad you came back to tell that. Thank you. Thank you for listening.

Blake Hunsley Thanks for listening to Within Our Reach. We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode. If you have an idea for an episode, topic you'd like us to cover, or if you'd like to join us as a guest on the podcast, reach out to us at withinourreach@reachability.org.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai