Advocate Releases Report Calling for Greater Accountability in Inclusive Education
The New Brunswick Advocate, Kelly Lamrock, has released Before We Blame Inclusion...Accountability, Equal Opportunity, and the Future of Inclusive Education in New Brunswick, urging government to address longstanding failures in early intervention, student exclusion and access to Early French Immersion before changing how inclusive education is defined.
The report challenges the suggestion that inclusion is responsible for declining educational results. New Brunswick made significant gains in literacy while inclusive education was already in place. The Advocate argues that children and educators are instead bearing the consequences of delayed support and inadequate accountability.
The report identifies three urgent priorities:
Earlier intervention: In files reviewed by the Office, serious risk factors were generally evident by age seven, but coordinated services did not arrive until after age 12, on average.
Accountability for exclusion: Partial days and seclusion rooms continue to be used without clear legal authority or sufficient oversight, despite previous calls for reform.
Equal opportunity for bilingualism: The 2018 Auditor General reported that just 7% of students with Personalized Learning Plans were enrolled in French Immersion. In 2024, only 67 of 131 anglophone schools serving Grade 1 offered Early French Immersion.
"When a child needs help at seven and does not receive coordinated support until twelve, that is not a failure of inclusion. When a school sends a child home instead of helping, that is not a failure of inclusion. When governments choose policies that stream the most vulnerable children and the most complex cases into overwhelmed classrooms, that is not a failure of inclusion. Government needs to fix those failures before asking vulnerable children to defend their place in our classrooms," said Lamrock.
The report recommends putting any review that would redefine inclusion or the common learning environment on hold until government takes concrete, legislated action. It calls for faster integrated services, enforceable measures to end partial days, restraint and seclusion, and equal access to Grade 1 Early French Immersion with appropriate supports. It also calls for a costed, credible plan for four Early French Immersion equality measures to be tabled in the Legislature by December 31, 2027.
Media Contact:
Justine Estey, Director of Communications and Policy Advocacy, justine.estey@gnb.ca
