Good morning,
Anyone with a teenager in their life knows it rarely turns out well if you try too hard to mould their opinions to suit yours – even less so if you try to force them into your way of thinking.
So it’s surprising that school administrators with the Abbotsford School District in general, and at Robert Bateman Secondary specifically – people whose entire work lives centre on teenagers – didn’t know what would happen when they first downplayed, then ignored, then tried to manipulate the first-hand observations of one of their students.
Lexis De Meyer, 17, was enrolled in an art activism class at the high school, a class that encourages students to take a stand on a social issue relevant to the local community. As part of the program, students use large-scale art projects to explain the issue, and the projects are displayed at a year-end exhibition.
De Meyer had first-hand knowledge of her subject matter.
She told reporter Xiao Xu that she broke her ankle playing rugby, had her foot encased in an air cast and had to use crutches. Over a few weeks, she experienced the accessibility barriers her school presented: Entrances lacked functioning automatic doors, there were only five elevator keys for hundreds of students, and only two of the three floors had accessible washroom stalls.
She wrote a letter outlining her concerns to her principal and the district superintendent.
Her principal responded by promising more elevator keys. But he insisted the school met the province’s accessibility code.
De Meyer disagreed and sent a second letter outlining where the school fell short of the code and suggesting possible solutions.
Neither the principal nor the superintendent got back to her.
De Meyer got on with her classwork. For the art activism course, she painted a girl in a wheelchair at the foot of a staircase, gazing at a classroom she can’t reach. The stairs bear the words: “There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.”
The painting required an explanatory statement, and in it De Meyer shared her personal experience with accessibility and expressed hope that the school and the district would make changes to ensure the school lived up to its pledge for student success, equity and inclusion.
De Meyer’s teacher was impressed enough to ask her if she would like to speak at the showcase event on June 15. De Meyer was thrilled.
But just one day before the exhibition, De Meyer said, her teacher informed her that the school administration had insisted on modifying her speech, citing a directive to avoid anything that could portray the school negatively.
The revisions were a distortion.
De Meyer had written: “I turned to the lessons we learned in our class and wrote a letter to our principal Mr. McDonald and the superintendent Mr. Nosek about the lack of accessibility and the barriers I was facing at Robert Bateman. I also researched the accessibility code and wrote another letter detailing areas we could improve.”
The edited version reads: “I turned to the lessons we learned in our class and wrote to people in positions who can assist with possible changes in the future, knowing that there are many things to consider. I also researched the accessibility code and learned a lot about the ways the government is trying to help remove barriers.”
De Meyer said she likes her teacher and didn’t want to make trouble, so she agreed to make some changes, though not all the suggestions. But just moments before she was scheduled to speak, she was told administrators also wanted changes to the statement that accompanied her painting. Without them, she was told, the booklet containing all the students’ presentations would be withheld.
Through tears, she agreed, even though the altered statement largely removed her personal experiences.
But she later went public with her story, prompting an apology from her principal and a promise the school would learn from the experience.
Shirley Wilson, chair of the Abbotsford Board of Education, said steps are being taken to rectify the accessibility issues De Meyer raised.
As for De Meyer, the experience has hardened her resolve to advocate for accessibility issues. She plans to study law at university.
This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.