An application to certify a class action lawsuit filed this week against Jack Hulland Elementary School and the Department of Education provides new allegations of the impacts that holds and seclusion had on students over two decades.

The suit, filed on behalf of students who were subject to holds, restraints and seclusion at the school between 2002 and 2022, still needs to be certified.

None of the allegations in the application have been tested in court, and Jack Hulland Elementary and the Department of Education have yet to file statements of defence.

A hearing to certify the class action lawsuit will be held from June 26 to June 30. 

Two representative plaintiffs – former students and their parents – proposed the class action suit in October 2022.

The statement of claim filed then alleged that those students, now 12 years old, were regularly subject to holds at the school beginning in 2015.

When their guardians discovered the practices, the claim alleged, the school deceived them, calling them “bad parents” and saying involuntary seclusion was “necessary to deregulate or de-escalate their children.”

Included in this week’s application is an assessment of one of the child plaintiffs by B.C. psychologist Mel Kaushansky.

The assessment found the routine use of holds, restraints and seclusion at the school had led to post-traumatic stress disorder and depression in the child.

The identities of the plaintiffs are protected under a partial publication ban and sealing order.

This week, nine affidavits were filed along with the certification application. They reveal new allegations surrounding the use of holds, restraints and seclusion at Jack Hulland Elementary, located in Porter Creek. 

An internal review ordered by the Education Department and released last year confirmed the use of holds and isolation prior to 2020.

The RCMP started an ongoing investigation into the practices in 2021. The Yukon’s Child and Youth Advocate started her own review in November 2021.

New allegations included in affidavits filed this week are troubling.

In an affidavit from one parent, she said she was told by the principal in January 2022 of more than 100 incident reports involving her child and the use of holds, restraint and seclusion.

She also said a year-long effort to get her child’s student file from the school and the Education department only got her a portion of the file. Other parents said they had trouble getting information from the school and government.

Several parents also said in affidavits that the school misled them about how staff were disciplining their children – and suggested that their growing aggression, anxieties and changes in behaviour were the result of problems at home.

Multiple parents said the school didn’t inform them of the full truth of use of force and seclusion in small, unsupervised rooms, and they only learned of it later through media reports. 

One parent said in her affidavit that she thought “study hall,” as the school referred to its isolation rooms, was a quiet place where her child was taken to calm down.

She thought he’d been exaggerating when he told her staff locked him up like a “caged animal.”

Another parent wrote that her child was kept in an isolation room for all or most of the day on at least one occasion.

One former student said in his affidavit that “study hall” rooms were often only monitored by a security camera, with no staff present, and his seclusions lasted anywhere from half an hour to more than three hours.

He recalled instances where he missed lunch and recess, as well as classes.

He said he often saw other children dragged into the rooms by staff, and heard them screaming and banging against the walls of the rooms, which he called “cells”.

Another former student, now in her 20s, called the isolation rooms that were installed in her time at Jack Hulland little isolation chambers.

The rooms were so small, she said, that she couldn’t stand in the middle of the room and fully extend her arms without touching a wall.

She said she was forcibly put in the rooms many times, and, after trying to escape the room on one occasion, staff smeared butter on top of the dividers separating the rooms. 

The woman said she’s had suicidal thoughts since Grade 5.

She left school in Grade 9 due to anxieties developed as a result of her treatment at Jack Hulland. Schools and office spaces now seem like prisons to her, she said.

Another child, according to one parent’s affidavit, began picking at his skin and pulling his hair after frequently being placed in isolation.

He became more aggressive after attending the school, she said, and even once attempted suicide at school.

She said she believes these behaviours were the result of the school’s disciplinary practices.

After leaving the school, the parent said her child was twice hospitalized “due to mental breakdowns.” 

Should the class action be certified, the lawsuit woud seek compensation for all students who were “subject to holds and restraints and… locked in a room and/or placed in seclusion between January 1, 2002 and June 30, 2022.”

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation general, special, aggravated and punitive damages.

“Accountability is something else that my clients are seeking,” James Tucker, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told the Star when the suit was proposed in October 2022.

“They want to ensure that these measures are not used anymore in schools.”