A proposed class action lawsuit against the Yukon government and a school council alleges students at Jack Hulland Elementary School in Whitehorse were forcibly isolated in small holding cells for hours, sometimes repeatedly, over a 20-year period.

The proposed suit was filed Monday. It alleges several students at Jack Hulland Elementary were repeatedly held against their will, sometimes for several hours in small cells, over a 20-year period dating back to 2002.

A statement of claim currently lists two unnamed children and their guardians as plaintiffs against the Department of Education and the Jack Hulland Elementary School Council.

The Statement of Claim alleges that isolation and forcible holds were used systemically against students by school staff between 2002 and 2022 to deal with student behaviour.

These measures were used, the claim says, when students became “emotionally heightened,” disobedient or failed to follow instructions from staff the first time they were told – a requirement of the school’s “HAWK” code of conduct.

Breaking that code, which also had general rules against inappropriate behaviour and physical contact, could result in holds and seclusion, the lawsuit says.

The claim further states that students were placed in isolation when they neither posed a threat to themselves or others, sometimes for hours at a time, even on a daily basis in some cases.

Whitehorse RCMP said today their General Investigation Section is continuing to look into the allegations of holds and isolation at the elementary school.

Police first began investigating the matter in November 2021, and are now seeking new witnesses.

The RCMP are requesting teachers, staff or parents who have not previously spoken to police and have information about the allegations to contact the RCMP GIS at 667-5551.

James Tucker, the Whitehorse lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told the Star today he first learned of the allegations months ago, when parents of a child with special needs came to him.

They told him about what was happening to their child at Jack Hulland Elementary, and Tucker began investigating.

“It was much more widespread than I had imagined,” he said.

Tucker said his clients want compensation for the alleged disciplinary action their children faced – and he believes more parents will sign on should the class action be approved – but that’s not all.

“Accountability is something else that my clients are seeking. And change. They want to ensure that these measures are not used anymore in schools.”

The class action still needs to be certified.

No response has yet been filed by the defendants, nor have the allegations been tested in court.

This morning, cabinet communications staff referred the Star’s request for comment to the territorial Department of Justice, which represents the territory in court. The department did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.

Neither did the Jack Hulland Elementary School Council.

Allegations in the document resembled controversial practices sometimes used in prisons: students physically removed from classrooms and isolated in locked rooms under camera surveillance; staff dragging students against their will, sometimes restraining them physically by sitting on their torsos or applying pressure to their joints, arms and shoulders.

Some of these actions the lawsuit called “dangerous and injurious” to the plaintiffs.

The suit claims that students were secluded in different rooms, but in 2008, four windowed isolation rooms were created specifically to hold students.

The rooms, dubbed “study hall” and later “the Nest,” were three feet by three feet, and closed in by a windowed door with a lock.

Though staff could monitor students nearby, they could also watch them from an office monitor hooked up to a security camera pointed at the windowed doors of “the Nest.”

Allegedly, students were sometimes held for hours, occasionally missing recess and lunch periods.

Some students faced daily seclusion, the suit claims, and staff at times worked in shifts to avoid exhaustion while watching students who were isolated for long stretches.

These holds, the lawsuit alleges, amounted to assault, battery, false imprisonment and corporal punishment against students, all carried out under the authority of the school council and Department of Education.

The two plaintiffs, the lawsuit says, now suffer from emotional distress, anxiety, depression and PTSD as a result.

“At all relevant times,” the statement of claim reads, “the Council adopted and implemented policies which authorized and/or, in particular circumstances, directed the use of holds, restraints and seclusion on students as a means of controlling and modifying student behaviour (collectively, the ‘Forcible Confinement Policies’).”  

The lawsuit also says the Department of Education was aware and approved of the Forcible Confinement Policies.

Furthermore, it claims the department received written reports for every instance a student was held or secluded.

Many of the students who faced seclusion and holds, the lawsuit says, were part of the Grove Street Program – a shared resource program developed by the department for young students with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

The claim alleges the department encouraged a number of parents of children with these difficulties to transfer their kids to Jack Hulland so they could access Grove Street’s resources.

But these difficulties were allegedly dealt with by the seclusion and forcible holdings already described.

The lawsuit claims parents were not made aware their children were being held or isolated.

The plaintiffs, who are now 11 and 12 years old, were first subject to holds in 2015, it says.

The allegations say when the parents of GX and TA, as the plaintiffs are identified in the suit, became aware of the holding practices, the school and Department of Education “deceived” them, telling them holds and involuntary seclusion “were necessary to regulate or deescalate” their children.

Staff allegedly even blamed children’s behaviour on “factors from home,” calling the guardians “bad parents”.

The lawsuit is seeking compensation for damages – general, special, aggravated and punitive – for its plaintiffs.

Should the class action be approved, the lawsuit will 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.”