Mother accuses Quebec special needs school of discrimination

A Quebec mother is calling on the government for help. Marie Ismé believes her son, who’s autistic, has been denied proper education and been discriminated against because of the colour of his skin.

Brandon-Lee Paris was expelled from his special needs school north of Montreal when he was 14-years-old because the school deemed him a safety risk, an assessment his mother said the teen’s doctors disagree with.

“I felt really betrayed for real and devastated. It’s just adding another responsibility for me,” said Ismé, the mother of now 18-year-old Brandon-Lee Paris.

“Brandon only been schooled like 90 hours roughly, and he should have public 700 hours,” said. Ismé. “And they keep on kicking him out of the school and leaving us without any services.”

The École des Érables of the Centre de services scolaires de la des Mille-Îles (CSSMI) called youth protection on the mother. Later, those complaints were deemed unfounded.

Later, The Centre de Réadaptation en Déficience Intellectuelle (CRDI) in Maschouce, Que. threatened to have the teen admitted for three days for psychiatric evaluation.

“The readaptation centre that are supposed to assure Brandon’s safety when he goes there, they see that he runs away so they keep calling the cops every time he runs away,” she said.

“And then they said that the cops said that we’re going to fight the P38 so that I have to come and take him in the morning and come and pick him up in the afternoon to do their job because it’s that when he goes there, it’s their job to ensure the security not my job.”

Ismé feels her son is getting differential treatment because he’s Black.

“I have [spoken to] other mothers that I know and she even told me that her daughter has way more challenges, like she’s been violent, she did a bunch of different stuff like she sent people to the hospital,” said Ismé. “And they’re doing everything in their power to keep her in the school.”

All these things point towards a form of greater intimidation and differential treatment. So Mrs. May believes that it had they were not been black, they would have not been exposed to this kind of difficult and very, very intimidating treatment,” said Fo Niemi, executive director of The Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR).

Ismé said the lack of education has negatively impacted Brandon greatly.

“He should be further than he is now,” she said. “They say Brandon is a really smart kid. He can learn. But he didn’t. Those years, they’re critical, so he’s not going to regain them. He lost them forever.”

“Basically, this young man has never got the kind of proper support and services that he has a right to and that he deserves,” said Niemi agreeing.

CityNews reached out to the education centre for comment but did not hear back in time for air. The school centre, however, has denied the allegations of discrimination, to other media organizations.

Back in February 2021, the ministry said it was aware of the situation, but Ismé said nothing has been done since.

The ministry of education and the minister responsible for youth protection also did not get back to us.