Child advocate criticizes N.B. schools over methods used to discipline students

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick schools are coming under fire from a provincial watchdog over the methods they are using to discipline misbehaving children.

In a new report released Monday, Kelly Lamrock, the province’s child and youth advocate, detailed examples of practices that he believes are violating the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as provincial legislation that gives children the right to have education services.

The practices include detaining children against their will in seclusion rooms as well as sending students home for misbehaving, a practice known as partial days.

The report said the deployment of these tactics are on the rise and mostly affecting high needs and vulnerable children. 

“These are not small points. The people who run our schools have tacitly been telling us that the laws do not apply to them,” he said in his report. 

“This (Child and Youth Advocate Office) has released two reports in the last two years advising that two common practices — partial day plans and seclusion and restraint of students — were occurring without any legal authority or regulation. The department took no immediate steps to even clarify the law, let alone follow it.”

Lamrock’s report said the department has “responded with a collective shrug,” when it was pointed out that it was breaking the law by using these practices.

There is no authority in the Education Act for the use of partial days if they result in children being denied services given to their peers, the child and youth advocate said.

“These practices are, in fact, illegal,” he told reporters. 

Lamrock said schools are continuing to use questionable disciplinary practices because the Education Department is not held accountable.

“If the law doesn’t apply to vulnerable children, and there’s no floor or no standard, then no one is truly safe and we don’t have the rule of law.”

About a decade ago, he said there were about a dozen children on partial school days. The number has now grown to over 500, he said.

Lamrock also explained that in some instances, students could spend less than 10 hours a week in school for over a year. This means they would be denied their rights under the provincial Education Act.

Seclusion rooms, he added, are now part of school design plans.

But he questions whether this winds up being forcible confinement in a case where a student requests to leave the room, but the teacher refuses.

The report also suggested the methods have serious consequences.

Literacy rates in the anglophone school system have fallen to 50 per cent from 83 per cent since 2010, the report said. That means, up to 3,000 children who used to get help and education are now falling behind, it added.

The child and youth advocate recommended the department set “hard targets” to reduce these practices each year and replace them with those that are compliant with the Charter and the provincial Human Rights Act.

He also said schools could be sued by parents and students if they continue their practices.

In a statement, Education Minister Claire Johnson did not directly address Lamrock’s accusations, saying only that the government accepted “in principle” all the recommendations in his report.

“We remain dedicated to working closely with our partners in education, stakeholders, and communities to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes across the province,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2025.