Suspended or Expelled for Disability in South Australia: Your Rights Under the Graham Report

The phone call nobody wants at 11am on a Tuesday: "We need you to come and collect your child. They're having a very difficult day." You do it once. Then twice. Then every week. No paperwork is filled out. No formal suspension is recorded. Your child just keeps getting sent home, and the school keeps saying they're "doing everything they can."

This pattern has a name. It is called an informal exclusion — and it is both common and, in most circumstances, unlawful.

What the Graham Report Found

The independent inquiry into suspension, exclusion, and expulsion processes in South Australian government schools — known as the Graham Report — produced findings that should have generated a crisis response. Students receiving disability adjustments made up 56.6% of all suspensions and 67.5% of all expulsions in the 2019 data, despite being a fraction of total enrolments. These students are vastly overrepresented in every category of exclusionary discipline.

The inquiry also documented the widespread use of informal take-homes — parents called to collect dysregulated children mid-day, with no formal process, no documentation, and no accountability. These informal exclusions place severe pressure on parental employment, family stability, and the child's educational continuity. They also allow schools to exclude students from the classroom without triggering the oversight that formal suspension processes require.

How the Law Changed in 2026

The Education and Children's Services (Inclusive Education) Amendment Act 2025, which commenced in February 2026, directly addressed the Graham Report's findings. The changes are significant.

Under the 2026 amendments, before a principal suspends or expels any student, they are legally required to consider:

• The student's age
• The student's disability
• Whether a One Plan is in place and is being implemented
• Whether reasonable alternatives to exclusionary discipline are available

This is not a box-ticking formality. It creates a documented obligation. If a principal suspends a student with a disability without demonstrating that they have considered these factors — including whether adequate support was actually in place — that suspension is procedurally flawed and open to challenge.

The amendments also require principals to report annually to the Minister on the use of exclusionary discipline against students with disability. Non-compliance carries a $2,500 penalty. The era of informal, undocumented exclusions flying under the radar is legally no longer tenable.

The Disability Standards for Education and Suspension

The Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Cth) (DSE) provides additional federal protections. Suspending or excluding a student for behaviour that is a direct manifestation of their disability — without first providing the reasonable adjustments that would reduce or eliminate that behaviour — is likely to constitute indirect discrimination under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) (DDA).

Under the SA Department for Education's Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) framework, behaviour is understood as a form of communication. Exclusionary discipline must be a last resort, used only after positive, supportive interventions have been attempted and documented. Skipping straight to suspension when a child is dysregulating is a breach of departmental policy, not just poor practice.

If your child has been suspended and does not have a current One Plan addressing behavioural support, that absence of a plan is itself the problem. The school has failed to provide the proactive support that could have prevented the suspension.

Informal Exclusions: How to Document and Challenge Them

An informal exclusion — being called to collect your child, being asked to keep them home because "it will be a hard day," being told there are "no SSO hours available today" — is not a recognised disciplinary procedure. It carries none of the procedural protections of a formal suspension. It is also not formally recorded, which suits the school, not your child.

If your child is being informally excluded, start keeping a log immediately. Record:

• The date and time of each call or request
• The exact reason given by the school
• How long your child was kept home
• The name of the person who contacted you

Once you have three or more instances documented, you can write to the principal citing this pattern and requesting a formal written explanation of why formal support procedures under the One Plan have not prevented these exclusions. Copy in the Regional Education Director.

The key argument to make: each informal exclusion is an admission that the school does not have adequate support in place. Under the DSE, that is a failure to provide reasonable adjustments — not a disciplinary outcome your child caused.

Challenging a Formal Suspension

For formal suspensions, you have a right to appeal through the Department for Education's internal process. In the first instance, the appeal goes to the principal's supervising Education Director.

Before lodging an appeal, gather:

• The written suspension notice (the school must provide this)
• Evidence that the behaviour was connected to your child's disability
• Evidence that the school's One Plan was either absent, not implemented, or inadequate
• Any previous correspondence requesting better support

The 2026 legal requirement that principals must consider disability and available support before suspending gives your appeal a direct statutory foundation. If the suspension notice does not reference those considerations, the process was incomplete.

You can also request all records relating to previous suspensions and informal exclusions under the Freedom of Information provisions in SA — which can reveal whether a pattern of discrimination exists that the school has not formally disclosed.

If you are dealing with a suspension or expulsion, or an ongoing pattern of informal exclusions, the South Australia Disability Advocacy Playbook provides letter templates for formally challenging disciplinary decisions, requesting Functional Behaviour Assessments, and escalating to the Education Director — each one citing the specific legislation and policies that apply under the 2026 amendments.

The Bigger Picture

One suspension is a disciplinary event. A pattern of suspensions — or a stream of informal take-homes — is evidence of systematic failure to support a child with disability. The system is not broken accidentally; the incentives push schools toward managing behaviour with discipline rather than investing in adjustments.

Your child's right to education is not contingent on behaving like a child without a disability. That principle is in the DSE. It is in the DDA. It is now explicitly reinforced by the 2026 SA amendments. The documentation you build now is what makes that principle enforceable.

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