Informal School Exclusion and Disability in Tasmania: The 'Come Pick Them Up' Problem

The calls come at 11:30 AM. At 12:15. At 1:00. "Your child is really struggling today — can you come collect them?" You do, because you don't know what else to do, and you don't want your child left in distress. Then it happens again the next week. And the week after.

By the end of term, your child has attended half a school week for six consecutive weeks. Nothing has been formally documented. No paperwork has been issued. And when you ask why it keeps happening, the answer is always some variation of: "We're doing our best, but we just don't have the capacity today."

This is informal exclusion. It is one of the most prevalent complaints raised by Tasmanian disability advocacy organisations — and it is unlawful.

What DECYP's Rules Actually Require

DECYP's Learning Plan Procedure is explicit: any reduction in a student's school attendance must be formalised as an "Adjusted Hours through a Learning Plan."

This is not administrative paperwork for its own sake. The formal process requires:

• Mutual parental consent. You must explicitly agree in writing to the reduced hours arrangement. The school cannot unilaterally impose a shortened day.
• A documented strategy for returning to full-time attendance. The plan must include a timeline and measurable milestones for progressively increasing hours.
• Monitoring. Progress toward full-time attendance must be tracked and reviewed.

When a school repeatedly calls a parent to pick up their child without going through this process, it is enforcing an ad-hoc reduced timetable that has no legal basis under DECYP policy. It also denies the student access to their full entitlement to education — which is a right protected under the Disability Standards for Education 2005.

Why Schools Do This (and Why It Feels So Hard to Push Back)

The pattern exists because informal exclusion is easier for school administration than the alternatives. Processing a formal reduced-hours arrangement requires SSG meetings, parental consultation, documented goals, and DECYP oversight. Calling a parent to pick up a child does not.

There is also a resourcing dynamic. Tasmanian schools receive Educational Adjustments funding based on the documented intensity of support they provide through the NCCD framework. A school that is under-resourced for a particular student — because the funding hasn't come through, because the aide called in sick, because the support teacher's hours are already allocated — may turn to informal exclusion as a daily coping mechanism.

And parents often comply because they are afraid. The fear of making things worse for their child, of being labelled a "difficult parent," of damaging the relationship with teachers who directly interact with their child every day — this fear keeps many families silent far longer than they should be.

Your Legal Right to Refuse

You are entitled to decline a pick-up request. This is worth stating plainly because it feels counterintuitive.

If a school calls and asks you to collect your child, you can say — politely but firmly — that you will only collect your child if they are issuing a formal suspension under Secretary's Instruction No 4. If the school assesses that your child poses an immediate health and safety risk that cannot be mitigated, they must process that as a formal suspension. That triggers documentation, oversight, and the obligation to provide educational instruction during the suspension period.

A suggested response to a pick-up phone call:

"I understand you're having a difficult day with [child's name]. I want to support you in managing the situation. However, I'm not able to continue collecting [child's name] informally — their right to access a full school day is protected under the Disability Standards for Education 2005. If the school determines that they pose an immediate safety risk that cannot be managed with reasonable adjustments, I'll come and collect them if you issue a formal suspension under Secretary's Instruction No 4. Otherwise, I'd like to arrange an urgent SSG meeting this week to look at what adjustments would help them manage the full day."

This response does two things: it protects your child's rights, and it opens the door to the conversation that should have been happening all along — what adjustments does the school need to put in place to make full-time attendance viable?

Putting It in Writing

After the next pick-up call — or after a pattern of them — write to the principal. Your letter should document:

• The number of times you have been asked to collect your child prior to the end of the school day over the past month, with dates
• That you have not been asked to consent to any formal Adjusted Hours arrangement under DECYP's Learning Plan Procedure
• That these informal pick-ups are effectively imposing a reduced timetable without your consent and without any formal strategy for returning to full attendance
• That you are requesting an urgent SSG meeting to review the adjustments in place and identify what support would allow your child to remain safely in school for the full day

This letter creates a formal record and signals that you understand the policy framework. For most schools, it changes the dynamic.

What the Meeting Should Achieve

When the SSG meeting happens, the agenda should focus on:

What environmental or instructional triggers are causing the dysregulation? This is often sensory overload, unstructured transitions, a specific class or activity, or staffing changes (a familiar aide being absent). Identifying the trigger means the school can design a specific response.

What adjustments would allow the student to remain in school for the full day? This might be a modified timetable that still amounts to full-time attendance, access to a calm space, a designated go-to person for regulation support, or changes to how a particular subject is delivered.

If reduced hours are genuinely necessary, what does the formal plan look like? If after thorough consideration there is a genuine clinical basis for starting with shorter days, that arrangement must be documented as an Adjusted Hours Learning Plan with explicit parental consent, a progressive return-to-full-time schedule, and a review date.

Who is accountable for ensuring the adjustments are implemented daily? Vague commitments don't survive the absence of a particular aide. The plan must name responsible parties.

The Legal Escalation Path

If the school does not engage with your letter, or if the SSG meeting fails to produce a formal plan, the escalation pathway is:

1. DECYP Learning Services — formal complaint citing the school's failure to comply with the Learning Plan Procedure on Adjusted Hours and the DSE 2005 participation obligations.

2. Equal Opportunity Tasmania (Anti-Discrimination Commissioner) — if the informal exclusion pattern amounts to a failure to provide reasonable adjustments, this can be framed as disability discrimination. Disability is the most complained-about attribute at Equal Opportunity Tasmania, representing 25% of all allegations received in 2023–24.

3. Ombudsman Tasmania — if the DECYP internal complaint process has been procedurally unfair.

The Pattern Is the Evidence

One pick-up call can be dismissed. Ten pick-up calls over a term, documented with dates and times, cannot. The evidence log is your most important tool. Record every call, every pick-up, who made the request, what reason was given, and what you said in response.

If you have been complying with informal pick-up requests for weeks or months, start documenting from today. The future record is what matters at this point.

The Tasmania Disability Advocacy Playbook includes a template letter for objecting to informal exclusion, the DECYP policy language to cite, and the framework for an SSG meeting focused on designing a genuine return-to-full-attendance plan. It also covers the intersection with the formal suspension process — because understanding both pathways gives you the clearest picture of what the school is and is not entitled to do.

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