School Refuses Disability Funding or Adjustments in Victoria: What You Can Do

"We just don't have the funding." It's one of the most common things parents of children with disability hear from Victorian schools — and in most cases, it's legally incorrect. Schools routinely conflate their own resourcing limitations with their legal obligations. Those are two entirely different things.

If your child's school is refusing to provide adjustments, citing a lack of funding, you need to understand the distinction between what schools must do and what they're funded to do. The gap between those two things is where most of the advocacy happens.

The Legal Baseline: Adjustments Are Not Optional

The Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Cth) — a legally binding instrument made under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) — requires schools to take reasonable steps to ensure that students with disability can participate in education on the same basis as students without disability. This obligation applies to every student, at every school, regardless of whether they have Tier 3 Disability Inclusion funding, regardless of whether they have a formal diagnosis, and regardless of what the school's budget looks like.

The Victorian Equal Opportunity Act 2010 adds a positive duty (Section 15) — meaning schools must proactively take reasonable and proportionate steps to eliminate discrimination, not merely wait until something goes wrong.

When a school says "we don't have the funding," they're describing a resourcing problem. They are not describing a legal exemption. The two are not the same.

How Funding Is Actually Structured

Victorian schools receive disability-related funding through three separate channels under the Disability Inclusion model:

Tier 1 — All schools receive Student Resource Package funding that includes a disability component. This is baseline funding that exists regardless of specific student enrolments.

Tier 2 — Schools receive additional funding calculated from their enrolment profile, designed to strengthen inclusive practice across the school. This is school-level money the school already has.

Tier 3 — Individual student funding, determined through the Disability Inclusion Profile process. This is what families typically mean when they talk about "disability funding."

When a school says your child "doesn't qualify for funding," they typically mean Tier 3 hasn't been approved. But the school still has Tier 1 and Tier 2 money. It still has its legal obligation under the DSE. Neither of those disappears because the Tier 3 application was unsuccessful or hasn't been made.

The "Unjustifiable Hardship" Defence — And Its Limits

The DSE allows schools to claim that providing a particular adjustment would impose "unjustifiable hardship." But this is a high bar with a specific legal test. Schools must demonstrate that the financial cost, the disruption to the educational program, or the detriment to other students is disproportionately high relative to the benefit to the student with disability.

Critically, the burden of proving unjustifiable hardship rests entirely on the educational institution making the claim — not on you. And before a school can claim hardship, they must demonstrate they have considered all available financial support, including department-level funding that may offset costs.

A school that casually tells you they "can't afford" adjustments has not met that legal threshold. They've just said something that sounds final but isn't.

If a school is claiming unjustifiable hardship, ask them to put that in writing, with the specific adjustments they're refusing and their documented reasoning. That written refusal becomes evidence for any subsequent complaint.

What to Do When a School Refuses

Step 1: Request a Student Support Group (SSG) meeting in writing.

Put your request in writing and reference the school's obligations under the Disability Standards for Education 2005. Ask for the meeting to identify and document specific reasonable adjustments, regardless of the Tier 3 funding outcome. Keep a copy of every email and letter.

Step 2: Document what has been refused and why.

After any verbal conversation where adjustments are refused, follow up by email: "To confirm our discussion today, you advised that [specific adjustment] would not be provided. Can you confirm this in writing and advise the reason?" Getting the refusal in writing is essential. Schools are far less likely to make sweeping statements in writing.

Step 3: Formally request the school's written policy on reasonable adjustments.

Under DET policy, schools must be able to articulate how they are meeting their DSE obligations. Requesting this in writing creates a formal paper trail and often prompts an internal review.

Step 4: Escalate to the DET Regional Office.

If the school maintains their refusal after the SSG process, the next step is the relevant DET Regional Office — North Eastern, North Western, South Eastern, or South Western Victoria. Your complaint should be in writing, clearly stating the adjustments sought, the dates and content of previous communications, and the specific DSE obligations you believe are being breached.

Step 5: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC).

If DET's internal processes are exhausted without resolution, a formal complaint to VEOHRC under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 is available. VEOHRC conciliation is free and doesn't require a lawyer. If conciliation fails, the matter can proceed to VCAT, which can issue binding orders requiring the school to implement adjustments.

What to Say When the School Claims No Funding

When a school tells you they don't have funding, this framing tends to move the conversation:

"I understand there are resourcing pressures. I'm not asking about the school's budget — I'm asking about the school's legal obligations under the Disability Standards for Education 2005. Can we schedule an SSG to document what reasonable adjustments the school is currently providing or will provide for [child's name], and to identify gaps that need to be addressed?"

This reframes the conversation from a budget discussion to a compliance discussion. Schools that are refusing because they're overstretched respond differently to this framing than they do to budget-focused conversations.

The Victoria Disability Advocacy Playbook at /au/victoria/advocacy/ includes formal written templates for requesting SSG meetings, following up on refused adjustments, and escalating to the DET Regional Office — all citing the specific legislative provisions that create legal obligations.

The Broader Pattern

The Association for Children with a Disability recorded a 160% increase in education advocacy calls over the five-year period leading to 2024. By Term 1 2024, 62% of all contacts to their Support Line involved education. The single most common complaints involve schools failing to implement recommended reasonable adjustments, gatekeeping behaviour, and resisting modifications to school environments.

Your school is not unique in making resourcing arguments. But resourcing difficulties do not extinguish legal obligations. Knowing the difference — and being able to articulate it in writing — is the starting point for changing the outcome.

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