'Like a caged animal': Parents allege kids isolated, restrained at Whitehorse school

Meghan Woods said she heard her son's screams as soon as she opened the school doors.

It was early 2020 and the Whitehorse mother had left work after another call from Jack Hulland Elementary School letting her know her son was upset. She remembers being frustrated — it wasn't the first time she had to pick him up that year. But she said the hair on the back of her neck stood up when she walked into the building.

The principal guided Woods to a locked room nearby: the "study hall."

"I kind of busted in the door," Woods recalled. "And [her son] was there, sitting at the end of the room and he was crying, and he was under a desk, and it wasn't good." 

She said she swore at the principal — "Would you treat your own kids this way?" — and left with her son, who was still crying but visibly relieved.

It wasn't until this year that Woods learned that what she walked in on wasn't unusual.

Yukon's Department of Education forbids isolating students, and holds or restraints — where adults restrict a child's movement — are only to be used when there's an imminent safety threat.

However, Whitehorse RCMP announced in November 2021 that, along with the government's Family and Children's Services branch, they were investigating allegations about long-standing use of holds and isolation at Jack Hulland. 

The education department ordered an internal review shortly after.

A summary of interim findings released by the department in May confirmed that prior to 2020, staff "routinely" used seclusion and holds for issues of "non-compliance" — such as when a child refused to pull down the hood of their sweater. 

The Yukon Child and Youth Advocate's office, meanwhile, launched a systematic review into how the government is responding to the situation and supporting any impacted children.

The investigations and reviews are ongoing, with no charges laid to date and few public updates. 

However, CBC News spent months speaking to parents like Woods, who painted a troubling picture of the treatment their children allegedly experienced at Jack Hulland from the mid-2010s until 2020. 

In separate interviews, three parents claimed holds — including staff members dragging a student by the arms — were used on children as young as four or five. They also alleged that children who had tantrums or emotional outbursts were locked alone, sometimes for hours, in the study hall.