Dannish: Human Rights Complaint to Access STEM Education

Calgary resident Monica Dannish has filed a human rights complaint on behalf of her son against STEM Innovation Academy, a free public charter school for grades 7-12 with a special focus on STEM learning. Monica applied to STEM Innovation Academy in 2024 for her son to attend the school as a grade 7 student for the 2025-2026 academic year.

Case Description

Monica’s son is not a typical kid merely interested or proficient in math and science, as presumably all applicants to STEM Innovation Academy are. Rather, he has been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety—which are mental disabilities protected by the Alberta Human Rights Act—while also scoring within the top 2% of his age group in Quantitative Reasoning and Arithmetic. As a result of being at such a high level in STEM subjects, he has been unchallenged and bored at regular public schools, which has exasperated his ADHD and anxiety. For Monica’s son, the best treatment for his mental disabilities as it regards his education is to be in a challenging STEM environment. In this way, he would not only uniquely benefit from STEM Innovation Academy, the school is the only one capable of meaningfully accommodating both his educational needs and mental disabilities. All of this was confirmed by a recent psychoeducational assessment.

Monica provided all this to STEM Innovation Academy and requested her son be admitted to the school as a form of human rights accommodation. Unfortunately, the school explicitly ignored her son’s disabilities and particular program suitability and denied him admission. STEM Innovation Academy claimed it used a random lottery to select students for the 2025-2026 academic year and that Monica’s son was not one of the lucky students. But human rights law does not permit such reliance upon lottery systems as a means of schools effectively bypassing the duty to accommodate students with protected characteristics.

Monica pleaded with STEM Innovation Academy and went through two levels of appeal, all to no avail. She has reluctantly resorted to legal action. She is represented by James SM Kitchen of KITCHEN WELLS LLP.