Official data on school exclusions often fails to capture the full reality for ākonga (students) with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (Te Iho Tātai-ā-Rongo).

Many families experience ‘informal’ removals – where a school ‘suggests’ that a child stay home, or Restricted Attendance, where a child is only allowed to attend for a few hours a day or on certain days of the week.

This breaches their human, disability, and education rights.

Now FASD-CAN has created a way of keeping track of these events and maintaining them in a database.

Why we are collecting this data

When these events aren't formalised, they don't appear in government reports. This creates a misleading picture of the ‘success’ of the education system and allows the specific needs of the FASD community to be overlooked. To advocate effectively, we need a robust, real-time database that reflects the actual frequency of these events, including the breach of rights and the ‘hidden’ loss of education through restricted hours.

Click here to go find out more and use the KEA Tracker form on our 'Resources' web page.