An irate mother will front the NT Anti-Discrimination Commission and demand answers from a school for children with special learning needs over allegations her son was excluded from activities.
Samantha Baker said her son had attended just one excursion in about two years of his enrolment with Forrest Parade School, a specialist school with about 60 students in Palmerston.
Eleven-year-old Jai Baker lives with global development delay, is non-verbal and has limited mobility and vision.
He's been withdrawn from schooling as a communication stalemate between Ms Baker and the Department of Education deepens.
The allegation about the excursions, alongside other claims related to the school buying a non-wheelchair-accessible bus and a lack of accessible parking, will go to compulsory conciliation with the Anti-Discrimination Commission this week.
The meeting does not mean the Anti-Discrimination Act has been breached, but serves as an initial forum to resolve complaints before they are investigated further.
In August last year, staff at Forrest Parade School drew up plans to take 31 special-needs students on an excursion to Darwin's rural area, where they would participate in outdoor activities with other specialist schools.
But when Ms Baker dropped her son off to school on the day, she was told her son's class would not be going.
"When I asked why, I was told 'because there's lots of staff away sick'," she said.
A review would later find the decision was partly due to the availability of staff with the appropriate skillsets, but also cited student behaviours in the days prior.
Ms Baker said a number of classes still attended and she then suspected that her son had been put in the "too-hard basket".
"In the two weeks leading up to the excursion date, his teacher had turned around and said, 'It's going to be a really hot day, there's no toileting facilities out there, Jai may not enjoy it'," she said.
It followed other instances that made her question the school's standards, including one in 2017 when she reportedly only learned her son hadn't attended a swimming excursion when she picked him up early.
"I had let that go; I thought it was kind of teething issues with the school," Ms Baker said.
The following year, a bizarre class photo left her baffled. Jai's portrait was digitally inserted into the image despite her belief he attended school that day.
"To see the next year that this is still occurring and that he is being excluded, I was upset."
That incident and five others, including the September excursion and issues with staff communication, have been reviewed by the department after Ms Baker formally raised concerns last year.
Another reason Ms Baker believes her son may have been excluded from some excursions is that the school's current bus doesn't accommodate wheelchairs.
"For me, I have to question why they would buy a bus that doesn't accommodate every student at that school, considering they are a purpose-built special-needs school," Ms Baker said.
"I would've thought they would take that into consideration and bought a bus that catered to the needs of all students."
The department's review of Ms Baker's complaint put this down to "limited establishment funds".
It said the second-hand bus, alongside wheelchair-accommodating taxis, were appropriate interim measures while funds for a new bus were raised.
But Ms Baker questioned why it couldn't afford it earlier, pointing to documents showing the school last year operated at a more than $600,000 surplus.
The Department of Education said it could not comment on individual cases, but that schools prioritised available funding to meet the education needs of all its students.
The school announced this month that it would purchase a new bus with wheelchair access.
Throughout the long complaints resolution process, the department has repeatedly emphasised its desire for Jai to return to school.
But Ms Baker said she wouldn't consider that avenue until she felt her complaints were adequately addressed.
She said she was unsure if other schools in the area were equipped to cater to her son's needs.
"If the school can't communicate with me and communicate effectively about my son and the day-to-day goings-on at school, then how can I have any trust in his safety, in his schooling and in what's going on?
"They're obviously not trying to resolve my complaints and concerns, because they're not trying to answer any of my questions."
The school cancelled a meeting scheduled with Ms Baker just over a week ago.
Both parties will go to conciliation when three of Ms Baker's allegations are raised with the Anti-Discrimination Commission.
The dispute comes in the same week the Department of Education publicly released its 10-Year Framework for Inclusion, a plan to promote inclusivity for diverse classroom needs.
Statistics released with the strategy showed 27 per cent of children in NT schools received education adjustments as at 2017, the highest proportion nationally.
The department's policy for students with disabilities includes a commitment to providing them with access to programs within the community.