Fired B.C. school trustees going to court to try to get their jobs back

CBC

01-04-2025

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The Greater Victoria school trustees who were fired by the province in January have filed a court petition to try to get their jobs back.
The nine trustees, who were elected to the Greater Victoria School Board in 2022, were dismissed after months of dispute with the Education Ministry over student safety.
In court documents filed Monday, March 31, the trustees allege that their firing and the two ministerial orders that led to it were unfair, in bad faith, and outside of the minister's jurisdiction.
They're asking a judge to review and set aside the ministerial orders and reinstate their positions on the board.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Education Minister Lisa Beare said the former trustees have a right to file such a petition, but that she's confident in the decision she made.
Firing followed a series of ministerial orders
The disagreement began last year after police, local First Nations, and parents raised concerns about safety in schools.
They said there was a rise in gang activity, drugs and sextortion in schools since the school board cancelled its school police liaison officer program in 2023.
In September, then-education minister Rachna Singh ordered the school board to work with local police to create a safety plan.
In December, after receiving the plan, new Education Minister Lisa Beare said it wasn't satisfactory and appointed a special adviser to work with the board to revise it.
The special adviser and the school board disagreed on what to include in the new plan, and the education minister ended up dismissing the board on Jan. 30, replacing it with a single trustee who will stay in place until the next general election in 2026.
In their court petition, fired trustees Nicole Duncan, Karin Kwan, Natalie Baillaut, Angela Carmichael, Mavis David, Derek Gagnon, Emily Mahbobi, Diane McNally, and Rob Paynter, allege the ministry's actions were rooted in a desire to force school police liaison officers (SPLOs) back into the district's schools — something they argue the minister has no right to do.
"The orders are part of the same procedurally unfair process initiated by the Minister for the purpose of re-instating the SPLO Program in SD61 without the Minister being seen to have done so," states the petition.
For her part, Beare says the decisions were never specifically about liaison officers but about school safety more broadly.
"This was never about SPLOs," Beare told CBC News.
"This was about the board being given multiple chances over a number of years to meet the needs of the students and provide a safety plan to update their policies in the district to ensure that students were being kept safe, and the board failed to do that."
Next steps
The former trustees' petition has yet to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the newly appointed trustee, Sherri Bell, signed off on a new safety plan at a school district meeting on March 31, which the province will now review.