APPEAL HEARING OF STUDENT'S EXPULSION HELD BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

The first day of an appeal hearing into the expulsion of a 17-year-old
PCVS student was held behind closed doors yesterday.

The teenager, his mother, their lawyer, the school's principal and
vice-principal and three Child and Family Services review board
members were present at the hearing at the Holiday Inn on George
Street. "This is a closed meeting. It's private," one of the review
board members told The Examiner.

The hearing is scheduled to wrap up at the Holiday Inn on
Monday.

Jean Grant, the teen's mother, said her son was expelled in December
after an incident at an off-school party.

The outspoken mother says the school searched backpacks and took
numbers from personal cellphones when investigating alleged drug use
and transactions.

"We send our kids to school to be educated, not to be policed," Grant
said yesterday. "I certainly did not know they have this much power."

In November, the school launched an investigation into allegations
that six students sold and consumed drugs on and off school property,
according to Grant.

The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board told The Examiner it
would not discuss individual cases or give its side in this incident
even though the family has gone public.

"It all started when one of the students' cellphones was taken away by
the vice principal," Grant previously told The Examiner.

"He (PCVS vice-principal Ronald Macdonald) removed the names and phone
numbers of everyone, brought them into his office and basically forced
confessions of drug trafficking out of them," she said.

Grant said she knows her son smoked pot and that he sold a $10 bag of
marijuana to a friend at a party a couple of months ago.

But she's challenging the school's right to investigate in the manner
it did, an investigation resulting in the expulsion of five students.

"Nothing took place at school or at a school event at any time," Grant
said. "There are no limits to what that vice-principal and principal
can do."

While the public school board says it has the authority under
Ontario's Education Act, Grant's lawyer, Christopher Spear, is arguing
those powers violate personal rights and freedoms.

"Being able to search students and their cellphones is not stipulated
in the Education Act," Spear previously said. "The board has ignored
the procedure set out in the act throughout."

Grant said she not only wants the expulsion overturned, but she wants
a review of the Safe Schools Act, which is part of the provincial
Education Act that outlines the protocol to handle suspensions and
expulsions.

"I would like them to overturn the expulsion,' she said. "I would like
to see the Safe Schools Act revised so these things can all be
clarified, so this doesn't happen to anybody else."

Grant was a guest on an early-morning CBC Radio talk show yesterday
and she spoke to The Examiner before the hearing began at 10 a.m. But
when she left the closed-door meeting, she said she would make no
further comments to the media until the hearing ends.