SCHOOL BOARD GETS LESSON IN EXPULSIONS

A court ruling that the local public school board needed more than
concern, suspicions and hearsay to permanently expel a student from
Peterborough Collegiate adds some badly needed perspective to
Ontario's Education Act.

It also highlights the contribution the teenager's mother, Jean Grant,
has made to the protection of students' rights in Ontario through her
brave, tenacious and costly legal battle with the board.

Grant's son wa s kicked out of Grade 12 at PCVS in December 2008 after
school officials heard stories about smoking marijuana at a weekend
party in a private home.

He was one of the first students to be permanently expelled under
"safe school" provisions that had been added to the Education Act
earlier in 2008.

Grant appealed the school board's decision to the Child and Family
Services Review Board. The review board ruled in her favour, and the
Kawartha Pine Ridge District School board filed a court appeal of that
decision.

Madame Justice Katherine Swinton, writing for a three-judge panel of
the Superior Court of Justice, has now delivered a firm rejection of
virtually all of the board's arguments.

The Education Act states that to expel a student for more than 20 days
the board must show the student's behaviour will "have an impact on
the school climate."

Swinton found the board failed that test, relying on "hearsay" about
drug dealing from unnamed students who did not testify at the board
hearing or the appeal. The board also failed to give the student
written reasons for his expulsion, as is required by the act.

Swinton dismissed the board's argument that the review board was
required to accept the principal's belief that the school climate
would be impacted if the boy attend classes.

If that were true, students would have "no meaningful right of
appeal," she wrote, noting that the act gives the power of expulsion
to school boards, not principals, and deliberately sets up an appeal
process.

In a related issue, Swinton also states that review board decisions
are final and cannot be appealed to the courts. That should make any
future cases shorter and less costly for parents like Jean Grant.

Grant was awarded $3,000 in legal costs, much less than the $9,000 she
has spent. Despite the cost, and even though her son has now
graduated, Grant says she will keep up the fight if the school board
files another appeal.

That should not happen. It should accept the court's ruling and follow
the Education Act the next time it believes a student presents a
threat to a proper school climate.