FAMILY SUES DURHAM SCHOOL BOARD

Lawsuit Claims Wrongful Expulsion; Asks for $250,000 in Damages

DURHAM -- An Uxbridge student and his parents are suing the Durham District
School Board, five of its trustees and three staff members, seeking
$250,000 in damages and the clearing of the pupil's record. At issue is the
expulsion of the student, now 18, in January 2001. While he has since been
readmitted, the defendants claim he was expelled based on unproven
information from Durham Regional Police, and that the board bungled the
expulsion hearing, violating the Education Act.

Whitby trustees Elizabeth Roy and Doug Ross, Brock-Uxbridge Trustee Nancy
Loraine, Oshawa Trustee Kathleen Hopper and Pickering Trustee Jennifer
Bridge are named in the suit. As well, the statement of claim filed with
the Ontario Superior Court of Justice lists education director Grant Yeo,
Uxbridge schools superintendent Bev Freedman and Uxbridge Secondary School
principal Peter Morris as defendants.

The student and his parents cannot be identified because he was under 18 at
the time of the incident.

In an interview, the student's mother said the family has been through
"hell". She did not deny police caught her son off school property with
marijuana during a holiday break, but denies he sold drugs at the school,
as Durham Regional Police and the board claim. Sergeant Paul Malik, Durham
police spokesman, said Tuesday the teen was given a conditional discharge
in the case.

The parent said she realized something might be amiss when she read an
Uxbridge Times-Journal story about a school board meeting in which a
trustee alleged his colleagues violated the Education Act in conducting an
illegal expulsion hearing. When she saw that the hearing took place on
March 19, 2001, she realized they were talking about her son's case.

The issue has been a contentious one amongst trustees. Five trustees formed
a committee to conduct an expulsion hearing, and the entire board of
trustees later ratified the decision, a course of action sanctioned by the
board's lawyer.

Two weeks later at a standing committee meeting, Scugog Trustee Martin
Demmers argued his colleagues had no authority to form their own committee.
Other trustees, including Pickering Trustee Paul Crawford and Oshawa
Trustee Cynthia Steffen, supported Trustee Demmers' motion the board
solicit a second legal opinion. That motion was defeated.

Earlier this year, when board members feuded over a controversial legal
bill incurred by some trustees, the trustees involved indicated they sought
advice from a lawyer after rejecting the opinion of the board solicitor
regarding an expulsion hearing.

The parent confirmed some of the trustees involved in the legal bill, and
their lawyer, had contacted her about her son's case.

In the board's statement of defence, it claims neither the student nor his
parents "took any steps in 2001, whatsoever, to appeal and/or review the
decision of the trustees.

"The defendants plead that the expulsion hearing was properly conducted and
the plaintiff's remedies, arising therefrom, if anyone or more of them felt
aggrieved, were to immediately appeal or seek judicial review of the
decision and that by their failure to do so, they are now estopped by,
amongst other things, their delay and laches from advancing any such claim
in this honourable court."

The statement says the student's arrest "was a continuation of an
investigation that was conducted at the school, relating to (the student's)
direct involvement in the distribution of narcotics on school property."

Alan Farrer, the board's lawyer, said in an interview there are two
parallel proceedings, a judicial review and a lawsuit, that will be dealt
with at different times. He expected the review to take place sometime this
year but estimated the trial likely would not be held this year.

Mr. Farrer said it was not appropriate to get into details of the case.
However, he acknowledged Mr. Morris was not present at the expulsion
hearing. The family claims that's a violation of the Education Act, a claim
rejected by Mr. Farrer.