A downtown Kamloops residents’ association believes the board of education’s decision to close Stuart Wood elementary is “legally invalid” and has a lawyer’s assessment to back its assertion.
In a letter to the Kamloops-Thompson school district, Micah Rankin of the Jensen Law Corp. said “the board’s process did not comply with the School Act, Ministerial Order 194/08, or its own internal school-closure policy.”
Among various arguments, Rankin noted the board has not yet adopted a bylaw dealing with the closure of Stuart Wood, as mandated by the School Act.
However, Karl deBruijn, superintendent of the Kamloops-Thompson school district, disagreed with Rankin’s view, noting there is plenty of time to pass a formal bylaw to close Stuart Wood as the doors will not be shuttered until September 2016.
DeBruijn said the board of education’s June 23 decision to close Stuart Wood included several other reconfiguration decisions that flow from the decision, including moving Stuart Wood students to Beattie School of the Arts elementary, then moving those Beattie kids to the Beattie secondary building on Ninth Avenue, creating a kindergarten to Grade 12 fine-arts school.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Education, speaking on background only, said closing a school is ultimately a board of education decision, noting the ministry simply needs to be just kept informed of the process.
LAWYER’S ARGUMENT CITES SCHOOL ACT The ministerial order lawyer Michah Rankin refers to in his legal opinion on the closure of Stuart Wood elementary is part of the province’s School Act. It states when a school is being permanently closed, a board must allow for public consultation that is “a fair consideration of the community’s input and adequate opportunity for the community to respond to the board’s proposal to close the school permanently.” It also requires trustees to consider possible alternative community use for all or part of the school. The building which houses the school is owned by the City of Kamloops. On Oct. 3, Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar held a press conference to announce city officials had learned earlier of a covenant on the property that would see it revert back to the province if it is not used for educational purposes. At that conference, Milobar also announced an agreement with Thompson Rivers University to pursue the post-secondary facility using the St. Paul Street building. At that time, Kamloops-Thompson board of education chair Denise Harper said trustees had been unaware of the covenant until mid-September and knew nothing about the talks between the city and TRU that might lead to a downtown campus. Milobar said then the information was not provided to trustees so they could make their own decision on future of Stuart Wood in a transparent way. In a package of emails obtained by the Downtown and West End Residents’ Association of correspondence between school-board administration and trustees, a June 24 email from board secretary-treasurer to then-superintendent Terry Sullivan and Harper addresses a “courtesy telephone call” to the city’s CAO, David Trawin. Stretch’s email said he notified Trawin of the board’s June 23 decision to close Stuart Wood and relocate the staff and students to a school on McGill Road by September, 2016. The email says Trawin “was pleased the board made a decision — he was OK one way or the other . . . He indicated the mayor may be making an announcement over the next day or two indicating what the city has planned for the closed school in 2016. “David passed on his thanks to our trustees for their unanimous decision.”
That is particularly true if the physical building is owned by the school district, as there are rules about alternate uses or sale, but the Stuart Wood situation is unique because the school is in a building owned by the City of Kamloops, with the land title including a clause that the building must be used for educational purposes for it to remain in city hands.
Rankin, who was retained by the Downtown and West End Residents’ Association (DWERA), said the board “held only a single public meeting — in North Kamloops — and placed limits on how individuals could participate.”
Rankin included in his list of deficiencies in the board’s action its refusal to accept additional information after its stated June 9 deadline for public input, its refusal to allow DWERA to make a presentation to the board on June 23 and the emails that suggest the “closure process was tailored to avoid negative media attention and not to facilitate public participation in its decision.”
Noting the ongoing municipal election, Rankin has asked for a response from the district by Dec. 1. His letter is now in the hands of the school district’s legal team.
DWERA executive member Jenny Reid said while the bylaw issue is considered important, she is more concerned with email correspondence the association received through a freedom-of-information request.
The emails show some trustees were concerned they were not giving the public enough opportunity to provide input.; however, at the June 23 board meeting, each trustee voted in favour of the school’s closure.
On Friday, June 20, three days before the meeting at which the decision was made, trustee Joan Cowden emailed her colleagues: “It is very important that we postpone our decisions about Stuart Wood on Monday evening.”
Board chairwoman Denise Harper sent a reply to Cowden’s concern: “After considerable thought, I am coming to the conclusion that we need to take a step back from a decision Monday night.”
Then-superintendent Terry Sullivan sent an email to trustees later on June 20, telling them “the board is free to make whatever decision the board in its wisdom wants to make” about closing Stuart Wood.
After suggesting trustees might want to meet in-camera before the board meeting, Sullivan wrote: “I think any risk to the board is not in the decision you make, but being perceived as having lost control of the process.”
Other emails refer to a letter sent to the board on June 20 from DWERA and the Sagebrush Neighbourhood Association, which held a public meeting on June 18 to discuss the potential school closure. In that letter, Denis Walsh, then-DWERA chairman, asked trustees to listen to the shared position and concerns of the two groups.
In a May 21 email exchange, Sullivan told Harper he saw problems with when the public would receive the report that Stuart Wood was being considered for closure. He was responding to an email from Harper, in which she noted she was concerned “if this matter appears on the public-meeting agenda for the May 21 meeting, the media will begin pressuring trustees for comments and we may see the gallery full of interested parties.
“If trustees elect to delay making a decision, that will be bad optics. Would you not agree it would be better to leave it off the agenda and anticipate a decision in June?”
Sullivan replied, noting the June 9 board meeting was scheduled to be held in Logan Lake: “There would be problems with the optics of that and some criticism that we are dealing with it for the first time in an out-of-town location without media coverage. If the board waits until June 23, I think there are greater problems with that because it is very late in the day and what do we do if there are more questions at that point? That is why I suggested that the earlier that it is out there the better.”
Harper told KTW this week that her concern in June was based on feedback she received that a joint DWERA-Sagebrush Neighbourhood Association (SNA) group would be asking to present a new idea on the future of the school to trustees on June 23.
Harper said the board received a letter sent on June 20 from DWERA and SNA, asking trustees to listen to the shared position and concerns of the two groups.
“But, we didn’t see anything new there,” Harper said, noting trustees chose to make the decision to close Stuart Wood based on “the educational needs of the students.”
As for Rankin’s claim of lack of public input, Harper replied: “We received input from mid-November to June. How much more do they want?”
As for Rankin’s argument the one public meeting held took place on the North Shore, Harper noted it was at held the Henry Grube Education Centre.
“It is our building and the only one big enough to hold a large crowd,” Harper said.
In his letter to the school district, Rankin said sections of the School Act and a specific Ministerial Order require that a board only close a school through a bylaw.
“In the case of Stuart Wood (and, indeed, previous school closures), the board failed to do this,” Rankin wrote.
However, in past board of education agendas perused by KTW, it appears previous school closures in the Kamloops-Thompson district were indeed done via the adoption of bylaws.
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