Nine Greater Victoria school trustees fired by the British Columbia government earlier this year have filed a court petition to get their jobs back.
Education Minister Lisa Beare announced the dismissal of the entire elected board of School District No. 61 in January over the trustees’ refusal to allow police officers in schools, except in certain circumstances.
The ban had been in place since the end of May 2023 as the board said students and teachers — particularly those who are Indigenous or people of colour — did not feel safe with officers in schools.
Their petition filed with the B.C. Supreme Court asks a judge to throw out the order that dismissed them and installed a lone trustee to oversee the district until municipal elections in fall 2026.
The petition says the minister acted with the “improper purpose” of forcing the board to implement a school liaison officer program.
The allegations in the petition have not yet been tested in court, and the Education Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The document claims the education minister did not have the jurisdiction to impose the liaison program directly or indirectly through a “procedurally unfair process” that ended with the board’s firing.
“The termination order was made on grounds that were without notice to the board and without providing the board with any opportunity to respond to them,” it says.
The minister acted in bad faith by forcing the board to reinstate a school liaison officer program without “appearing to have overstepped her role,” it claims.
The petition says the board had followed an initial order to create a safety plan for the district, which did not require it to include a liaison officer program.
Beare then appointed a special adviser to help revise the plan. The order did not include a mandate for a police program, but the adviser “refused to continue working with the board” on a draft plan that did not include one, the petition says.
It says the board subsequently provided Beare with three versions of a revised safety plan, two of which did not include a school liaison officer program. The third did, having been prepared by the special adviser the minister had appointed.
The board had indicated that it recommended the first of the plans, the petition says, but “the second or third were acceptable, if the minster preferred.”
Beare fired the board about three weeks later.
“The minister, put in the position of having to openly reveal her intentions by selecting one of the three revised safety plans for approval, said nothing substantive about any of the alternatives, and instead embarked on a swift and secret governance review of the board,” says the petition dated March 31.
“Based on a myriad of vague allegations which were never put to the board for response, the minister obtained the support of cabinet to terminate the board.”
At the time, Beare said the firing of the board and the appointment of trustee Sherri Bell, a former president of Camosun College and superintendent of schools in Victoria, cleared the way for completion of a safety plan for the district.
The petition says the ousted board had been open to adopting a type of police liaison program as long as there was “empirical evidence of its benefits,” and if it were structured in a way that gave the board “ultimate oversight” over it.
The district previously had a police liaison program, it says, but there was no written agreement or memorandum of understanding between the district and police.
The board “had no oversight or input into the delivery of the program or the goals and activities of police liaison officers,” it says, and resolved to end it in May 2023.
The following summer, the petition says Beare’s predecessor raised concerns about an alleged increase in gang activity in schools and later ordered the board to work with local police forces to produce a safety plan by November 2024.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 2, 2025.
