The New Westminster school district started the school year with a base budget of $50,000 to pay for legal fees, but it recently added another $100,000 to the pot for legal expenses.
So far, the district has doled out $73,000 for legal costs in 2011/12, but that number could rise, especially after the district said it may bring a lawyer along when it meets with parents who have been complaining about a math teacher at New Westminster Secondary School.
The legal cost estimates jumped significantly in the middle of the school year. In January and February alone, the district spent almost $30,000 on legal fees.
The Record submitted a freedom of information request to the district last month asking for details on all legal payments the district made in 2011/12. The request called for an account of what the school district paid for those services and why.
The district provided The Record a one-page document that stated which law firm the district paid (in the majority of cases it was to Vancouver-based Harris and Company), the amount and whether the legal inquiry was for a personnel investigation, general matter or a special education assistant - an education assistant who works with special needs students. The district provided no information as to what the legal issues were.
"Personnel investigations" cost the district $55,183.18, "general matters" cost $16,146.32 and "special education investigations" cost the district $1,921.36.
The district has so far received 13 invoices for legal bills, but that will likely increase if a lawyer turns up at the May 14 meeting.
Earlier this year, NWSS parents Kal Randhawa and Lisa Chao submitted appeals to the school district over what they believed was an unusually high failure rate in a Grade 11 math class, and they wanted the school district to address the situation. In response, the district bumped up students' grades.
The district won't hear the parents' appeals because they didn't fall within the "scope" of the School Act or district policy, the parents were told in a letter.
The parents were also unhappy with the district's handling of parent complaints and felt stymied by the district. Chao submitted a freedom of information request to the district in February, asking for all math marks for grades 8 to 12 students at New Westminster Secondary School for the past five years, indexed by year, course, semester and teacher. The district told Chao that the information she requested would be 1,700 pages long, and the cost of photocopying and research for her request would be $1,385.
No one from the district would comment on how much the parents' appeals and freedom of information requests have cost the district in legal fees.
"If it's a person-nel matter, if it's dealing with an employee, then we wouldn't release that information," said assistant-superintendent Al Balanuik, the district's Freedom of Information and Privacy officer.
The math matter at NWSS would be considered a personnel issue, he said.
