Members of Save KCVI React Angrily to Ministry of Education’s Refusal to Consider Appeal

Members of Save KCVI are angry that the Ministry of Education has refused to even consider their appeal of the school closure decision.

Save KCVI filed an appeal of the school closure decision with the Ontario Ministry of Education; posted on the Save KCVI website.

The Ministry has declined to review the appeal on technical grounds that the real school closure decision occurred in June 2013 and hence Save KCVI missed the deadline that required the appeal to be filed within 30 days of the closure decision.  Members of Save KCVI have expressed shock at this decision, contending that the real closure decision occurred in October 2013 when the Board sent its final decision to the Ministry for the first time.

Art Cockfield, a KCVI parent and lawyer involved in the review, says ‘it is outrageous that a provincial government agency would reject our appeal on these narrow technical grounds.  By refusing to review our appeal, the provincial government denied members of the public their right under provincial law to have the Ministry of Education vet a school board’s school closure process.’

Supporters of the venerable high school claim that the provincial government clearly does not want to confront the issue. The ministry ‘appears to be circling the wagons to protect the employees of the Limestone District School Board mentioned in our appeal,’ according to Mr. Cockfield.

‘It looks increasingly like they may need to put this whole mess in front of a neutral judge to hold the Board accountable for its actions,’ says Mr. Cockfield.  ‘I have lost confidence that the provincial Liberals will do their job properly and vet the egregious process errors committed by the Board.’