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Kelowna News

Central Okanagan school district sues to remove student who shared naked images of classmates

School expulsion in court

An Okanagan student who allegedly shared naked images of two classmates has returned to the school she was asked to leave, and the school board is not happy about it.

Central Okanagan Public Schools this week filed a court application to set aside an April decision by a third-party adjudicator that saw the teen reinstated to a middle school she was told not to return to last November.

According to the school board’s petition to the court, the “student engaged in extreme and very serious misconduct” last year.

“(The teen) admitted to logging in to a former friend’s Instagram account with the purpose of obtaining intimate images of that former friend and a male student,” the petition reads.

“She also admitted to showing the intimate images of those two students to other students on her own phone screen to multiple students.”

Following an investigation, the student was asked to leave that school and offered placement in other educational programs, such as online school or other middle schools. The board asserts this decision was “in the best interests of the student.”

The teen’s mother disagreed and the matter eventually made its way to third-party adjudicator Kenneth Wm. Thornicroft. The Ministry of Education's superintendent of appeals Tsnomot Brad Baker is named as a defendant in the suit alongside the teen's mother, who is not being named to protect the identity of the teen.

Thornicroft found that moving the teen to another school was "unreasonably punitive" and only in the best interest in the students who had their privacy breached, not the girl herself.

This is despite the fact he agreed with school officials about what the teen had done.

His findings diverged from the school board’s, only in that he found that the student was bullied and harassed by other students, namely her alleged victims, and that the district failed to follow through with these concerns.

The school district takes issue with this notion, according to the petition.

Pulling from an affidavit from schools superintendent Kevin Kaardal, school officials interviewed students, engaged in an organization designed to prevent school-based violence and even called in an RCMP liaison and concluded there wasn’t a case for bullying.

Thornicroft, the school board petition read, “found without evidence that the reason why the school board had been unable to determine who is responsible for the bullying and harassment towards the student is that the students have refused to come forward or have not been forthcoming when interviewed.”

“The adjudicator’s finding that students in the know of bullying and harassment towards the student and parent have refused to come forward or not been wholly forthcoming is patently unreasonable as there is no evidence in the record to support this finding,” reads the petition.

“The findings is central to the adjudicator’s decision and thus renders the decision patently unreasonable.”

The board said in its petition that, when read in its totality and with review of the record, the decision is openly, clearly, and evidently unreasonable.

“The decision was exercised arbitrarily and based predominantly on irrelevant factors," the petition reads.

The district is asking for the adjudicator’s decision to be set aside and that costs of the case be awarded to the school board.

The board is not the only one to file a court case. The teen filed a notice of claim seeking $896,000 in damages, more than half for unspecified general damages.

It seeks $130,000 for for "emotional distress for ongoing discrimination" and $290,000 for pain and suffering, along with $16,000 for the mother's time representing the student.

*a previous version of this story said the adjudicator's decision came in January, when in fact, it was handed down in April.



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