Judge rejects injunction to stop end of 7-12 at Arborfield School

ARBORFIELD — An injunction aimed at stopping the discontinuance of Grades 7 to 12 at Arborfield School was dismissed by a judge.

The application for injunction against the North East School Division was filed by RM of Arborfield, Town of Arborfield and Mavis McCrea in May. Judge John Morrall of the Court of King’s Bench made a decision on Aug. 24.

The judge said that while the school division had made procedural errors in its school viability review, like not posting enough printed posters with a notice in Arborfield, not printing a notice in a physical newspaper available for pickup in Arborfield, and not inviting the Village of Zenon Park to be part of a review committee, he was satisfied the NESD ensured enough notice was given and feedback gathered through other modern and more effective methods.

“While I found that fair and appropriate notice was provided in this case and that the issues with the committee composition were not impactful, it could not have come as a surprise to anyone in the field of administration of education in this province that the lackadaisical adherence to the notice provisions in the regulations would likely found a lawsuit aimed at keeping as many educational services as possible in an affected rural community,” Morrall wrote in his decision.

“The decision to seek legal advice and make a claim against the North East School Division was not made lightly,” said Arborfield Mayor Chet Edwards. “After much thought and discussion, the Council for both the Town and Rural Municipality of Arborfield agreed that the loss of the Arborfield School will detrimentally affect the growth of the communities, and impact property assessment values.

“Arborfield is not the only school facing this challenge. It seems to mirror the steps leading up to the closure of the Gronlid school and other schools within the province over the years. This is a fight for the communities, and a fight for the rural way of life.”

In court documents, Morrall said this has not been the first such application faced by the Court to stop a school in rural Saskatchewan from closing or offering fewer grades, and this will not be the last.

“The application will not finally resolve this dispute but is important to various stakeholders and residents of the Arborfield area as it determines where their older children will go to school in the fast-approaching fall of 2023 school year.”

The judge ruled in favor of the NESD and therefore the students will go to Carrot River Valley School in the fall of 2023.

The Town, RM and Mavis McCrea submitted 27 affidavits by 24 individuals to lay out their case. The NESD submitted one by its director of education Stacy Lair.

Representation on the board

The applicants argued that the school division didn’t follow the procedures to review a school properly.

One argument was that Arborfield was not properly represented on NESD’s board of education. On the board, Arborfield and Carrot River are represented by the same trustee. That position was represented by Kevin Trew, a Carrot River resident. One concern from the applicants was that Trew had a conflict of interest because he was the town administrator for Carrot River.

Trew resigned from the board in June 2022 to take a job outside the district. The position was empty when a motion to review the school passed in September 2022.

Morrall said he determined that Trew would have had no conflict of interest if he remained on the board, as there is no evidence that there would be a financial gain for Trew or the Town of Carrot River if grades were discontinued in Arborfield.

“With respect to the issue of the gap in representation for Arborfield after Mr. Trew’s resignation, I struggle to conceive of any authority that would invalidate a decision of a Board on that basis when there was still a quorum for the board to conduct business,” he said. “There is also a complete absence of any evidence that the outcome of the school review process was impacted at all by his absence or his presence.”

Communication problems

The applicants pointed to a number of communication problems between the NESD and school stakeholders.

A number of affidavits attest that the Zenon Park was not officially informed of the review of the viability of Arborfeld School, while the other municipalities in the area – the Town of Arborfield, RM of Arborfield, RM of Connaught, RM of Moose Range and RM of Bjorkdale – received a letter requesting that they jointly appoint two members to the school review committee.

Lair stated in her affidavit that she believed that Zenon Park was part of the RM of Arborfield and no letter was sent to that municipality.

The judge said that was a breach of the school review regulations.

Morrall said later in his judgement that it was noteworthy that all the other smaller communities didn’t protest the exclusion of Zenon Park, and that none of the other RMs except for Arborfield appointed anybody to the review committee.

The applicants argued that notice of the school’s closure weren’t prominently posted at five widely‑separated locations in the school district.

“Ms. Lair’s own evidence indicates that her assistant simply requested that the notice be posted in various locations, and there was no evidence of any effort to ensure and verify that the notices were actually posted,” the judge said, concluding that was a breach of the school review regulations.

The applicants also note that notice wasn’t placed in a newspaper serving the community.

The school division had placed the notice in the Prince Albert Daily Herald’s Rural Roots, but only the Melfort/Nipawin Journal has a place to pick up a physical paper in Arborfield.

The judge said that was a breach. He then noted that there were an abundance of newspapers and online media that carried stories regarding the review process at Arborfield School.

“This evidence demonstrates that there was notice of these matters in the local media, which was what the newspaper notice was supposed to accomplish.”

Morrall said that while there were some breaches of the process as written in regulation, he found that based on precedence from other cases, there is no requirement mandating an overly strict adherence to the statute so that form triumphs over substance.

“From the record and the evidence, I find that, while there was imperfect compliance with the notice procedures and the lack of inclusion of representatives of Zenon Park,” he said, “the Board, by and large, ensured that notice was provided and input was received through modern and more effective methods than the more antiquated posting of notices on bulletin boards and in newspapers.”

The judge did criticize the NESD for its ‘lackadaisical’ compliance with the statutory provisions, saying that he’d have thought they would have scrupulously complied with the statutory provisions regarding notice so as to head off contentious litigation.

Irreparable harm

The applicants argued the discontinuance of Grades 7 to 12 would cause irreparable harm, particularly because of busing.

“The argument of irreparable harm as a longer bus ride to Carrot River as this busing time does not meet the legal definition of irreparable harm and there is no cogent evidence of irreparable harm during the affected time period in relations to the students' extracurricular activities or the necessary childcare arrangements.”

Morrall said that busing in rural Saskatchewan was a fact of life.

“The courts in Saskatchewan have found that busing is an inconvenience, not an irreparable harm.”