Maple parents threaten to take Catholic board to court over plan to close school

Parents in Maple have taken the dramatic step of threatening their school board with legal action in the latest escalation in their fight to save Our Lady of Peace Catholic Elementary School from closure.

Tuesday, parents served the York Catholic District School Board with a cease and desist request to stop the process to close one of three schools in Maple and cancel a planned vote by trustees of the board set for Feb. 28.

The board had until 5 p.m. Thursday to publicly announce it would stop the school closure process and restart it from scratch, or the parents threatened they would seek an immediate injunction from the Ontario Superior Court.

The lawyer for the parents said YCDSB responded to their request prior to the deadline and indicated the vote would be going ahead as scheduled.

"It doesn't address any of our concerns," said the parents' lawyer, Daniel Camenzuli.

'We feel our hands are tied,' parents say

Jasmine Mousseau is one of several parents from Our Lady of Peace who banded together to take legal action to prevent the Feb. 28 vote on the closure process.

"We feel our hands are tied. We feel we've tried everything and we're not being heard by the board," said Mousseau.

In a report to trustees last September, YCDSB staff argued that declining enrolment means there's no justification for maintaining three elementary schools in south Maple and since Our Lady of Peace is the smallest and oldest of the three, it should be the one that's closed.

However parents with kids in the school say it would be cheaper to keep their school open, and safer, because kids wouldn't have to cross Keele St. to get to Father John Kelly Catholic Elementary School, which is also situated right next to a gas station.

"At this point we're relying on trustees to vote with their conscience, to do their due diligence on the data, but that's a big gamble if they don't do that," Mousseau said.

School 'will close,' principal says

CBC Toronto reported exclusive details Feb. 17 of two internal investigations that were allegedly underway at the board.

The first investigation, launched Jan. 24, was to investigate an email from the principal at Blessed Trinity Catholic Elementary School dated Sept. 2, 2016, in which she told staff that Our Lady of Peace "will close."

Parents were outraged when they obtained the email through a freedom-of-information request because it looked like she had knowledge of an outcome that was not supposed to be voted on by trustees until Feb. 28, 2017, about six months later.

The board concluded its investigation into the principal's email, saying it was a miscommunication and she apologized.

"Of course the board will say it's a miscommunication; they're in damage control right now," said Mousseau. "Obviously something happened at that meeting for the principal to leave that meeting and say, 'it's a done deal.'"

Trustee recuses herself from contentious vote

The second investigation the YCDSB confirmed to CBC Toronto concerned allegations against trustee Teresa Ciaravella. Parents complained it would be a conflict of interest for her to vote on the school closure, because Ciaravella's home daycare is close to Father John Kelly Catholic Elementary School — that's one of the schools that would remain open if Our Lady of Peace was shut down.

"Naturally, she's biased and it could impact her business if that school closes," said Mousseau. "We have concerns this bias started long before this process."

Thursday, Ciaravella announced she would remove herself from the process because of the allegations.

"There have been allegations made by some that I may have a personal conflict of interest," she said in a statement. "Although I do not believe this to be the case, I am deeply committed to maintaining the integrity of this PAR (Pupil Accommodation Review) process, and I have decided to recuse myself from any deliberations at the Board table regarding the Maple PAR on Tuesday, February 28, 2017."

'A mockery of public consultation'

Our Lady of Peace parent Frank Bilotta, who spearheaded the cease and desist request against the school board, said Ciaravella stepping aside is a step in the right direction, but there's been damage done throughout the process and the group of parents still may seek an immediate injunction on the process.

"This is a last resort for us to try and do what's right for our kids and this community," Bilotta said.

There are nine Catholic schools in Maple, but only three could face closure under the process. The group of parents want all nine schools to be on the table.

"What we're looking for right now is for cooler heads to prevail at the board level and restart this process, make it transparent and fair and make it all inclusive," said Bilotta.

The city councillor for the area, Marilyn Iafrate, said it's too bad it's gotten to this, but she told the board back in November that this system is "flawed".

"You do not go through a process with an end result in mind," she said. "[YCDSB is] only trying justify your end result with these community consultations, which is really a mockery of public consultation, as far as I'm concerned."