BC Education and Child Care Minister Lisa Beare’s surprise decision this week to reverse course on the dismissal orders against the elected Greater Victoria School Board should force the provincial government to confront an uncomfortable truth: this entire fiasco was unnecessary, costly, and deeply damaging to public trust.
In early 2025, Beare fired the democratically elected board over a policy dispute regarding the district’s controversial school police liaison officer program. The board had decided to abolish the police liaison program as part of a broader rethink of the roles of police officers in schools—much to the chagrin of the Victoria Police Department, who, text messages later revealed, coordinated with the provincial government in the leadup to the school board’s dismissal.
In firing the elected school board officials, the current provincial government became the first in British Columbia history to dismiss an elected school board over a policy disagreement. That should concern anyone who values democratic governance and local accountability.
Now, after months of turmoil and significant expense to taxpayers—during which Greater Victoria residents were denied democratic representation in their school district—the government has reversed that decision because it failed to timely disclose troubling text messages between an associate deputy minister and an assistant police chief, as required through the legal process undertaken by the fired trustees to challenge their dismissal.
Those messages included a variety of insulting and derogatory comments about the chair of the school board, Nicole Duncan, as well as insults directed towards other members of the board. The government claims that their failure to disclose those text messages to the court was an “administrative error.”
This entire affair raises serious questions about why the minister chose to fire the democratically elected board in the first place, and about the nature of the communications between senior ministry staff and police officials.
Taxpayers have now been left footing the bill for an extraordinary series of avoidable costs, including the government appointment of Sherri Bell, who replaced the elected school board, in addition to contract costs for special advisor Kevin Godden (who was appointed to help the board develop a “safety plan” prior to their dismissal,) retroactive compensation owed to the fired trustees; and extensive legal expenses, including those incurred by the dismissed board members themselves.
None of these costs would have arisen had the minister exercised sound judgment in the first place and respected the trustees’ democratic role in setting policy for their district.
There are also serious unanswered questions about how this process unfolded behind closed doors, particularly regarding the involvement of senior ministry officials and the Victoria Police Department.
Meanwhile, students continue to lose programs and supports.
In a particularly galling move, the provincial government-appointed trustee (following the board’s dismissal) approved a substantial raise for the superintendent of schools while simultaneously cutting student services and programs. At a time when districts across British Columbia are struggling to preserve music programs, learning supports, and classroom resources, this sends exactly the wrong message about government priorities.
This situation reflects a broader and increasingly troubling pattern within the Ministry of Education and Child Care: political intervention taking precedence over collaboration, transparency, and respect for local democratic governance.
Like governments at all levels, school boards are not perfect. They make difficult decisions, and sometimes unpopular ones. But elected trustees are accountable to the communities that elect them. Overriding democratic outcomes because the provincial government disagrees with a board’s policy direction sets a dangerous precedent.
These actions have damaged public confidence in democratic governance. Trustees, families, and students have been caught in the crossfire. Precious education dollars have been diverted from classrooms, with students ultimately paying the price.
The government owes the public a full accounting of how this happened, how much it cost, and what safeguards will be put in place to ensure it never happens again.
The trustees should never have been fired. But after this debacle, perhaps someone at the provincial level should be held accountable.
