St. Albert parents celebrated last week after the province cut a deal to reopen Alberta's biggest home-school provider.
Alberta Education and Trinity Christian School Association reached an out-of-court settlement on Jan. 5 that restored the group's accreditation, registration and funding.
The association runs a 13-student school in Cold Lake and is the supervising school authority for about 30 per cent of Alberta's home-school population.
Education Minister David Eggen cancelled the association's accreditation and closed the school last October after a review found that it had mishandled provincial funds. The province was concerned that almost all of the school's cash and operations were being handled by a third party, Wisdom Home Schooling Society, and flagged what it alleged were questionable wages and expenses.
The decision threw the education of some 3,500 home-school students into doubt, including Laura Veenendaal's four kids in St. Albert. The province told affected parents that they had to switch their kids to a new school.
"I didn't realize how stressed out they were," Veenendaal said of her kids.
"Once we told them (about the settlement), they were just really relieved."
Grande Prairie Court of Queen's Bench Justice E.J. Simpson ruled in November that Trinity could stay open until he could rule on the school's legal challenge of the province's decision on Jan. 5.
Last Thursday, Simpson announced in court that the two parties had reached a settlement and dropped the challenge.
The settlement allows Trinity to continue operations but specifies that Wisdom is to have no governance or decision-making role in it. All staff and funds are to be controlled by Trinity. The province will appoint, at its cost, a financial administrator to oversee the school's operations for a year. Trinity will also get the cash the province held back over the last few months.
Harsh words all around
Andrea Veldkamp, who has two kids home-schooled through Trinity, said this was a fair resolution to the dispute, one that held lessons for both parties.
"(The province) needs to be absolutely sure of the facts before they go forwards and shut down an organization," she said, and organizations need to be absolutely sure they use provincial dollars properly.
Veenendaal said this settlement is exactly what the province should have done in the first place.
"My biggest disappointment is that they would shut (the school) down and not put the kids first."
Curtis Galbraith, a reporter with Grande Prairie's Big Country and Q99 Radio who covered Thursday's court hearing, said Simpson had harsh words for both parties when he read out the settlement last week in court.
"He said essentially that there was no reason that two reasonable people couldn't have met and hashed out something without going to court," Galbraith said, and criticized both parties for launching a court case at taxpayer's expense.
Galbraith said Simpson characterized both parties as acting as if they were in a matrimonial property dispute, putting their own interests ahead of those of the students. The judge blasted the province for characterizing a $4.47 sympathy card bought by Trinity as a "funeral expense," and called Trinity officials "self-righteous" for not addressing the province's many concerns over the years.
In a press release, Eggen said that the government's priority was to ensure that education dollars were being used to support students, and that the settlement did so and ensured stability for students.
"I stand behind the actions we have taken in this matter," he said.
Veldkamp said her kids were relieved by news of the settlement and excited to resume taking online courses that had been paused by the dispute.
Veenendaal said she planned to stick with Trinity's home-schooling.
"I don't want to downplay any financial problems there were, but the service we get from them is phenomenal."
A RCMP investigation into Trinity and Wisdom's finances is ongoing.
