A Burnaby parent and former local political candidate will not get a hearing for a human rights complaint over provincial funding for homeschoolers.
Helen Ward, who unsuccessfully ran for seats on the Burnaby school board and city council in 2011 and 2014 respectively, launched a series of human rights complaints against the Ministry of Education, alleging it discriminated against her, her son and all B.C. homeschoolers by failing to provide equal funding for their parent-directed educational programs.
The ministry applied to have Ward's complaints dismissed without a hearing, arguing she had "no reasonable prospect" of succeeding.
B.C. Human Rights Tribunal member Christopher Foy ultimately agreed with the ministry and dismissed the complaints in a ruling in October recently published online.
(The ruling was taken down again after Ward applied to have it anonymized to protect the privacy of her son who was named in it.)
The gist of Ward's complaints, according to Foy, was that children are legally required to go to school, but if they're homeschooled they get less funding than if they attend an educational program offered by a school board or independent school authority.
"The complaints allege that this unequal funding has a discriminatory effect on both parents and children who choose to homeschool based on family status, marital status, gender expression, religion and sex," Foy said.
The ministry denied it discriminates against homeschoolers.
B.C.'s Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in accommodations, services and facilities "customarily available to the public."
The ministry's main argument, according to Foy, was that Ward was seeking equal funding for homeschooling parents, but direct funding is not actually a "service" the province provides to those who opt out of the public or independent school system.
Foy ruled it was "reasonably certain" the ministry would successfully establish that defence.
He noted that, when changes to the School Act made homeschooling legal in 1989, funding for homeschooling parents was left out of the amendments.
"All the legislature was doing was making homeschooling, which was illegal at the time, legal. The amendments gave parents the legal right to opt-out of the public system," Foy said.
He concluded the ministry's funding model "abides by and is restricted by" the law.
"There is no provision in the School Act or the Independent School Act for the funding of educational programs provided by parents," Foy said.
The ministry currently requires boards and independent school authorities to offer homeschoolers certain services, including assessments and educational resources, free of charge.
In 2014, it put a $600-per-student cap on how much can be paid to third-party service providers for those services.
Ward argued that showed the ministry controlled the funding decisions for homeschoolers and suggested it does provide a service to them.
But Foy wasn't convinced.
He noted the ministry's evidence that boards and independent school authorities are the ones responsible for setting the funding level (up to the $600 cap) and aren't allowed to pay parents directly for the services.
Ward, who is the president of the Burnaby-based parents' rights group Kids First Parent Association of Canada, has applied to the tribunal to have Foy's ruling reconsidered.
Ward told the Burnaby NOW the tribunal did not consider a section of the School Act that gives the education minister the power to set the amount a "student or a child" registered as a homeschooler can be "reimbursed."
"They do fund homeschooling – in a discriminatory manner," Ward said.
She noted school districts get $250 from the province annually for each registered homeschooler compared to about $10,000 for each student enrolled in a regular program.
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