Mom banned after battle with school

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Lorelei Buchan

EAST ST. PAUL -- An East St. Paul mother has been banned from volunteering at her children's elementary school and faces threats of lawsuits from both the Manitoba Teachers' Society and River East Transcona School Division.

Yet Lorelei Buchan insists she's the aggrieved party, and insists she speaks for a large group of parents who want the principal removed from Dr. F.W.L. Hamilton School.

Buchan alleged bullying brings no intervention or repercussions, teachers won't talk to parents, morale is low, the school doesn't communicate with parents and major changes have been made to the lunch program and playground activities without consulting parents.

Among the alleged incidents are one which Buchan has repeatedly called sexual assault, allegedly involving a six-year-old boy pulling down a six-year-old girl's pants and underwear on the playground.

Buchan has demanded that Education Minister Nancy Allan launch a formal review of the division.

Buchan's lawyer is preparing legal action against River East Transcona, and Buchan has said she will defy the ban and show up at the school to volunteer.

"My motivation in this is that I want my kids kept safe," Buchan said.

It's a cautionary tale of just how bad relations between schools and parents can become, and how quickly they can deteriorate and become irreparable.

Buchan said six families went behind closed doors with River East Transcona trustees in November and demanded the principal be removed.

Superintendent Dennis Pottage, who retires this week, said the division has conducted exhaustive investigations of each incident, each allegation, and each accusation over the last two school years, and has found no grounds whatsoever to take action.

"We've looked into absolutely everything they've ever brought forward," Pottage said. "There was a delegation that came to the board," and the board took no action as a result of what trustees heard, he said.

There was never anything remotely resembling a sexual assault at the school, he said: "It's unbelievable. It's an outright lie.

"There was an inappropriate incident, no question, there was a suspension. It was totally inappropriate, and it had to be dealt with," Pottage said.

River East Transcona has its lawyer looking into legal action over Buchan's verbal and written statements about the principal, Pottage said.

The principal has declined, through her union, to be interviewed.

Manitoba Teachers' Society served Buchan with a cease and desist order Oct. 25 and has threatened to sue her for defamation.

Teachers' society president Paul Olson would not discuss the specific school, but said it is extraordinary and rare for a dispute to reach the trustees' level.

To continue disputing a situation after the school board has backed society members, Olson said, parents would have to assume that every professional involved in the process had reached the wrong conclusion.

"At that point, people would have the good sense to say, 'Maybe I'm wrong,' " Olson said.

"The board and superintendent are clearly saying, 'This is not reasonable, this was handled appropriately.' "

Buchan has already moved two of her kids to private school, and will move the two who still remain at Hamilton.

Buchan said in early December that she could gather nine families who would tell their first-hand experiences of problems they and their children have faced in the school, adults willing to give their names and have them published.

None has come forward.

Of the other five families who Buchan said went to the school board in November, only one has been heard from -- an anonymous mother who said she couldn't understand why the Free Press wouldn't simply publish all the parents' charges without knowing parents' names or without seeing substantiation.

MLA Ron Schuler (PC-Springfield) said he's received complaints, but no one has put any allegations in writing or agreed to go public.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 30, 2012 B4