OTTAWA Lawyers argued Thursday that when Rick Moore had to pull his dyslexic son out of the public school system and enrol him in a private school, the North Vancouver school district was discriminating against a child with a disability.
Moore was forced to put Jeffery in a private school when the public system cut an intensive special education program for students with disabilities because his son, Jeffery, was unable to receive an adequate education.
Arguing on behalf of Moore, Frances Kelly told the Supreme Court that education is a public service and, by eliminating the special program, the board restricted Moore's access to the service.
Kelly told the court Moore was not looking for an expansion of the school system, but rather "meaningful access" to education.
Kelly argued that the intensive program for disabled students called at the time DC1 was merely an extension of the school system to allow access for students with disabilities like Jeffery.
While the private school to which Moore sent his son offered a similar program to assist with Jeffery's dyslexia, Kelly argued the public system should have been able to provide the same service without forcing Moore to pay for it.
Moore won an initial victory from the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal in 2005, which agreed that the elimination of the program unnecessarily curbed Jeffery's right to an education.
However, subsequent rulings by the B.C Supreme Court and Appeals Court overturned the tribunal's ruling, stating the quasi-judicial body had overstepped its bounds by prescribing specific policy to a government body in this case, among other things, how much money should be allocated by the school board toward special education.
