Court blocks Seaforth High board from appointing new principal

A TEMPORARY stay granted by the Court of Appeal this month to the dismissed principal of the Seaforth High School, Calbert Thomas, has barred the school board from filling the vacancy.

The dismissal should have taken effect on September 30, but that decision will have to await the outcome of an appeal against a Supreme Court ruling last month.

On November 22 last year, the board of the St Thomas-based school convened a meeting with Thomas in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Education.

Several charges were levelled at Thomas, which included a failure to monitor internal controls, a lack of adequate segregation of duties, lack of regular checks and balances with respect to the bursar, and making payment of salary and other emoluments to academic and administrative staff without prior approval from the education ministry.

A decision was taken at the meeting that disciplinary proceedings should be taken against Thomas.

Thomas was first suspended by the board in January this year, with two-thirds monthly salary.

He was subsequently fired in June this year, but Thomas is maintaining that he was unjustly dismissed.

Thomas, who is being represented by attorney-at-law Keith Bishop, had applied for leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to quash the dismissal order.

The school board and the attorney general were named as respondents.

Fair hearing

Supreme Court Judge Sonya Wint-Blair heard submissions in chambers last month and dismissed the application.

Thomas had contended in his application that he was not afforded a fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court.

He claimed that he was not given adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence.

He outlined that although the Teachers Appeal Tribunal was an alternative form of redress, judicial review was the most appropriate remedy available to him, in that if the court granted the order, it would operate as a stay and prevent the school board from appointing another person as principal.

Justice Wint-Blair heard the application and ruled that “in all the circumstances of the case, while the grounds indicate that there are arguable grounds with realistic prospect of success on the face of the record, the applicant has not been able to successfully overcome the discretionary bar of an alternative avenue for redress”.

The judge said further that Thomas did not avail himself of or exhaust the statutory appellate process.

Thomas did not appeal first to the Teachers Appeal Tribunal, and the judge said it was an unfortunate situation and of his own making.

Thomas filed an appeal against the judge’s ruling, and the court granted a stay, which, in effect, prevents the school board from filling the post.

He said in his affidavit that on June 23, this year, the police knocked on the gate to his home and handed him a letter, which stated that he was terminated as principal due to neglect of duty and professional misconduct.

Thomas, who served the school for 33 years and was appointed principal in 2018, outlined in court documents that most of the complaints raised at the hearing held by the personnel committee in June were addressed and resolved, if not fully, then substantially, within the last two years.

He said that Rohan Purcel from the Ministry of Education had given evidence at the hearing that Thomas did not commit any breaches of the criminal law, and at the time of the hearing, there was no evidence that he owed a dollar to the school.

The attorney general was removed as a respondent following submissions by attorneys-at-law Louis-Jean Hacker and Jenoure Simpson that the attorney general was not the decision maker in the matter, and, therefore, was not a proper party to a judicial review claim under the Crown Proceedings Act.

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