the NLESD insists a total of 34 public schools still owned by the archdiocese are protected from being sold because they are still in use.Asked last week to clarify the situation surrounding the records, or lack thereof, the district declined comment to SaltWire — as the matter is before the courts — except to critique the reporter’s interpretation of what “neither the corporation nor the school board appear to have maintained sufficient records” implies.
“We’re working very hard to get ready for the November hearing and we presume the government and the school board are continuing to work hard to fulfill Judge Handrigan’s order,” Budden said Monday, Sept. 12. Since 1995, the oversight of education went from 27 denominational school boards to a collection of 10 public school boards, then to four and eventually one English and one French board.
The November hearing will concern an application from claimants against the church that seeks to sort out 35 schools’ status in hopes they will become marketable assets. Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Garrett Handrigan, in an early August ruling concerning documents associated with those agreements, noted the board and the government offered some assistance “but generally resisted the claimants’ application, citing irrelevance, privilege and concerns about proportionality.”