{"id":697655,"date":"2026-05-27T18:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697655\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:30:08","slug":"texts-and-emails-that-upended-sd61-court-case-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697655\/","title":{"rendered":"Texts and emails that upended SD61 court case revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

A series of documents has been released by the courts showing texts and emails between the associate deputy minister of the Ministry of Education, an advisor to the Greater Victoria School District and a deputy chief of the Victoria Police Department that upended a court case leading to the reinstatement of the previously fired<\/a> school board.<\/p>\n

In early 2025, the nine board trustees were removed by Minister of Education Lisa Beare after the board opted to remove school police liaison officers (SPLO) following a recommendation from B.C. Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender, who cited multiple studies and surveys from the U.S. and B.C., <\/a>where students who identified as persons of colour expressed negative feelings and experiences with the SPLOs, pointing to broader concerns about the program\u2019s ties to policing.<\/p>\n

The trustees challenged their dismissal in court, with a judge allowing the challenge in October 2025. On Monday (May 25), however, the ministry quashed the orders that removed the trustees after the province failed to provide the documents asked for in a document protection order \u2013 over 100 pages of texts and emails, mostly from Associate Deputy Minister Jennifer McCrea.<\/p>\n

Among the text messages are conversations between McCrea and former VicPD Deputy Chief Mike Brown, who often spoke in favour of the SPLOs through the documents, calling Govender an \u201carrogant ideologue,\u201d and, when talking about a meeting between the trustees and Govender, he said, \u201cthey are morons.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Jan. 10, 2025, a small group of activists and local teachers protested the reinstatement of SPLOs <\/a>at the ministry office in Victoria. McCrea texted Brown that the protest was happening, to which Brown said \u201closers,\u201d and said his \u201csource on the ground\u201d saw a number of trustees, including board chair Nicole Duncan. McCrea said the office was working to get a picture of Duncan.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would be the one that looks like a narcissistic moron,\u201d Brown said in reply.<\/p>\n

On the day of the board\u2019s removal, McCrea texted Brown saying, \u201cso\u2026 that happened.\u201d Brown replied with messages saying, \u201cgood things come to those who wait,\u201d and \u201cthe truth shall set you free.\u201d He then thanked McCrea, saying she was \u201cthe key player in this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a police board meeting on May 12, board chair Micayla Hayes congratulated Brown on his \u201cimmediate and pending retirement\u201d after a 30-year career with VicPD.<\/p>\n

Documents also showed texts between McCrea and Kevin Godden, a special advisor who was appointed by Beare to work with the school board in developing another safety plan after the first, which didn\u2019t include school officers, was denied by the province.<\/p>\n

Between Godden\u2019s appointment in December 2024 and the removal of the board at the end of January 2025, the district put forward three separate safety plans with different levels of staff, board and advisor input. In early January, Godden quit his posting when the board opted to revise a draft plan he worked on.<\/p>\n

In Godden\u2019s texts with McCrea, he talked about his concerns with the board sometimes flaking on meetings, meeting without him, and their biases against the ministry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tactic here is to discredit [Safer Schools Together], the minister and me as biased towards SLO programs,\u201d he said in a message after complaining about getting \u201cstood up\u201d by the trustees.<\/p>\n

Earlier that month, he had concerns about a report he wrote<\/a> on the approach to developing SPLO programs in 2020. \u201cOn the full disclosure front, reminding you that I authored this a few years ago and the board may know of it and misconstrue it,\u201d he texted.<\/p>\n

He also shared concerns with McCrea about the other two reports that he did not have a say in, saying the plans were concocted by the board in one day without the knowledge of \u201cDeb\u201d \u2013 likely SD61 superintendent Deb Whitten. He also said Duncan was accusing Deb of sending out in-camera materials to the public.<\/p>\n

An email from the trustees\u2019 lawyer, Sean Hern and government lawyer Emily Lapper from Friday (May 22) showed concern from Hern regarding the texts, which showed concern that the province had missed the files when producing the documents to the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just not acceptable and very troubling,\u201d Hern said in the email. \u201cIt is unexplainable in our view that documents such as these could be missed in any reasonable search.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Hern, the trustees are now back in office for the rest of their term, which ends in October.<\/p>\n

Carolyn Howe, president of the Greater Victoria Teachers\u2019 Association, welcomed the return of the democratically elected board. The association was critical of the decision to remove the board \u201cfor simply carrying out their mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howe questioned the relationship between Brown and McCrea, saying it appears to be collusion between senior police officials and senior ministry officials to remove a locally elected board.<\/p>\n

\u201cTexts between the deputy police chief and an associate deputy minister were not only unprofessional but exposed behind-the-scenes politicking, which has no place in either senior law enforcement or senior government. In particular, we are very concerned that police, in the capacity of their employment, would use derogatory language to describe the human rights commissioner and citizen protesters who were exercising their democratic right to freedom of expression,\u201d noted Howe in a news release.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters at the B.C. legislature on Tuesday morning (May 26), Beare said the text messages were \u201cabsolutely inappropriate and unprofessional,\u201d and don\u2019t reflect on the views of the government, however she didn\u2019t comment on McCrea\u2019s future in the government, as it\u2019s an HR matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my job to go understand what happened, so that I can take action moving forward to ensure that doesn\u2019t happen again,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cBut ultimately, we need to continue to focus on students, which is what I always do, and making sure that kids are safe and have a stable learning environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says the ministry is working on determining the costs of the blunder.<\/p>\n

Critic for Education Lynne Block \u2013 a staunch supporter of SPLOs and the firing of the board \u2013 said the situation has undermined the public trust in the education system.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritish Columbians expect basic competence from their government. The NDP cannot even manage a simple court filing. Taxpayers are now paying the price for that failure,\u201d said Block in a news release.<\/p>\n

With files from Christine Van Reeuwyk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A series of documents has been released by the courts showing texts and emails between the associate deputy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-697655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}