A protracted grassroots effort by a determined collection of parents, frontline workers and Indigenous interests concerned about student safety culminated Thursday in the mass firing of the Greater Victoria School Board.

It wasn’t the trustees’ ill-considered decision in 2023 to bar police liaison officers from district schools that prompted Education Minister Lisa Beare’s decision.

It was the remarkably inept, offensive and dismissive way they treated people who objected or even so much as questioned their judgment that contributed to their termination.

The report by special adviser Kevin Godden — appointed by Beare to help the board clean up its own mess — is one of the harshest audits ever conducted of a public body in B.C.

“The board’s behaviour has poisoned the working relationship with most of these parties and eroded their confidence in the board’s ability to successfully govern the safety of its students,” he concluded.

He highlighted the secretive double-dealing the board — headed by then-chair Nicole Duncan — used to make end-runs around a provincial order to come up with a safety plan.

As the controversy came to a head in early January, Duncan blindsided........

© Times Colonist