Many families in B.C. are entitled to a refund of tuition fees for summer school in 2004, 2005 and 2006 as a result of a court settlement reached last week, the Vancouver Sun reports.
The settlement ends a class-action lawsuit against the Vancouver board of education, which was filed by lawyer Jim Poyner in 2009 on behalf of a mother who had paid for her son to attend summer classes in science and English.
Two years earlier, the government had ordered school districts to stop charging tuition for students attending summer school for academic credit, saying the fees – ranging from $200 to $500 per course – were illegal.
Poyner argued that if the fees were illegal in 2007, they were also illegal in preceding years, subject to the statute of limitations. B.C. Supreme Court certified the lawsuit in 2011, which led to Friday’s settlement affecting the Vancouver board and 20 others (Surrey, Coquitlam, Richmond, Delta, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Langley, New Westminster, Mission, Victoria, Campbell River, Vernon, Chilliwack, Powell River, Prince George, Okanagan-Skaha and Cowichan Valley).
When the report interviewed Poyner on Monday, he said those school districts will be identifying all families affected by this decision so that they may file their claims through the Poyner Baxter law office. But anyone who wants to be pro-active, rather than waiting to receive a claim form, may contact the firm directly. Send an email to classaction@poynerbaxter.com or watch the Poyner Baxter website for future postings with information about claims.
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