To the Editor:
This letter is written in support of Wade Oberg and is calling for the removal of the individuals responsible for a great travesty of justice, which is an unjustifiable waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money and an attempt to destroy the career of an upstanding educator and principal.
The court rulings are public. The Court of Queen's Bench and the Saskatchewan Professional Teachers Regulatory Board (SPTRB) have both spoken. The consequences that Wade Oberg, and as a result his family, endured from the decision of the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division appear to be over the top, and one can only assume the result of a possible vendetta against a man with a 27-year unblemished career.
This whole situation - the accusations, the unprofessional investigation and the final conclusions of outside regulatory bodies - all point to something more sinister than just unqualified people making poor decisions.
Please do not just take my word for it. Check them out yourself! Please go to the Courts of Saskatchewan website at https://sasklawcourts.ca/index.php/home/decisionsand the SPTRB website at https://tinyurl.com/y7kcllqz. The decisions are there for all the world to see.
Wade Oberg was forced to take his situation to the courts and the court overwhelmingly sided with him. Yes, he made a mistake, and has always admitted so, but the measures taken by the Southeast Cornerstone Public School Division (SECPSD) and the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) were deemed “substantively unreasonable” in the CQB document. So much so, that the judge bypassed the Board of SECPSD and reinstated Mr. Oberg right back into his principalship at Weyburn Comprehensive School.
The court document explains how due diligence and procedural fairness did not take place. How is this even possible? The SECPSD and SLT “breached that duty in several ways, rendering the decisions invalid from the outset.” (CQB, April 3, 2020)
Even when the SPTRB reviewed the incident, their recommended consequences did not call for removal of his principalship. They simply stated that he should receive a formal reprimand, not coach for a period of one year and take an approved course on conflict of interest. Now, these are reasonable ramifications!
The SECPSD Board and SLT have 30 days from the issuance of the judgment, which was April 3, 2020, to file an appeal. Do the taxpayers really want their money used to support a group of people who clearly conducted themselves inappropriately in positions of authority and then made a bad decision? Wasn’t it bad enough that the judge saw prudent to bypass the organization? This money should be used to educate our children, not continue what seems to be a quest to discredit a well-respected and hard-working principal and educator.
With the strength and decisiveness of the court judgment the only possible outcome that follows the path of justice would be to swiftly reinstate Mr. Oberg into his position and to remove those responsible for the travesty of justice that occurred. The QCB (April 3, 2020) “determined that the decisions are substantively unreasonable because the penalty imposed by the board does not fall within a range of reasonable alternative outcomes, even if I [Justice McCreary] accept the facts found in the Investigation Report.”
I am calling for the resignation of the key players on the board who made this happen (Audrey Trombley - Board Chair) as well as the firing of those responsible for the botched and unethical investigation (Lynn Little, Keith Keating and Gord Husband - SLT members).
David Edgerton, Weyburn
