Guide to School Legislation

The Guide to School Legislation in British Columbia contains factual summaries of the key legislation that governs education in B.C. In each subject area, the guide contains an overview of the legislation in simple, basic terms, and includes references to the relevant sections of acts, regulations and orders. Many sections include context information (e.g. statistics, history) to help the reader understand how the legislation connects to the school system.

This guide contains many references to enactments: acts, bills, regulations, ministerial orders. Readers who wish to consult the primary sources may wish to consult the Ministry of Education and Child Cares’s Manual of School Law which includes most of these enactments. Another helpful resource for B.C. legislation is the BC Laws website.

The guide is a non-legal summary published for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a legal text, and persons with specific questions or who are faced with particular situations should seek qualified legal advice.

Part 1

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Part II

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Part III

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Part IV

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Part V

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Part VI

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Part VII

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Part VIII

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Part IX

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Part X

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Part XI

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Part XII

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Part XIII

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Appendix

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Please Note

Legislation and policy change regularly and, therefore, the legislative and policy references in the Guide may not be current. None of the information provided in the document is provided as legal advice and it shall not be relied upon as such. The Guide is a non-legal summary published for informational and educational purposes only.

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to this work since its inception and we would like to thank them.

Alan Nicholls wrote the first edition of the Guide to School Legislation (the “Guide”) in 1995, following seven editions of the Guide to the School Act of BC. Judith Clark continued to update the Guide to School Legislation until 2010.

Thank you to the Ministry of Education providing financial support for this project. We are grateful to Keith Mitchell of Harris & Company for the work that he did to update the Guide so that we could release the 2020 edition of the Guide. We appreciate Melanie Jackson’s role in editing the Guide. We are also grateful for the help of the many individuals in various associations and government departments who have answered our questions and sent information to assist us with the Guide including the Ministry of Education and the BC Public School Employers’ Association.

Thanks also to the BCSTA team members that worked on this edition of the Guide including the Legal Services and Communications Departments.