BRIDGEWATER, N.S. -- Nova Scotia's Education Department will pay half of the legal costs that a school board incurred while attempting to keep a teacher who pleaded guilty to sexual offences out of the classroom.
Officials with the South Shore Regional School Board said Monday they would incur $47,000 in fees from a judicial review against Peter Speight, while the department would cover $116,000 for other legal costs.
But the acting director of communications for the Education Department said Tuesday there was a misunderstanding between the school board and the provincial government over how the costs would be paid.
Dan Harrison says the matter is now resolved and that the school board and government will each pay $81,500 towards the legal costs.
Speight pleaded guilty to committing an indecent act in 2009 but an arbitrator decided he should get his job back at an elementary school in New Germany, N.S.
That decision was upheld in a judicial review, but some parents were outraged when the board attempted to return Speight to the classroom.
Speight recently agreed to resign his position and give up his teacher's licence in Nova Scotia in return for a confidential settlement.
