A Prince George-based international student recruitment service is blaming School District 57 for going out of business.
In a response to a civil claim, Shecana International Schools Ltd. said it's "closed its business and ceased operations" on April 1 after the school district refused to accept a proposal to repay the money it owes.
In March, the school district filed a statement of claim saying Shecana was in arrears for $269,386.87 and was seeking a judgment for the amount.
According to Shecana's response, it had been providing students from out of country to the school district for about 20 years.
They were divided between non-fee-paying cultural students who stayed for one year and took classes where space was available and fee-paying academic students who stayed for one, three, five or 10 months and took core courses such as English, math and science.
The Ministry of Education, meanwhile, would fund the cultural students and for each of those students, a Canadian student would study abroad.
In 2013, the school district decided to accept only academic students and Shecana was to pay the school district $989 per month for each student. The total due for the 2015-16 year added up to about $276,000 for 50 students and that number was expected to increase.
By then, Shecana had made a deal with Explorius Education, a management company based in Stockholm, Sweden that organizes international education student exchanges. For three school years, starting with 2015-16, Explorious was to supply Shecana with at least 50 international students, paying Shecana the fees in advance to secure the placements.
In return, Shecana was to rely exclusively on Explorius for its students.
By August 2015, Explorius had paid Shecana $656,000 in fees but still owed $345,000 in fees for the following five months.
By October 2015, Shecana had secured enough replacement students to pay the amounts outstanding to the school district for the 2015-16 school year and by February 2016, Explorius acknowledged it had breached the agreement and released Shecana from the requirement to obtain the students exclusively from Explorius.
In February, Shecana also met with the school district to propose a repayment plan that would see academic students enroll in required core subjects and cultural students in courses where space was available.
Under those terms, Shecana was projected to earn $104,000 in profit in addition to the amount it owed the school district for the 2015-16 school year. However, the school district did not accept the proposed repayment plan, according to the response filed in B.C. Supreme Court on April 20.
The allegations have not yet been tested in court.
