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Two
very distinct school boards in the province are causing concern within the
Ministry of Education and may in fact be the tipping point to the launch
of a new school organizational model.
The Ministry of
Education has appointed an advisor to work with the Sudbury Catholic
District School Board in order to help the board reduce the size of its
primary classes which apparently are the largest in the province.
A Ministry spokesperson
Patricia MacNeil, has announced that Wayne Burtnyk will not only help the
board lower its class sizes, he will also examine the board’s entire
operation in order to come up with ways of making the board more
financially viable. The board has been forced to withdraw almost $3
million out of its reserves to balance the books for the past two budget
years.
The Ministry’s
concern stems from the fact that the Sudbury Catholic District School
Board is the worst in the province in terms of meeting the Ministry goal
of having at least 90 percent of the primary classrooms in the province
with 20 students or less and none more than 23 students. Just 65 percent
of the Catholic School Board’s primary classrooms from JK to Grade 3 are
meeting the Ministry requirement with 4 percent of the classrooms having
more than 23 students.
Interesting enough, a
little more than four hundred kilometers to the south, the Toronto
District School Board has the second worst primary class size record, with
77 per cent of classrooms under the 20-student mark and two per cent
surpassing the 23-student mark.
The Sudbury Catholic
District School Board indicates that there are several problems associated
with running a school board in
Northeastern
Ontario
.
Rural community schools with low enrolments, dual track French immersion
schools, and special education needs make it difficult to control class
sizes and balance a budget on the current level of funding.
What is surprising to
some is that the second worst board in the province is one of the largest
school boards in one of the most densely populated regions of the country.
One would expect a world of difference between
Sudbury
and
Toronto
,
however, when you get down to the root of the problem, it makes perfect
sense to talk about these two seemingly different situations in the same
breath.
Understand that this is
not merely a financial issue. There is no quick fix in either of these two
school boards and there are dozens of other school boards in the province
that will find themselves in similar circumstances in the near future.
This is a problem that
may only be solved through the creation of a completely new delivery model
for small and rural area schools. For example, whether you are a parent
living in a subdivision in downtown
Toronto
,
or you are living in the little Town of
Killarney
,
when it comes to the education of your primary and junior grade level
children, you have two similar priorities. You want your children to get
the best education available and you want them to attend a school that is
contained within your immediate community close to home.
Unfortunately, these
two goals are often conflicting within our current system. Changing
population patterns in certain geographical pockets of the province are
creating situations where there are not enough students to make it
feasible to keep a community school open. This means that in order to
provide children with a good education and to be fiscally responsible to
the board as a whole, some smaller schools must be closed and children
bussed to a larger school in a neighbouring community or subdivision. This
may at times require a bus ride of up to an hour or more to get and from
school. The only difference between
Sudbury
and
Toronto
is the total distance traveled. The time on the bus, which is the most
critical element, may be almost the same in either situation. Regardless
of where you live, the closing of your community school can be extremely
upsetting not only to your children but to your entire family and way of
life.
What is happening in
the Sudbury Catholic District School Board and the Toronto District School
Board may very well result in the creation of a “unified school model”
that can be used in small and rural schools in order to make them viable
from both a financial and pedagogical point of view. In other words, we
may soon see all four school systems operating under one roof in certain
areas of the province in order to allow children living in these affected
areas to continue to receive their primary and junior grade education
close to home, in their community or neighbourhood school.
In order for this to
happen, all of the boards and the parents involved will have to agree that
the most important consideration for young children is the development of
solid learning skills that will enable them to be successful in later
grades. Religious and language preferences may have to be put aside for a
while in order to allow for the mixing of all Grade one students from the
area into the same class in one building instead of splitting them into
four distinct schools that must all fight for their very survival. This
does not mean that children will be denied their right to the type of
education they desire, it just means that they will have one teacher
providing a program that is adapted to the needs of everyone in the
classroom. With creative planning and organization it will still be
possible to develop the desired learning skills and still be able to
achieve the most important expectations with respect to language and
religious development. The delivery model may have to be different from
that to which we are accustomed, and it may require some flexibility with
respect to enrolment, budget and collective agreement matters, but it can
be done.
Listen closely to the
concerns expressed by parents when they attend school board accommodation
review meetings. The biggest complaints are that parents want to keep the
local school open in their community and they do not want their children
to have to travel great distances by bus to attend another school. These
two concerns can easily be addressed with the creation of a new school
model which would allow all of the students to attend one school together
in mixed classes. This would satisfy the desire of parents and municipal
leaders to keep a school open in their community. Students would be able
to receive their education up to the end of Grade six within their
community school and then be shipped off to their respective school
board’s closest school when they hit Grade seven.
The Ministry of
Education advisor may find that there is not much more that can be done by
the administrators and trustees in
Sudbury
or
Toronto
.
This is simply the way it is and the way it will continue until a new
model has been created and accepted by all parties to address the
situation. Perhaps it is significant that
Sudbury
and
Toronto
have been the two Cities to bring this issue to the “tipping point”.
Until next time, this
is Inside Education….. |
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