Grants out Friday

Though I await official confirmation from the Ministry of Education (they're getting back to me Tuesday), I did hear from a school board treasurer Monday that the 2010-11 board-by-board Grants for Student Needs (GSNs) are being released Friday, March 26.
This is bang-on somewhat the same timing as in 2009-- a provincial budget on a Thursday, followed by the GSN release the next morning. The ministry has notified school boards of an AM webconference with officials (possibly the minister as well) where they're all flip through the same slides together and learn their financial fate for the coming year.
Some boards are already well into their 2010-11 budget process, already having identified the traditional areas they believe they will face a shortfall in. While I'm expecting the opposition parties and some non-governmental groups (IE: People for Education) will be making some noise about the lack of a promised 'full review' of the Education Funding Formula, I don't think many boards will care. The reality is they've all been working with this formula (as continually modified and amended) for 12 years now, so it's old hat. Boards know where they're underfunded and with a few notable exceptions every budget year are able to shuffle the funds to at least provide status quo.
I would expect, based on the last year, to see some of the following:

• The second year of implementation of the cuts to professional development, computers and textbooks announced in the 2009-10 GSNs
• Continued support for salary benchmark and teacher-experience grants per the provincial framework agreements
• Capital funding to be all over the map as some boards will still be receiving grants from various different current and expired programs whereas others will see the drop from the end of the primary class size capital funding
• It would greatly surprise me to see any overall increase higher than 1% in the GSNs. Given enrolment continues to fall, I'm predicting this is the first of a few years where the government will be firmer on asking boards to make up the rising costs of salaries, utilities and programs (like the ELP components funded by the GSN) from their costs that should be dropping as a result of Good Places to Learn upgrades and enrolment/capital condition driven school consolidations and closures.

The unknown at this point, unless its spelled out at the same time as the GSN release Friday, is how the year one commitment for full-day kindergarten works outside the grants. From what I've understood, those boards running half-time programs now will receive equivalent funding inside the GSN. The funds to cover the balance of teachers' costs to get to a full-day everyday program and ECE costs are coming 'outside' the GSN.
It's from this outside pot that concerns arise that the dollars committed in year one (or total) won't be enough to adequately fund the program or leave the fees for the mandated before- and after-school programs for four- and five-year-olds prohibitively expensive.
I'm scheduled for office hours Friday, sort of, so I hope to be able to post that day on the GSN release. If not, I will throw something up this weekend.

YMCAs speak out on ELP

I had been wondering how long it might take this association to speak up on full-day kindergarten's implementation and its impact on both regular childcare services as well as existing before- and after-school care programs. The YMCA is the largest provider of childcare services in Canada and Ontario.
I received an e-mail from the YMCA of Western Ontario (think London and region) on the pending implementation of full-day kindergarten. (Full disclosure: I work part-time as a lifeguard/instructor and youth program employee at the YMCA of Woodstock, which is a branch of the YMCA of Western Ontario) I imagine the messaging in the e-mail from YMCA WO CEO Shaun Elliott is similar to that issued by YMCAs in other communities across Ontario.
From the e-mail:

YMCAs in Ontario support the vision for full day learning for four and five year olds, says Shaun Elliott, CEO, YMCA of Western Ontario.
 “From both a developmental and educational perspective, this is sound public policy. Our concern is that Bill 242 goes far beyond the government’s stated objectives and will have the unintended effect of de-stabilizing Ontario’s overall licensed child care system. Ultimately, parents will be left with fewer options and higher costs."
The YMCA’s concerns centre on Bill 242’s requirement that school boards directly operate extended day programs (before and after school hours) for children enrolled in junior and senior kindergarten. The Bill specifically prohibits school boards from partnering with local not-for-profit providers to offer those extended day programs.
...
YMCAs want the Bill amended to allow school boards the option of entering into or continuing partnerships with community providers like the YMCA. “We are already partners with schools, the model is working and it’s cost effective,” Elliott says. “We can help the Ontario government achieve its vision for ensuring our children have the best quality education and care.”

The message was in response to hearings on Bill 242, which were held earlier today in Toronto. Elliott spoke on behalf of all Ontario YMCAs along with staff members from the YMCA of Greater Toronto. There is an additional day of hearings scheduled for Tuesday.
The Y's main concerns appear to be that the ministry's mandated program structure doesn't allow for existing arrangements with community partners already offering before- and after-school care for all children to to continue for the kids registered in full-day kindergarten. So either the community partner walks away, or it runs a parallel program to the one the board offers in a duplication of some service and effort.
The other point isn't surprising either— with school boards hiring more early childhood educators (ECEs), they're going to be pressured to be represented by an existing employee union, and also to be paid at a rate equivalent to other board support staff member positions. In many cases, that rate ceiling is higher than what these accredited, professionally certified ECEs (they do have their own college) are earning as employees of not-for-profits such as the Y.
There was a virtual smorgasbord of other speakers Monday, and as interesting of an assortment Tuesday. If time allows in the coming days once the Hansard is posted, I'll throw up some links and some additional thoughts.

What a year

I realized this past weekend that this blog has been up and running for a year now. Over the past year, I have grown so much as an education reporter through the reading, research and discussions I've been having on these pages— I hope that it's made me a better education reporter as I continue to seek that 'perfect' job where someone pays me to do this and only this full-time.
Over the year, this site has seen approximately 11,000 visits from just over 4,000 unique visitors with about 18,000 page views. What started as an experiment blossomed into something far more regular and now competes for my work and leisure time.
Thanks for dropping by, thanks for reading, and to the few who stick their heads out and comment, thanks for joining in.

Hugo

Duncan coming north

The Toronto Star reported Thursday regarding the plans for a fall educators' conference with quite an interesting lineup. It reported the "Building Blocks for Education: Whole System Reform / Ontario Education Summit" conference would include U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as a key presenter.

The conference is designed "to stimulate ideas, invoke creativity and foster innovation," according to a letter obtained by the Star that Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky sent to educators on March 8 inviting them to attend.
Dombrowsky said the Ontario Education Summit, which has yet to be officially launched, is a chance to tout some of the province's initiatives and learn what's being done abroad.
"We are very excited. We have an opportunity in Ontario to showcase some of the investments that we've made and some of the results that have come of those investments," she said Wednesday in an interview from Belleville.
"There's no question it is a forum to share best practices."
Dombrowsky said discussion would focus on achievement targets and assessing student performance with measurable data.
Invitations have been sent to Ontario's board of education chairs, directors of education, and education-sector organizations, such as teachers' unions, as well as educators in the U.S., Finland, Singapore, and other countries.
A key presenter will be Duncan, an Obama friend whose aggressive work as superintendent of Chicago's public system led to the creation of 100 new schools, the closure of "underperforming schools," an increase in early childhood education programs, and benchmarks for teachers and students.
Under the "tough love" approach advocated by Duncan, a former professional basketball player who frequently shoots hoops with the president, students and educators alike are expected to perform. 

I've personally only scratched the surface of what's been happening in the U.S. public school reform movement with my attendance in 2009 at two Education Writers Association events in Washington D.C. and San Diego. There are a lot of Duncan fans in the U.S., but at the same time there are many who aren't as enthusiastic. One of the clearest things that's become apparent to me is that while its local-district-charter model allows for a huge variety of schools, schooling and outcomes that produce fantastic settings for teaching and learning-- the top 10% don't appear to consistently bring the bottom 10% any higher. There's no overwhelming drive or system in place that can take practices that work in one school and implement them appropriately in others. If I had the time, there's been plenty coming out of the U.S. lately on where the Obama administration wants to take the No Child Left Behind program as well as its own initiatives to improve the quality of public schools in the U.S. Which isn't to suggest we've got all this figured out in Ontario either.
This conference will no doubt produce its detractors and critics, concerned that any investment in running it is a waste that should be diverted elsewhere. I think the province has done an interesting job of cherry picking some of the elements introduced through reforms elsewhere south of the border and implementing them across the province (one of my key takeaways from San Diego). I've stated here at the time of release that it's possible Ontario's students have plateaued insofar as the numbers of them who can reach a B-level standard in literacy and numeracy skills. Perhaps this conference will provide the boost needed to implement that next series of programs that will see higher assessments and graduation rates. It's ambitious.

Small-claims justice?

A frequent if anonymous tipster sent this to me Monday, after it was picked up by the Waterloo Region Record. Driving the next morning, I heard the issue taken up on CBC Radio One's Ontario Morning program, heard throughout Ontario outside the GTA (but ironically, not in Kitchener-Waterloo, which gets the Toronto Metro Morning show).
Parents in K-W, upset and no doubt at wit's end, are taking to small-claims courts to seek justice (retribution?) for what they claim is inaction on the part of local school boards to address their concerns with bullying.

Since a Kitchener mother sued the Catholic board in January over bullying against her son — the suit, believed to be a first in Ontario, was settled out of court — many parents have come forward with similar complaints.
Hundreds have joined a Facebook group formed by another local mother, where they’re given advice on how to use Small Claims Court to sue, at a cost to the plaintiffs of as little as $75.
John Shewchuk, senior manager of public affairs for the Catholic school board, said school officials are worried the case, at Canadian Martyrs school in Kitchener, has opened the floodgates for similar lawsuits against schools. They want the Ontario Attorney General to intervene to prevent an onslaught of legal action. School officials will raise the issue with the province once the March break is over.
“We want to raise an alarm bell with the government . . . we think they’ve got a little bit of a problem on their hands,” Shewchuk said. “You can just see the herd coming over the hill. You’re going to find more people who quite frankly just don’t like the answer they got, so they’re saying ‘fine, I’m going to sue you.’ ”
Only one of the three latest lawsuits filed in Small Claims Court is against the Catholic board. In that case, parents of an eight-year-old autistic girl allege that St. Teresa Catholic School in Kitchener has failed to protect her from bullies and give her the specialized, in-school therapy they believe she needs. 

I'm not sure what to think about this just yet. While Shewchuck makes a reference to people with dollar signs in their eyes, some of the cases cited (and I'm no lawyer) appear to provide an opportunity to address a lack of action or a protocol/procedure that wasn't being followed. At the same time, this tool should be the one of last resort, no?
We already live in an increasingly litigious society (though still far less litigious than our neighbours to the south), do we really need to add this fear of small claims court to the mix? This shows a failure of a lot of things around the bullied child (inside and outside school), and other than getting the board's attention in a judicial forum, I don't know what a small-claims suit actually does to help the bullied child recover and ensure the bully and bystanders are given a consequence for their actions and/or inactions.

G&M goes a little deeper on bullying and schools

This tripped across the e-mail alerts this AM as I was getting ready for work. I think it nicely reinforces some of the points I've been trying to make here about a school's role in identifying and preventing bullying from becoming a bigger challenge than it should be. Given the platform of the Globe and Mail should help make the point among many who likely never could have believed the bullies were among their own. The educators and parents quoted here show the complexity of tackling these behaviours when (or if, even) they're first noticed. From the piece, with the ellipses indicating where I've skipped some paragraphs:

The evidence suggests that reacting strongly to bullying when kids are still kids is essential to stopping the behaviour before it progresses from “I don’t want to play with you,” to public humiliation in high school.
Such a response can possibly avoid situations like that in St. Thomas, Ont., where a 13-year-old girl was charged with criminal harassment this month after allegations of bullying at her elementary school. And it can prevent the pain suffered by the victims, who, too often, struggle with depression and anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts. But educators and experts says that’s not always a parent’s first reaction when the call comes. More often, it is denial, or, especially in the early years, dismissal.
“Most kids have engaged in some kind of bullying behaviour in elementary school,” says Wendy Craig, a Queen’s University psychologist who studies the issue. According to one study involving the early grades, only 36 per cent of girls and 17 per cent of boys said they’d had no involvement in bullying over the course of the school year.
“The message for teachers and parents is to identify them early,” Dr. Craig says. “If you get a call twice in the school year, you need to be vigilant.”
And yet, says Cindi Seddon, a principal in Coquitlam, B.C., most parents don’t react like the Marins. Ms. Seddon says she’s had to hang up the phone on abusive parents or leave the room when meetings turned hostile – often with their child watching mom or dad’s own bullying behaviour. (my bold emphasis) “Parents are incredibly upset,” she says, when they learn their child is being accused of bullying. They don’t always agree with the school’s interpretation of events.
...
“They are the kids who are nice to their parents, and have good social skills with their teachers and peers,” Dr. (Tracy) Vaillancourt says. “But they are also really mean.” Their bullying is done with sophistication, such as excluding people from their social circle and spreading rumours, often sneaking under the gaze of adults around them.
Hollywood rules apply, even in Grade 1: “You can get away with murder when you’re hot,” Dr. Vaillancourt says.
The good news, however, is that these are the bullies most easily stopped, since they respond to discipline. But, she says, “parents need to attend to it right away, and take it seriously.”

This is an important piece because it takes us away from the focus on the bullied, and how various people in their lives have failed to support them and call out the inappropriate behaviour they've witnessed. It places it on the bully-- and the wider range of bullying behaviours that can be seen everywhere, every day, in a multitude of different social situations. We need to learn more about that side of the equation, as this piece has laid out.

An explanation of enrolment projections

Given the comment on the previous post, I had been holding this tab open in my browser for almost a week now from the Welland Tribune. The article concentrate's on a District School Board of Niagara superintendent's explanation of enrolment forecasts at one school that changed dramatically from one year to the next. In a coincidental twist, I got an e-mail months ago on DSBN and enrolment forecasting, after I posted something on the board's decision to hire a private consultant, Watson & Associates Economists Ltd. Apparently there's been some shift between people at the private firm and in the board's planning office, and the thought was this was contributing to a, er, different take on the enrolment projections for the schools involved in this Welland review.
From the article:

The projected enrolment data originally presented to the assigned committee last October, when the review began, placed Crowland's capacity at 78% by 2018.
Updated information was provided in December, placing the school's capacity at 50% by 2018.
Parents questioned why there was such a big change in numbers, a question Kartasinski hoped to clarify at Tuesday's meeting.
...
(Linda) Kartasinksi explained that enrolment numbers are projected using a formulaic process.
It begins with "straight-line enrolment," taking the current number of students in each grade at a school and moving the numbers forward a grade. Using birthrates within the school boundaries, staff in the planning department work to predict the number of junior kindergarten students that will be entering the school the following year. They also take into account the number of students graduating, she said.
For instance, Crowland Central was predicted to have four junior kindergarten students next year, with 28 Grade 8 students graduating.
"You move 28 out and four up. That's a net loss of 24 students," Kartasinski said. 

What's missing here that many school boards also use is any impact of redevelopment or development of new housing in the school's boundary area. A birth-rate formula is also applied to those housing units (per year, based on projected build-out) to estimate how many children will live in the area.
To all these formulas, the boards must also consider the traditional percentage-split for how many children go to English public, English Catholic, private, French-language, etc. They still can't count on every child in that housing going to the local public school.
And yes, enrolment is continually revised. The reality really is in many, many schools there are far larger cohorts of students leaving elementary schools from Grade 8 and moving onto high school than there are kindergarten or Grade 1 students coming in the other end. This rationale doesn't preclude blips in enrolment (you know, something in the water...) which still can and do happen. However a blip is not a medium- to long-term enrolment trend.
While we do focus declining enrolment so much on the elementary schools, it's about to hit high schools hard and fast-- a decline that takes eight to 10 years working through an elementary school moves through a high school in four to five years. The largest grade cohort in my region is Grade 11-- meaning the numbers of students in every grade below Grade 11 are smaller than the ones above.

London's piece fall into place

The skeptic in me sees some solace in the move Friday by London city Coun. Bill Armstrong, in terms of placing his earlier windmaking into some sort of perspective. The Free Press posted the story late Friday for Saturday's paper.
Readers here would remember Armstrong ruffled some feathers and stirred up some dust in January for refusing to participate in a Thames Valley District School Board school-closure review for the Argyle / east London area of the city. At the time he said he wanted no part in the review as he believes none of the schools included in the review should have been pegged for closure.
He held a press conference with MPP Rosario Marchese (NDP-Trinity--Spadina) and MP Irene Mathyssen (NDP-London--Fanshawe) to slam the board and speak about how the pending (he says) sale of a hospital site that will (he says) be redeveloped into housing. He claims thousands of housing units will be built on the hospital land, netting 635 new elementary students. All of which will happen overnight of course, as the magic fairy dust settles on the hospital lands and instantly creates all those houses filled with school-aged children, created out of thin air...
From this new article, filed by John Miner:

Armstrong said he knows school board trustees never read the city's report on the area. School board officials could not be reached by the Free Press for comment Friday night.
"Obviously there is a disconnect between the school board and the city," Armstrong said. He was also miffed the board refused to let him hold his press conference and meeting with parents at the school, or even hand out notices of the meeting.
He told a handful of parents at the press conference he intends to persuade the board to change its recommendation for the school.
"This is a battle we intend to win," Armstrong said.

I have some issues with this article, as it allows Marchese and Armstrong to make some whopping nose-stretching claims. Deficits aren't driving school closures, Rosario. Declining enrolment and facility conditions are. Keeping in mind his own riding, I'm sure there are some kudos coming to Rosario given the Toronto board's own accommodation issues.
Hey, Coun. Armstrong-- is there really a disconnect between the school board and the city? Whose fault is that, really?
Let's review.
In August, the city receives the resolution from the Community Schools Alliance, calling for a 'smart' moratorium on disputed school closures. It eventually fobs it off to a committee for further review.
In November, school board trustees receive their annual accommodation report, confirming the desire to begin a new review of four schools in Argyle / east London area (item 14.b on the agenda), given the demographics of the schools, their neighbourhoods and catchment areas. This review had actually been given the OK to proceed by an advisory committee in January of 2008-- a committee which at the time included City of London councillors. The November recommendation from staff members is to close Churchill and through boundary review accommodate students at existing, vacant space in three other area schools.
In January, the city council committee finally gets around to considering the alliance request-- this is the time the city is also being asked for reps for the accommodation reviews about to get underway, and when Armstrong has his first snit.
In February, directors of education from both local boards come to the city committee meeting and explain to those present why a 'smart' moratorium isn't smart at all. Council later would vote to endorse the alliance request, and then also calls on both school boards to revise their review policies to be more accommodating to local and municipal input. Well, they are, but the city had missed that part, given it was refusing to participate in many of these reviews and absent in situations where it might have been able to bring some options to the table.
Coun. Bud Polhill will actually sit on this particular review Armstrong is all steamed up about, which hopefully will show Armstrong when someone joins the process and can bring something to the table, it might change end results. One, perhaps naively given the obvious political end Armstrong is gunning for, would hope Polhill could bring the report Armstrong references to the committee's attention. That there would also be an opportunity for dialogue when the board's demographer presents student projections for the area-- wouldn't it be apropos if the city's demographer came that night? Armstrong assumes the decision is made because trustees have supported the recommendations from staff in other reviews (though I'll note staff recommendations have changed as a result of ARC processes). He could read the reasons behind the disbandment of the Ross/Thames high school review, but that really doesn't fit with his political mantra that the Churchill closure is a done deal that he needs to battle in order to ply enough tick marks on ballots this Oct. 25.
The review will hold its organizational meeting this month, and actually won't be complete until well into the new term of office for the next city council and board of trustees.
Disconnect? Yeah, I'd say. It's hard to connect when the person you're reaching out to has turned their back to you and is running away to hold press conferences with opposition politicians to score political points.
I'll write it again-- those who refuse to get dirt under their fingernails but want to sit on the sidelines and direct the construction of the sand castle should realize they might not get their way. Kudos to the board for not granting him the ability to use the school for his own political ends-- if he really wanted to contribute he could have volunteered to sit on the committee and then he'd get to yell and scream from inside the school on meeting nights, at least.
Let's see what Polhill (whose daughter is a trustee, I might add) brings to the conversation that review committee will be having over the next year. As for Armstrong?

London board's response to city wailing

As readers here know, I'm not one to regularly tie in the work that's published in my paper to what I'm writing about here. But when the City of London council's recent decision on the Community Schools Alliance 'smart' moratorium request from last month reared its head at the Catholic board I regularly cover, there was a tie-in opportunity.
The article will be linked here once published.
London District Catholic School Board trustees correctly identified the City of London council's intent to want to simultaneously suck and blow when it comes to accommodation review committees and municipal participation in these reviews. The blunt response from trustees was that given how the city has historically and currently not shown any interest in participating in the board's various school-closure, boundary review and other planning work, it should just buzz off and mind its own business.
As predicted, the response from school board administrators was a request to go back to city council (and the County of Middlesex council), cap in hand and oh so pleasantly explain the policies that already exist and clarify all the opportunities that already exist for municipal participation.
"We felt it was a good opp to educate the council on exactly what the ministry guidelines are and what our policy is," director of education Wilma de Rond explain. "It's meant to assure them the process is sound and there are absolutely invitations and involvement in terms of municipalities."
The response was to simply forge ahead without the city's participation.
It comes in time with notice given to the Thames Valley District School Board that two London city councillors have resigned their seats on a regional capital plan advisory committee. The committee was a Thames Valley beast that would advise the board on reviews before trustees voted to formally establish the different committees.
London city council doesn't want to get dirt under its fingernails, but it wants to sit on the side of the playground and dictate what shape the sandcastle should take. That's not how the rules of the playground work, unfortunately.
Kudos to the London District Catholic School Board trustees for realizing this and responding the way they did. Other schools boards whose municipalities have endorsed the Alliance 'smart' moratorium request should take note if those municipalities in their districts have stopped participating in school-closure review processes.

ARCs a plenty

The way timing worked out this was a week for school-closure reviews. Several media across the province picked up on either final committee meetings, report consideration before trustees or other ARC-related processes.
Two of these -- Petrolia and Brantford -- were about final review committee reports.
Petrolia's reached consensus on what it wishes to recommend to the Lambton-Kent DSB. I'll note the Petrolia community asked for this review as it looked at its existing facilities and tried to meet the needs of growth programs, updating school facilities and sensing the declining enrolment challenge.
In Brantford, the committee recommended closure and consolidation of two existing onto the site of one of the schools. The committee is also scheduled to present a minority report to trustees, indicating there is another opinion from the committee aside the one in the report -- which in this case happens to be the location of where the consolidated school should be.
The District School Board of Niagara review in the City of Welland is winding down-- the committee held what appeared to be its final public meeting, putting its recommendations to date before the public. The Tribune's piece showed how some agreed and disagreed, but indicates the general tone is supportive of what the committee is set to recommend to trustees. That same review drew the attention of Peter Kormos (NDP--Welland) in the legislature before it was prorogued Thursday, which the Tribune also published an article on.

Crowland is a rural school and its closure is "going to leave a large area without service and force students to be bused into the urban area," Kormos said.
He asked whether (Education Minister Leona) Dombrowsky would intervene to protect Crowland, the rural community and the families and children who depend on the school.
Dombrowsky replied it would be "totally inappropriate" for anyone in government at the provincial level to become involved.

I don't find that response surprising. As I've opined in this space before, the province has been fairly consistent in giving boards the duty and responsibility for accommodation decisions, even if its funding and policies do provide significant guidance. An article from the Ottawa Citizen shows a parent group making a direct appeal to the minister to intervene-- one where the parents involved are asking for the same sort of review the petition allows. Well, with the exception that an administrative review doesn't overturn local decisions, which is what the parents are ultimately seeking.
The last I'll tie into this post comes out of Collingwood, where a boundary review is nearing completion. OK, yes, it's not a school-closure review. But I think some of the schools were to be part of a review canned by the Simcoe County District School Board last year so it could await implementation of the revised provincial guidelines. It also shows that sometimes accommodation doesn't mean the full ARC process, but can still involve the same public input and, potentially, the same level of conflict.

Progress report templates released to school boards

The e-mail about this came in on Monday and was promptly tucked away-- one of the other hats I wear on the job is municipal politics and there are budgets underway and meetings virtually every night of the past two weeks. I'll link to the drafts later today (that e-mail is on a separate computer than the one I'm typing this at). The drafts are all posted here as PDF files.
I did notice, however, that the Globe and Mail picked up the topic and ran with it Thursday.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the new fall report card is now called a progress report card, and it does away with letter grades. Instead students will be rated as "progressing with difficulty," "progressing well" or "progressing very well."
"Parents, teachers and the ministry all agreed that there might be a better way to report a student's progress after those first few weeks of school," said Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky.
A common parent complaint was that there was little formal testing in the first weeks of the school year, and letter grades often didn't provide a complete or accurate depiction of how their child was adapting to the classroom.
"The new fall progress report card emphasizes a student's development and provides feedback to a parent on whether their child is progressing well or if they are having difficulty," said Ms. Dombrowsky. "It will also include teacher comments about a student's learning that are personalized, clear and meaningful." 

I've opined on this previously when the progress reports were first announced earlier this school year. I believe these reports can be as informative as a more traditional letter-grade report card, but the usefulness would largely depend on the teacher completing them and the parent reading them.
They'll be in place for September 2010.

Prorogation's impact on education (amended)

Just got the confirmation, as widely expected, that Lt. Gov. David Onley has prorogued the legislature and will deliver the speech from the throne on March 8.
In real terms, MPPs finished their day early today and return to work on Monday for the new session along with the speech from the throne. The government release points out members won't lose any legislative days due to the prorogation.
Bill 242, introduced just a few weeks ago, will need to be reintroduced early in this legislative session. An all-party agreement in December allowed certain pieces of government legislation to be extended beyond and prorogation. The minister's office confirmed Thursday afternoon that Bill 242 is one such piece of legislation. It was referred to committee Thursday prior to prorogation. It wouldn't surprise me to hear in the speech a few reference's to the Ontario government's intent to carry forward with implementation of year one of the Early Learning Program. Amidst fiscal restraint, I don't see the Liberals cutting back on this.
I'll be curious to see whether the re-introduced version of Bill 242 (whatever it ends up being) is dramatically that different than the one that's on the books today.
The committee can begin its work on the bill Monday.
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking...

Gideon heritage waning?

Caught this item towards the end of this past week, from the Monique Beech at the St. Catharines Standard on the use of schools to distribute New Testament Bibles by the Gideons.
Right off the bat, this whole bible distribution is a very foreign concept to me-- someone writing this as a graduate of a Catholic school system (where distribution of the bible was surprisingly not an issue-- there was a complete set in every classroom) since converted to a one-public-school-system supporter. I have to say I agree with Paolo Miele (sometime commenter in these pages) when he states a public, secular school system -- particularly in more diverse urban areas -- should provide no space for the promotion of theology within its walls. Be it through sanctioned co-curricular activities or allowing the use of schools to distribute religious texts.

... a revamped District School Board of Niagara policy will not allow any kind of religious book or pamphlet to be distributed through schools to students, barring the approval of the director of education, school principals and parent groups. The materials would not be used for classroom teaching, but for personal use.
The old board rule, which dated back to 1998, granted permission only to Gideons International in Canada to offer New Testaments to Grade 5 pupils who wished to have them in schools — if principals and parents agreed. About half of the board's 97 schools offered bibles to students. But Miele said any kind of religious item does not belong in a public school.
"There should be no religious materials from different religious groups even making requests to the board," said Miele, who has been critical of the board on other issues, including the closure of Niagara District Secondary School and ongoing support of Christian-focused Eden High School, which is part of the DSBN. 

This is one of those situations where to be inclusive of all faith communities it's perhaps better, easier and fairer to all to simply exclude all faith communities. I'm not saying get rid of world religions as a senior-level course-- it was one of the most useful credits I was forced to take in high school (many Catholic boards require this credit as one of the annual religious education credits). That credit allows a valuable opportunity to learn about other faiths. This is a distinctly different situation than allowing faiths to use the school to promote or serve their own faith communities.
This half-and-half policy -- yes we allow, but it's at the judgment of people who might say no -- is poor. There are many public boards across Ontario that have similar ones. If the employee charged with the decision doesn't want to raise the ire of a particular faith group, then s/he has to permit all to do what the Gideons have traditionally done. When that happens it becomes a fairly meaningless policy.
The easier way to do it would simply be either to tell faith communities they will have to find other means to distribute their texts and promote their faiths, or to tell them they are permitted to distribute upon working out the logistical details with the school principal of how and when the distribution will occur outside of instructional time.
That said, I am well aware of the reality on the ground. My own county of 100,000+ population just got its first mosque-- and it runs out of a church (very a la Little Mosque). That's a very different reality than London, or Windsor, or K-W or the GTA. Such a, er, homogenous faith profile in a community like mine means many don't twist themselves into pretzels when the Gideon letter arrives home offering bibles to Grade 5 students.
However-- if we are to have a truly secular, public education system, then faiths should do this sacred-text distribution exclusively through their houses of worship.