2013 in review

Though it's been the sparsest year on record for new posts in this space, I have been paying attention to the K-12 sector in Ontario over the past 12 months. You can get a flavour of that from the Tumblr page where I aggregate the coverage of the sector from things I trip across while muddling through my social feeds or other news alerts.
Easily and without hesitation, bargaining (or lack thereof) again dominated the landscape in 2013. From the implementation of contracts under Bill 115 to the subsequent repeal of massive portions of the bill in late January. Not forgetting the resumption of extra-curricular activities across all high schools in time for the third of the three high school sports seasons.
Summertime offered no respite, as boards individually worked to implement the provisions of the mandated contract while pushing back to the ministry on those elements whose real costs they'd not been truly funded to cover.
Then in the fall, the new minister brought her first substantive piece of legislation to the floor that could actually alter the bargaining landscape when it comes to the next round of contracts that are coming due in 2014. Bill 122 was just sent to committee for its line-by-line before the legislature rose for the Christmas break, setting it up for a potential third reading and final vote prior to the spring budget.
Other items that are worthy of reflecting upon from the year in education in 2013, in no particular order:

• Accommodation, again: This one will not so easily leave the sphere of coverage or importance. While many of the easier (and by no means are any of these decisions easy) decisions when it comes to school accommodation have already been made, it was another year of headline-grabbing decisions. Be it in Kingston (pending any reviews there) or Toronto (delay delay delay) or London, school boards are still facing important and tough decisions on what sort of spaces students should be learning in as we enter 2014. With virtually no money provincially to support projects (outside of FDK, but more on that below), school boards have to be smarter about these decisions. Do they make decisions that benefit the greatest number of students? Or do they make decisions that benefit the most vocal constituency? Those are often different decisions.
• Stagnant results: I have pondered this over the years in this space, but more are now questioning why / whether Ontario's students have peaked when it comes to the large-scale standardized assessments such as the EQAO testing at Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10. Witness the panic this fall when the much-lauded PISA results showed Canadians (including Ontario, but interestingly, not Quebec) had been languishing in math results in these international sample-based assessments. The far-too-easy answer? We've poured a lot more money into literacy skills than numeracy. This is the result.
• FDK's final two years of implementation: This year had the first lauded and criticized study on the early success (or lack thereof) of the program. Of course, the province's ongoing deficit and debt leads to this program constantly being targeted for cuts. What I didn't see a lot of in media coverage this year? Parents whose kids are in the program or were in the program dissatisfied with the results or still insisting on calling it babysitting.
• Toronto, Toronto, Toronto: A few reminders throughout this calendar year that Toronto still pretty much makes its own rules when it comes to its school system. Particularly at the public school board, where money for capital was questioned, the province threatened (again!) to withhold money and then later backtracked and where it was found that like many other boards, they'd found a way to skirt wage-freeze regulations being applied to the broader public sector. The board remains the one with the largest inventory of vacant space and the greatest need for school renewal and potential consolidation.
• New minister: After the brief term of Laurel Broten (since resigned from politics altogether) we had a new minister with the new premier in Liz Sandals. Politically experienced in education, Sandals has made a few missteps on accountability measures (once admitting she hadn't read a briefing, only taking the summary from her staff members). By and large, she's helped Premier Wynne with bandaging relationships and she and her parliamentary assistant will shepherd the next generation of bargaining in the sector through the legislature.

Predictions for 2014?
I think bargaining will again be at the forefront as Bill 122 sees its day at third reading and royal assent. If it's passed, it will guide how the next round of contracts within the sector is settled. Look for the unions to try and catch up for two years of less-than-ideal wage and benefit provisions. Look for the government to continue its austerity push-- regardless of which party politically sits on the other side of the table.
The real question is whether it leads to a repeat of 2012-13 or whether it provides a more fulsome solution.

2012 year in review

As I noted at the end of my summative post for 2011, bargaining would be a huge issue in 2012 and as the year unfolded that proved to be true. It wasn't an exceedingly difficult prediction to make -- the 2008-12 contracts would expire, the government's new tack on fiscal austerity and a Liberal bench finding its way through minority government.
As of midnight yesterday, there was no overall resolution to dozens of contracts between elementary and secondary teachers working in public school boards, not to mention those support staff working across all school boards. not to mention some support staff working in schools (a template agreement was reached with CUPE on Dec. 31). With the new year now well underway, the question many are pondering is whether this minister and government will use the powers in Bill 115 to impose contract conditions on those in the sector who haven't settled or whether she will call any striking folk back to work as permitted under the same bill.
Personally, I'm left scratching my head as to how anyone gets to a resolution in this mess.
The unions are slowly painting themselves into a corner where their actions will only further alienate the public support they will need in order to minimize the impact of this battle on their members. If this province heads into an election in 2013 without some sort of resolution and job action continues, despite all their bravado the unions won't gain enough support to elect a government friendly to their demands.
Even if the contentious portions of Bill 115 are repealed, the government's fiscal goals haven't changed. It will still want to contain the massive liability of banked sick days and retirement gratuities for those school boards that offered them up to this point. It will still seek to eliminate the two-day-a-month sick day provisions and replace it with an amount closer to what people actually take, backed up by a short-term disability program.
It will still also seek to move towards provincial bargaining -- which, frankly, should have happened back in 1998 when the current district school boards were created and educational funding consolidated at the provincial level.
The government doesn't get off scot-free either. 
By poisoning bargaining right from the start, it did make it quite clear it wasn't willing to budge on its goals. It joined the unions in the war of rhetoric, making it easy to get distracted. This wasn't about wages. It's about long-tail liabilities and controlling the sector. Yet, to this day, the government line remains about teachers not wanting to take a pay cut, which is beyond false.
Caught in the middle, as always, are students. Being used as pawns, being abused as those impacted by any job action.
Bargaining would be the defining matter in education for the past 12 months, but that's not to suggest there weren't others. Here are a few to provide some fodder for reflection and discussion:

• Accommodation: This one does not go away. In 2012, another high-profile attempt -- this time in Peterborough -- to derail the decision made by a local school board. Another failure to understand that ministry reviews and judicial reviews are not appeals and cannot reverse a decision made by a group of local trustees. The rebound in declining enrolment is just getting underway in many districts. Many will point to this rebound as justification for maintaining the status quo-- but to do so is ignorant of what any good demographer will tell you. This rebound (which will take another eight to 10 years to begin hitting secondary schools) will be longer and smaller than previous baby booms. Which means it won't make up for the existing vacancies in our schools that will need to be rationalized sooner than this increase will start hitting high schools. This won't go away in 2013 either-- keep an eye on brewing situations in Kingston, London and maybe even, finally, in Toronto.
• GSAs: Long forgotten by now due to the labour unrest, this was a defining issue for the first quarter of the year. One of the only bills that received Royal assent before the summer break, Bill 13 was supposed to fix all bullying in our schools. Or something like that, I now mutter facetiously. The government started the year battling some faith-based groups and parents who objected to having gay straight alliances become a mandatory part of schools. Lost in the bigger discussion over what these support groups should be called was whether the name alone makes any real differences in school cultures and how they deal with harassment.
• See ya later, education premier: In a move that surprised many at the time, Dalton announced in October he will step down as party leader and premier once the Ontario Liberal Party elects a new leader in late January. So comes to an end a nine-year stretch where, for the most part, the government was quite friendly to the sector-- increasing funding by billions as student enrolments dropped by about six per cent. The legacy's being defined by his last few months, but as I argued when the announcement was made, McGuinty's legacy is larger than that. I would think in time, his term will be compared to that of Bill Davis. 

The past year was an exceedingly quiet one for this blog. It's my oft-neglected labour of love, supplemented somewhat by a tumblr feed but a shade of what it was in its first year. I do much of my opining on educational issues over Twitter, which provides an instant-gratification vehicle to express thoughts. I'm not a big new year's resolution person, but I would like to make carving out more time to write in this space a goal for the coming 12 months.
In the meantime, this tiny little blog approaches 100,000 page views as it enters its fourth year in March. Thanks to those who've stopped by and particularly to those who have been longtime readers.

Wishing, and hoping... for an unlikely moratorium

After all the time I've spent monitoring and reporting on this beat, I can't help but continue to be surprised by how every community re-invents the wheel when it comes to the question of school closures.
Here's an example (just one) from Niagara Region, where an MPP is calling for yet another moratorium on school closures. I also look at sites such as the Peterborough-based Save Local Schools and wonder. A May 12, supposedly provincewide rally against the existing school-closure process in this province saw a grand total of eight communities participate (Cambridge, Cobourg, Hamilton, Kingston, Norwood, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Sudbury and Welland), with only six school districts therein.
Missing?
Ottawa, where the question of closing under-capacity schools in the city's urban core and the constant demand for more accommodation in the exurbs has yet to be comprehensively addressed, particularly within the public school board.
Toronto, which continues to have the highest vacancy rate in the province but has kept avoiding the massive slate of school closures and consolidations for a variety of reasons.
Anywhere further north than Sudbury-- because many of these boards have already done several rounds of closures and consolidations and people are living with the consequences of that time. As they are in rural eastern Ontario (Upper Canada DSB, I'm looking at you) as well as comprehensive swaths of midwestern and southwestern Ontario.
Many of their points have merit-- district school boards are not as small as the township and city -- or the county -- boards they replaced. The review process isn't an appeal and no one in government (or out of it) seems to be willing to strip a district school board of one of the few responsibilities that still lies entirely within its domain-- pupil accommodation. Overwhelmingly, however, this opposition is rooted in the status quo, NIMBYism and the reluctance to accept any change.
This is not going away. There will be no moratorium. The harsh reality is that there are plenty of schools in Ontario built in the 1950s and 1960s (or earlier) with too many vacant pupil places. It appears 2012-13 and beyond are finally the time when Ontario's Ministry of Education will live up to its often-issued threat to cut declining enrolment grants. These grants have allowed many school boards to postpone the drastic changes they needed to make in order to right-size the facilities in their districts. They're going away.
Which means (with credit to former Thames Valley DSB director of education John Thorpe) there are difficult choices to make. There will increasingly be two choices: Fund the buildings you have today to keep as many of them open as possible with nothing left over to modernize them. Or you decide to spend less on your bricks and mortar-- close, consolidate, renovate, bring as many facilities up to modern standards as possible to run them as efficiently as possible and spend all those savings on programs.
To those who would advocate the status quo, which will it be?

Peterborites take notice

Peterborough College and Vocational School (PCVS) supporters have had a buoyant few weeks.
As followers of the time line for the school would know, it was recently spoken about on CBC Radio Q on March 29. That was the week the nation learned PCVS students and their community had -- in an initiative at least one supporter took pains to tell me over twitter was NOT related to ongoing save-PCVS advocacy -- won the "Spread the Net" challenge.
Which earned the school a coveted spot on the Rick Mercer Report's season finale last week where he even, mirroring the rant done by the current student council president, ranted about it. Bravo. A coincidentally orchestrated collision of gushing media coverage that while not really about the school closing was really and entirely about the opposition that remains to that school closing. That was impressive.
Unfortunately, and particularly when under the gun or after the decision's been made to close a school, many many many schools are fantastic and the greatest schools ever where people are encouraged to be all they can be and no one is ever bullied and every course that anyone ever wants to take is offered ... and... and... so on. While PCVS is impressive for all these things, its heritage and more, it's not unique in those respects. It's not every school, but it's not the only school.
Call me jaded and skeptical or stupid or whatever. For over three years I've been reading and learning about every school closure in this province that got even an ounce of media coverage and even covered a few myself. The wheel has been reinvented so many times on how communities react and plan on this I've lost count. Just tonight I was monitoring a storyline in St. Catharines / Thorold seemingly headed in exactly the same direction as this Peterborough decision.
'Twas shortly before this supporters learned of facilitator Joan Greene's report, completed after the community petitioned the decision of the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB trustees made in September. It found two "technical" violations of the KPRDSB's own accommodation review guidelines, but not enough to warrant recommending the board repeat the review.
The community is now banking on the publicity earned by its recent showcases and amassing dollars for a judicial review of the board's decision. While I seriously, seriously doubt it will be successful in overturning the decision (based exclusively on not having learned of a successful judicial-review reversal yet after some extensive research), I plead with anyone interested in this situation to take heed. Temper your expectations.
Be very, very aware of what a judicial review can and cannot accomplish. Search for and read through the many, many posts here in this space regarding Niagara District Secondary School in Niagara-on-the-Lake. They went through the judicial review process after waiting too long and as a result the request was quashed. No sense reviewing what has already proceeded too quickly and substantially along to reverse.
I'm no lawyer, but if the fundraising target is met and the decision is made to proceed, the moment after that application for judicial review is filed it might be prudent to file a series of applications for injunctions. One to stop PCVS from closing until the judicial review is either complete or the application is rejected by the court. Another to pause the work -- renovations, etc. -- being done at the receiving school, Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School (TASSS). The fact this work has continued helps put several nails in the coffin.
I don't fault the board for moving forward. It has to or else no school board anywhere would ever be able to close a school and plan for what happens next. A process that already takes 18 months to two years would never end. Given the province seems to finally be getting serious about ending the perpetual declining-enrolment adjustment grant, this is a scenario, along with other school closures, that will repeat itself. Unless, of course, we all starting having many more babies and find a way to also magically and instantly create a bunch of eight-to-12-year-olds kids.
Speaking of planning for what happens next, PCVS supporters need to be prepared for all outcomes. Life goes on and appropriate attention needs to be paid to ensure students are taken care of next year and the year after and after. Don't short the PCVS students of today by refusing to accept the school will close in June and its students will be accommodated at TASSS in the fall. Then you're only creating the self-sustaining storyline. Suggestions on local media comment boards that save-PCVSers discouraged students from completing course-selection properly for the fall are simply discouraging to read even when I doubt it may have happened.
PCVS may very well be the best school ever. But if a judicial review doesn't keep it that way, then students deserve only the same, very best in their receiving schools.

Mother of all aggregation posts

Here's what's been coming across the desk in the last month.
Capital

• The Thorold News on the high school closure review in St. Catharines and points southwest, a review also touched on in this St. Catharines Standard coverage regarding the Town's letter to the province, a columnist's take on the issue;
• The Kenora Daily Miner and News covers an early school-closure review meeting;
• Owen Sound Sun Times on the closure of four tech centres for full-day kindergarten;
• St. Catharines Standard on an elementary public school-closure meeting;
• The Barrie Examiner on whether the Simcoe County DSB retrofits/renovates or rebuilds an old, inaccessible school building and the Orillia Packet and Times on the decision to ask for funds to rebuild and seeking partnerships for the build;
• The Tillsonburg News covers the first meeting of an elementary school-closure review committee -- before and after;
• The Sudbury Star unveils the new Sudbury Secodnary School;
• The Fort Erie Times on the DSB Niagara's consideration of a school-closure report for the town;
• The Hamilton Spectator on a Hamilton-Wentworth DSB decision to close a school;
• The Simcoe Reformer on the Norfolk County mayor weighing in on the high school closure review, the release of an internet survey, and on how religion might save PDCS;
• The Goderich Signal-Star on a new-rural-school option considered (again) by a school-closure committee;
• The Peterborough Examiner on doctors' calls for PCVS to stay open (joined recently by mental-health professionals), a silent protest that stopped a Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB meeting,
• The Sault Star on a new Catholic high school's name;
• The Barrie Examiner on a citywide Catholic school-closure review; and,
• The Lake of the Woods Enterprise on speeding up a school-closure review;

Governance / Curriculum

• The Mid-North Monitor on a sharing agreement with the Town of Espanola and all local boards;
• The Owen Sound Sun Times on the Bluewater DSB's commitment to outdoor ed and an expansion of abilities for its student trustees and new concerns over declining enrolment with an eye on the Catholic board;
• The Peterborough Examiner on there being no Ojibway-language classes in local schools;
• The Pembroke Observer explains what Parent Involvement Committees are;
• The Observer again, as the Renfrew County DSB boasts of its strategic planning;
• Wifi coverage galore-- from the Peterborough Examiner on the board of health's opinion and trustee's response/discussion, St. Catherines with an early piece on the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Assocation anti-wifi moves complete with response from the local Catholic board, CBC Ottawa on parents' concerns in schools there and the Petrolia Topic on its Catholic board not backing down on wifi;
• The Ottawa Citizen on the rejection of a failed candidate's call for religious policy review;
• The Citizen again with a fantastic three-part data journalism on out-of-area high school attendance-- part one, part two, part three;
• The Gananoque Reporter gets an Upper Canada DSB trustee's perspective on newsletters;
• Globe and Mail editorial on bullying being confronted yet acknowledged;
• The Barrie Examiner on a school-safety related teacher walkout;
• The Citizen again on the Ottawa Catholic board's charges in a school explosion; and,
• The Belleville Intelligencer on a complaint a two-year disciplinary process for a teacher takes too long.

Happy reading. No Drummond here-- still saving that more a separate, in-depth post.

Early February tab dump

One week generated a lot of education coverage in the ol' inbox.
Capital

• The Sudbury Star letter on the public being shut out / stage-managed at a school-review meeting;
• The Northern News on a school-closure tied to an enrolment threshold, with busing implications, with the board meeting coverage later in the week;
• The Sault Star on a new French-language school's solar roof;
• The Barrie Examiner on a new Catholic elementary school review kicking off in the north end of that city;
• The Strathroy Age-Dispatch on post-closure boundary adjustments (or lack thereof);
• The Sudbury Star on the Near North DSB's decision to freeze all school reviews (!!);
• The Sudbury Star on the latest 'green' school construction;
• The St. Catharines Standard on a community resigned to closure of its Catholic elementary school;
• The Niagara Falls Review on the vote to close a Catholic elementary school; and,
• The Standard again with coverage of the St. Catharines - Thorold high school review meeting, and a post-meeting proposal to shift lines on a map.

Enrolment / demographics

• The Owen Sound Sun Times on a parent's concern too many public-school-supporter families' children are attending Catholic school;
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• The London Free Press on ad campaigns from coterminous boards in the region targeting different age groups; and,
• The Toronto Star's moneyville on people making correlations between test scores and housing prices.

Governance / curricula

• The Chatham This Week localizes the bus consortium RFP impact;
• The Toronto Star's coverage of a teacher taking his former Catholic principal before the Ontario College of Teachers over the GSA issue;
• The St. Catharines Standard on teachers and technology;
• The North Bay Nugget on vending-machine revenue drops;
• The Star's QP columnist (among others), takes on Dalton vs. the Catholic school system over the GSA issue;
• The Brockville Recorder and Times with a editorial in support (which is rare, of late) of school-bus consortiums;
• The Pembroke Observer's coverage of the Catholic board's strategic-plan review;
• The Hamilton Spectator on a Hamilton-Wentworth DSB trustee's move to have a full external review of how the board does its thing; and,
• The mayor in the Northern News piece mentioned above bristles at the critique from the board he enrols his own kids elsewhere.

The Moneyville piece had me thinking-- that's really not what the data was meant to support, but in a way it does reflect the continuing reality of what the data shows. Those who are better off in life do better in school. Those who are not don't do as well. But what preceded what? A noggin' scratcher of a chicken-and-egg that one is.
The Free Press piece also had me laughing, as this is the district I used to cover. The public board knows it loses kids to the Catholic system in Grade 9, whose schools are bigger, more modern, etc. etc. The Catholic board is being slammed by declining enrolment in elementary and trying to keep its smaller number of full-day kindergarten sites as attractive compared to the larger selection of public sites.
More on ARC stuff and the continuing GSA saga (and yes, that's what it's becoming) in other posts.

January browser-tab dump

Back to my recent habits of tabbing up by browser until I hit this point.
Capital

• The Peterborough Examiner's continuing PCVS coverage-- the naming of facilitator Joan Green, the announcement of her public meeting, some pre-Green meeting advice, Green's meetings with the press (!!), coverage of the meeting itself and the approval of renovation funding for TASSS;
• The Hamilton Spectator on concern over an Ancaster high school's review;
• The Orillia Packet & Times on how a school project might be the board's priority but not the ministry's;
• The Kirkland Lake-based Northern News on a school closure in Timiskaming;
• The Timmins Daily Press on a capital-funding announcement for a French public school;
• The Owen Sound Sun Times on the Bluewater DSB's building bee;
• The Packet & Times checks in with members of a school-closure review looking at schools in Moonstone;
• The Ottawa Citizen speaks to a defeated candidate for trustee calling for new schools in Kanata;
• The Barrie Examiner's coverage of the Simcoe County DSB's decision to delay a high school closure review in the city;
• The St. Catharines Standard on a school-closure review of parts of the city and Thorold narrowing its list of recommendations;
• Followed by a local perspective from the Thorold News from the same meeting, a perspective that also appears in a second Standard article;
• The Simcoe Reformer's continuing coverage of the school-closure review underway in Norfolk County-- getting crabby on busing before the meeting and at the meeting itself;
• The Stratford Beacon Herald on two trustees' baptism by fire on accommodation issues at their own childrens' schools;
• The Goderich Signal-Star does a so-called "advancer" on a school-closure review meeting;
• The Barrie Examiner again on a Catholic elementary school review resuming its work; and,
• The Peterborough Examiner on a call from an employee union to clean up asbestos before it gets disturbed.

Governance / Curricula

• The Hamilton Spectator on changes to the the Ontario College of Teachers online member database;
• The Spec on the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic DSB's no-GSA decision;
• The Toronto Star on a parent's court challenge of Catholic-school funding;
• The Waterloo Region Record's continuing coverage of the DSB's decisions on full-day kindergarten wraparound programs;
• The Ottawa Citizen on an arts programming review; 
• The Welland Tribune on a small bump in enrolment at the DSB Niagara;
• The North Bay Nugget covers a trustee objecting to her big-spender characterization;
• The Owen Sound Sun Times writes about Bluewater DSB's strategic plan;
• The St. Thomas Times-Journal on the Thames Valley DSB's review of bell times; and,
• The Welland Tribune gets the local view on "respecting differences."

Haven't touched too much on the continuing gay-straight alliance kerfuffles (my views on this for regular readers are well-known), nor the speculation over what Don Drummond might include in his recommendations, which I'll write a separate post on.

Looking in both directions

Here's to looking back at 2011 and looking ahead to 2012 in the world of K-12 education in this province, as well as a chance to reflect on what's been in this space in the last 12 months. As I wrote about for my employer, 2011 was a year of change from the fellowship back to my former job to a new post starting in August.
In the past year this space has seen just over 3,800 visitors, a slight majority of whom had been here at least once before. Traffic was highest in the winter and early spring when the fellowship granted lots of time for posting and waned throughout the rest of the calendar year as I went back to work (bad blogger, bad).
Here were the posts that drew the largest audiences:

1. Full-day kindergarten = ECE shortage? (a post from 2009)
2. Keep those EQAO envelopes sealed
3. Mapping our Full-day Kindergarten
4. Bil 177 (another post from 2009)
5. Ontario's next education minister is (noting my guesses were all wrong)
6. On teaching (from 2010)
7. A thought on teacher education and the job market (another from 2010)
8. DSBN Academy coverage keeps growing
9. My long goodbye to OISE
10. Defenders of the faith(-based)

When 40% of the most-viewed posts are not from the immediate past year, it's a signal to me I need to be posting more in this space. Alas, I have been negligent in living up to the promise of its purpose when it was launched in early 2009. I've reflected on just how I was able to do it then-- I would come home at whatever hour and commit to writing at least one new post a day. If it wasn't comment on coverage elsewhere, it would be original opinion, analysis or outright reporting. My posts on Bill 177 and Bill 242 are among very few that look at the legislation that are out there, and both keep drawing traffic.
Here's my cut of the top issues in K-12 Ontario education of 2011:

• Bullying became the worst thing ever about any school system this year. Unfortunately helped by a number of well-publicized suicides where this harassment was either known or suspected to be the primary cause, along with the politicization of Gay-Straight Alliances as some sort of bullying cure-all, bullying has been on everyone's tongue throughout the year. I'm curious as to whether it will result in meaningful action in 2012.
• School accommodation / demographic shift continues, though not as noisily in most areas of the province as it has in the last few years. Many boards outside the GTA have tackled their first few rounds of school-closure reviews, petitions and post-review openings. The Toronto boards also began tackling this, though not as assertively as they probably need to in order to keep up. Towards the end of the year the Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School decision raised eyebrows (and the dander of many) showing accommodation issues are by no means ever a dead issue.
• A new minister came to the portfolio in October after the scrappy Leona Dombrowsky was sent into political retirement by the voters in Belleville and area. Laurel Broten was appointed minister to the surprise of many (or maybe just me) after previous stints in Environment and Children and Youth Services. She's been pushed with the reaction to Bill 13, but like every minister since Sandra Pupatello and her predecessor Gerard Kennedy, the steps out of the spotlight to allow Premier Dalton McGuinty to fulfill his "education premier" desire.
• Full-day kindergarten continues to drive the education agenda provincially. Though the 2011-12 crop of new schools is the smallest cohort of the five years, the issue of before- and after-school care for four- and five-year-olds isn't settled across the province. Its popularity even drove the PC Party of Ontario leader Tim Hudak to do a 180 on the program, going from labelling it another Liberal Cadillac program to saying he would support implementation as proposed. While the components of the original Pascal Report flowing from FDK for 6-12-year-olds were part of the Liberals' election platform, rollout timing is indeterminate in this minority Parliament.

In a similar vein, here are some thoughts on what should be tracked in the coming twelve months:

• Money will be key to everything in 2012-- the province's debt and deficit will become a focus of the pending provincial budget. While no one in opposition would likely defeat a budget based on health care or education spending (which will likely be almost 3/4 of all provincial spending), those in the know are well aware that every passing year will be a bigger budget challenge. New spending on capital projects will by and large be to support implementation of full-day kindergarten. There will likely be a kitty to tap into for employee contracts (more on that below) and some token amounts to keep up with rising utility and other non-staffing costs, but the years of pilfering to support old buildings over programs and people in those buildings are coming to an end and boards that are supporting too many older buildings or vacant pupil places will have a tough time tackling 2012-13 budgets in June.
• The bullying theme will stubbornly stick around-- a Liberal minority in the legislature may very well capitulate on controversial sections of Bill 13 in committee if it wishes to see the bill come back for third reading before the legislature rises for the summer break. This will serve as the next step in the premier's initiative to get character development further entrenched into the curricula.
• Just for kicks, it might be worth tracking whether election-campaign promises, such as the wraparound programming for 6-to-12-year-olds, the two-year teachers' college and the one or two others get implemented in the coming year.
• Finally, I do think the contracts will be an issue in this year. They do expire on Aug. 31, after all. I would have a litter of kittens if any agreements of significance were ratified (at provincial discussion tables or locally) before the end of this calendar year however. I don't believe any of the parties have given big signals on priorities for the next agreement -- other than the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario trying to reach the parity their executive pissed away in the standoff over the 2008-12 agreements. The back half of this year will likely, particularly after annual meeting season in the summer, feature an entrenchment as the various unions and federations stake out what they think a minority Liberal government can get them and the Liberals mark their turf. I wouldn't expect any battle stations to be manned until some time between March Break and summer vacation 2013 though.

 This space has been less in 2011. All the same, thanks to those who stop by searching for something and those who continue to read and comment on the posts. At some point in the coming months the blog will see its 30,000th visitor and though small as far as the web goes, that's better than I could have predicted when I started doing this.

New Year's browser-tab dump!

How seasonal!
Here's what I've been clicking on these last few weeks:
Capital

• The Thorold News on a school-closure review involving the school there and a few more in St. Catharines;
• The Peterborough Examiner's continuing PCVS coverage on trustees voting not to delay closure, a response to the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB's petition response and nabbing alum Serena Ryder to play the coming benefit, a call from former trustees for more "dialogue";
• Equal-opportunity PCVS coverage from Metroland Kawartha Region;
• The Goderich Signal-Star on a proposal from a school-closure review committee to keep rural schools open and bus town students to them;
• The Owen Sound Sun Times on plans in the Bluewater DSB for schools in Kincardine;
• The Sault Star on an Algoma DSB report in response to a school-closure review recommending closing one city high school;
• A Simcoe DSB / Simcoe-Muskoka Catholic DSB capital-plan update run in the Collingwood Entreprise-Bulletin; and,
• The Hamilton Spectator on the Hamilton-Wentworth DSB's move to sell property

Governance

• The Welland Tribune on how the Niagara Catholic DSB handled some after-semiformal dance destruction;
• The Ingersoll Times on a push for busing to a new school;
• The Hamilton Spectator on a trustee arguing a probe into her own conduct was unjustified;
• An Op-Ed from the Windsor Star on the role of principals;
• The Goderich Signal-Star with an Avon Maitland DSB chair preview of the year ahead;
• The Spec with a survey piece on working conditions for local trustees;
• Moira MacDonald previews what she believes will be the battle ahead with contract negotiations in The Toronto Sun;
• The Belleville Intelligencer with a look at the "stormy seas" ahead; and,
• The Sault Star on a lawsuit settlement between the Huron-Superior Catholic DSB and a former director of education.

Curriculum / other

• The St. Catharines Standard on the (mandated) school-climate surveys being undertaken by the DSBN;
• The Toronto Star on a pilot project for at-risk students;
• How a two-year B.Ed means more training on diversity, inclusivity from Xtra;
• The Owen Sound Sun Times on a review of the Bluewater DSB gifted program (the oft-neglected end of the special-education spectrum);
• A great little nugget of a feature on Sec. 23 schools from Metroland Kawartha Region; and,
• Two from the Welland Tribune with a 1/3-year checkin at the DSBN Academy.

A good smattering of items. I remain bemused by the campaign around PCVS, which with every ready seems more about saving a building than it is saving programs or students. The suggestion in Goderich to reverse the flow of students from urban to rural is interesting.
I really liked that Metroland Kawartha tackled the Sec. 23 schools. I've written about alternative schools before, but never Sec. 23 schools. Nor do I remember reading about them elsewhere.
While I do predict a battle ahead on teacher contracts, I don't see that happening in 2012 based on how long it's taken in previous rounds to settle contracts.

Holiday link dump

Hey, I'm off work for a few days. So, um, here's a link dump to celebrate all my open browser tabs!
Capital

• The Thorold Niagara News on the start of a school-closure review process;
• The Tillsonburg News on schools identified for a possible Thames Valley DSB school-closure review;
• The Peterborough Examiner's continuing PCVS coverage -- the filing of the Kawatha Pine Ridge DSB's response to the review petition, supporters calling out a trustee, a meeting with supporters and a trustee, the Dec. 5 rally at Queen's Park, a trustee asking the closure be delayed, planning for Grade 8s continues and a pending Thursday vote on who could go where;
• Coverage from the Windsor Star of a school-closure review;
• The St. Thomas Times-Journal on the same TVDSB accommodation report above and an Elgin trustee's response;
• The Simcoe Reformer's continuing Port Dover CS coverage -- a call for a futuristic approach and a community campaign to boost sagging enrolment;
• The Fort Erie Times on a committee vote to close two schools;
• The Londoner on how closures could affect London's core;
• The Barrie Examiner on a pending review of Catholic schools in the city's north end;
• The Belleville Intelligencer on a review / consolidation / replacement of schools in Stirling and Tweed;
• The Brantford Expositor (hey...) on the Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk CDSB's new-school priority;
• The Orillia Packet & Times on a tender for a new Catholic school; and
• The Kingston Whig-Standard on a Limestone DSB school-closure review.

Policy / procedure

• The Owen Sound Sun Times on a review of the Gideon-Bible distribution policy, a response from one family and a petition on keeping the practice in place;
• The Orillia Packet & Times on the roles of school councils;
• The Globe and Mail on ending public funding for Catholic schools; and,
• A short one from 680News on the Ontario College of Teachers publicizing more teacher-discipline data;

Miscellany

• The Globe and Mail on the People for Educaiton report on the reading data from Education Quality and Accountability Office testing; and,
• The Waterloo Region Record on a silent protest by the Canadian Auto Workers in response to Waterloo Region DSB cuts.

Happy browsing. Some of the links touch on matters covered by other media as well, but I am posting the first coverage I saw of the issue above.

Browser tab roundup

All the latest in my browser tabs.

• The Barrie Examiner on a new school-closure review for Catholic elementary schools in north Barrie;
• The Kincardine News on the Bluewater DSB and the Gideons' distribution of Bibles;
• The Sudbury Star on a Rainbow DSB decision to keep French immersion at a city school;
• The Brantford Expositor on pending school-closure review(s) in the Brant-Haldimand-Nofolk Catholic DSB;
• The Chatham Daily News on saving a French immersion program in Blenheim;
• The Hanover Post on post-school review work within the Bluewater DSB to setup two K-12 schools;
• The Fort Erie Times on a school-closure review underway in that area;
• The Goderich Signal-Star on an Avon Maitland DSB response to a school-closure committee's request to keep one rural school open; and,
• The North Bay Nugget runs a letter to the editor from a Near North DSB trustee speaking to the recent censure of another trustee by the board.

There are still a few more tabs open, but one is on full-day kindergarten wraparound programs in Ottawa -- to which I've also received an email from someone in Waterloo Region that deals with the same issues. The other is the recent early learning report, which really does deserve its own post and which I haven't finished reading.
Happy clicking and reading, for those who do.

Charts and more charts

The Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School folk forwarded me an interesting chart this week.
It didn't convert well to GoogleDocs, but I've posted the .xlsx document there anyway.
As the rallies continued before a board meeting Thursday, this document is being circulated.
If I've interpreted its aim correctly -- and I didn't ask for clarification -- the idea here is to shift the closure of a Peterborough school between the options available to the school-closure review committee and trustees as the latter chose an administrative recommendation to axe PCVS.
Shift which school closes and the numbers change.
Play with the number of students -- and from what the chart shows only one such survey has been conducted -- that might leave the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB and go to the Catholic system (which from what I can tell has no comparable arts program) and the numbers on the rest of the chart change. Play with the numbers from the Catholic system that have chosen PCVS' arts program in the past and the numbers change.
Why? My guess is they're trying to show a belief that closing PCVS and moving the arts programming to another school equals a loss of students to the KPRDSB.
Interestingly, though it takes these from the board-provided stats, the number that never changes is the projected student populations.
As wary as some might be to depend on projections, they're usually quite solid for high schools. The students who will attend high school in five years already exist-- they're in Grade 3 or 4 right now. Heck, the students in Grade 1 today will be in high school starting in 2019. With some variables (such as population shift/migration) to take into account, these numbers won't dramatically change. Boards also know the average number of credits taken by a high school student (since these schools are funded on figure based on the provincial average number of credits taken by a high school student). They also know, after more than five years, the average rate of Grade 12 students who return for a fifth year of high school. For most Ontario boards that I've heard of, that figure is around a 30% to 35% return rate.
Looking at the chart, 2009-10 enrolment at five schools is 4,099 FTE. In 2014-15, it's predicted to be 3,238. That's 800 fewer FTE, which in many boards across the province is larger than the average high school's population.
That's a number that shouldn't be forgotten and that won't be growing enough to change the rationale for why the review was started in the first place.
Don't trust the board numbers? OK. Let's look at the most recent census stats available from 2006 (to be updated in March 2012 from the 2011 census). You used to be able to embed the chart, but it's here.
Accounting for the five-year difference, for our purposes we take the 10-14 age cohort as the 15-19 cohort today. In 2006, there were 4,490. Going five years down the age range, it drops to 3,650. Hitting the age group that will be in high school towards the end of the date range from the board figures, the number in 2006 was 3,345. That's a difference of 1,145 to split between all the city's high schools.
My point here is you can chart and chart and chart, but nothing changes the reality that there will be far fewer high school students in five-to-10 years than there are today. In addition to other factors such as facility condition, etc., this is what drives the entire process.
With the board appearing to be committed to the survival of the arts programs at PCVS, it does seem, again, like we're talking about buildings instead of programs and people.

It never happened unless it happens to me

My heartstrings are being pulled by the rallying that is currently building and taking place in Peterborough. I've long held a soft spot for this city on the Otonabee, where I lived for just over eight months a decade ago.
The city, particularly those interested in its downtown Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational School, is in the midst of a post-vote, pull-out-all-the-stops campaign to try and get an unpopular decision to close PCVS reversed.
There are petitions afoot, to be presented Dec. 5 when a group from the community travels to Queen's Park.
In the meantime, the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB carries on implementing the decision of its trustees, with the scheduling of the program for future years underway. With the ever-annoying-to-me practice of calling a review an appeal... which it's not, since it cannot reverse the decision of trustees. Only trustees could choose to do that if they wished.
Together, they show the hopes being placed behind a process that won't likely result in any reversal of the decision by a power outside the board of trustees. They also show how life goes on for the programs involved in this review while those who fight to save a building carry on their track.
This weekend, I received an email from the local committee. It's not really meant for me since I'm not reporting in the KPR district, but it's a message the communications section of the local group is sending out to media throughout the district. It was shared with me by someone who tripped across this space and has started reading past posts on accommodation reviews. I've posted it to GoogleDocs (edited to remove personal email address and names) and it's embedded below.

I find this approach interesting. I did reply, indicating that despite how nice it is to be recognized for my expertise, the save-PCVSers may not end up finding me to be their best ally. Working in the biz, I also doubted they'd get any new attention with this appeal, given the realities of chain ownership and what local papers outside of Peterborough would be focusing on for their coverage.
Despite the "we're all in this together" and "you could learn from what we're going through" sentiment, practice has shown time and again that no, you're not in it together and unfortunately, you're not learning from others' prior experience until you find yourselves in the hotseat.
Regular readers here will know what other communities across this province have been through in their valiant efforts to reverse a school board's decision. None has, to date, been successful.
Of interest, I did a cursory search of the KPRDSB website for previous accommodation reviews-- 'cause hey, if we're all in this together we should have been together all along, right?
In a few minutes I was able to find documents relating to a prohibitive-to-repair closure review dating back to 2007 for Castleton and South Cramahe schools, the launch of a review for Newtonville PS and the re-activation of a review for Young's Point PS. It leaves me to wonder whether anyone in Peterborough was paying attention when those reviews happened and was as concerned about those school closures.
Likely not.
I do wish it was different. Particularly as a reporter who's covered several rounds of school-closure reviews within the same larger community. Watching (usually metaphorically hitting my head against the wall) as the next community repeated all the same steps as the one before it, because it hadn't paid any attention to the preceding reviews since they didn't come home to roost in one's own backyard.
With declining enrolment slowing or edging towards rebounding enrolment and the ever-aging condition of schools built for baby boomers, the prospect of a school-closure review is an ever-present reality for much of this province. Municipalities need to recognize this too-- think about the fate of your existing schools as you choose to build greenfield neighbourhoods instead of infilling and intensifying existing ones. Don't wait until your school is struck to learn the basics of how this process should work or what other communities have already tried.

Voting with their feet

This is a question that's come to me a few times in recent weeks reading coverage of some ongoing school-closure reviews-- particularly the high school review being undertaken by the Grand Erie DSB for its secondary schools in Norfolk County.
Port Dover Composite is under the gun as the candidate for closure at this stage of the review. To put things into some perspective from afar, the GEDSB kept Delhi District open a few years back, voting to tear down a vacant wing and invest somewhere in the neighbourhood of $4 million on that project and some renos to the school. The school benefited when Norwich DHS, in the Thames Valley DSB, closed in 2009 and the largest group of students to be dispersed chose to start attending Delhi DSS.
The review was highlighted in my recent tab roundup, with reporting coming mainly from my colleagues at the Simcoe Reformer. The paper has posted a few more articles since I wrote that roundup-- one accusing the board of sabotaging PDCS, one on a meeting held at the school and one questioning whether the data being presented to the review committee is flawed. On the latter, the article is a bit confusing since it has the municipality acknowledging that most of the new housing has gone to older populations (who don't have school-aged kids). It seems as though the municipality's growth stats don't match the board's because it's comparing two different demographics.
From the first article:

They are also angry that the GEDSB pays for one-way busing of Port Dover students to Simcoe Composite School.
Because of this unique busing arrangement, 117 secondary students in the PDCS catchment area attend high school out of town. Were they forced to attend classes in their home town, the number of high-school students at PDCS would rise to 402, well within the board's goal of 75% capacity.
"There has been 25 years of the board surreptitiously putting nail after nail into this school," Marg Ryerse said to loud cheers in the packed gymnasium at PDCS. "As taxpayers in Port Dover we should be outraged. Port Doverites pay some of the heftiest taxes in Norfolk County. Port Dover is being shortchanged here. The board is literally driving our children away. Why is this being allowed to happen?"
GEDSB has PDCS under the microscope because there are 2,200 vacant pupil places at Norfolk's five public high schools.

This is a critique that has come up in this board and others before. Boards providing transportation from one area of the district to another that local advocates feel is overly detrimental to the local high school. I know that the GEDSB does this in Delhi, where if a student wants to access a senior-level course and is unable to (or doesn't want to wait until there's a critical mass at the school to have it offered), they are given busing to a school in Simcoe.
The critique is similar with PDCS, where students are taking advantage of the free busing.
This can be somewhat of a catch-22 for a school board. It has an obligation to serve all students through all pathways (open, workplace, college, university, academic, locally developed, etc.) regardless of what geographic area of the district their families choose as home. It has to do this within a finite amount of funding. Boards in southern Ontario can be very creative in their approaches, such as offering certain credits every other year, combining grades into one classroom, combining levels into one classroom, offering e-learning and even putting some tele/video conferencing solutions into place. At the end of the day, each of those solutions or all of them are not the solution for every student.
What can sometimes happen (and did in Norwich to some extent, according to data presented in 2004-05), is that the student body tends to sign up for the courses that are offered, regardless if that's the most appropriate course. In this example, the data showed more students taking academic and university level courses -- because that's what could be offered -- than necessarily students heading down that pathway post-grad.
Families tend to vote with their feet. If a course isn't being offered in their home school, or isn't being offered in the format they want or need and they can do so, they'll travel to get it. When you reach a critical mass of people travelling from point A to B, when do you start transporting the students in that direction? Never?
Even a 400-student school can be difficult to time table for every option.
Rather than condemning the board for this situation, I think a far more interesting question would be to ask (in this case) the almost 200 students who take advantage of the transportation why they've done so. The answers could be very, very instructional and illuminating to the committee and the school board.
It's a question that's never asked. Even a few years ago in the midst of Niagara District Secondary School stuff where census stats shows 700 high school-aged students in the catchment area and fewer than half choosing NDSS, no one asked why the other students voted with their feet.

Random tab roundup

Browser-tab dump! In the following groups:
Capital / accommodation

• Owen Sound Sun Times on the MP and MPP getting involved in an accommodation review;
• The Sun Times on the vote to keep the school in question above open;
• The Hanover Post on another school-closure review in the Bluewater DSB;
• The Stratford Beacon Herald on Avon Maitland DSB's search for French immersion accommodation;
• The St. Catharines Standard on the Thorold high school review and its report being delayed;
• The Sudbury Star on French immersion accommodation within the Rainbow DSB;
• The Peterborough Examiner on the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB 'phasing out' a Grade 7/8 school, along with the followup on the decision not to;
• The Sarnia and Lambton County This Week on the Lambton Kent DSB using international students to boost enrolment;
• The Petrolia Topic on the LKDSB tracking French immersion enrolment post-review;
• The Peterborough Examiner on another attempt to reverse the PCVS decision, as well as a Halloween protest and direction given to teachers on the pending closure;
• The Goderich Signal-Star on an elementary school-closure review;
• The North Bay Nugget on the realization of a moved French program's subsequent impact on enrolment;
• The Shoreline Beacon on a Kincardine / Port Elgin review that didn't get the same attention as the one in Chesley, with subsequent coverage of the vote by the Sun Times and the Kincardine News;
• The Kincardine News had a good followup to the above on a new high school for the village;
• The Simcoe Reformer on a Grand Erie DSB rural high school review, the shrunken campaign to save Port Drover Composite; and,
• The Chatham Daily News on finding a home for French immersion in Chatham.

Full-day kindergarten

• The Waterloo Region Record on the impact before- and after-school programming could have on childcare centres;
• The Sault Star on the same issue in that area of the province;
• The Ottawa Citizen's scoop, exclusive at the time coverage of Minister Laurel Broten saying wraparound programs don't have to be offered by school boards; and,
• The Sudbury Star on the Rainbow DSB's first contract with its early childhood educators;

Safety in schools

• The Cornwall Standard Freeholder on the Upper Canada DSB keeping wifi networks in its schools;
• The Sault Star on the Algoma DSB pondering surveillance cameras in some of its high schools;
• The Peterborough Examiner on the Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB's wifi study and implementation in its schools; and,
• The Welland Tribune forshadowing a recent visit by Broten to a local elementary school.

Fiscal / governance

• The Belleville Intelligencer on 16 layoff notices that didn't turn into callbacks;
• The North Bay Nugget on the suspension of a trustee in the Near North DSB;
• The Hamilton Spectator on a breach-of-conduct investigation at the Hamilton Wentworth DSB; and,
• The Timmins Daily Press on local schools' review of new fundraising policies (a little muddled in confusing fundraising with a convicted thief who stole from athletics programs).

It feels like I just cleaned house. Will do better with this sort of aggregation in the weeks ahead, promise.

Latest capital roundup

When I'm not as attentive to this space, the open tabs on my browser for items to mention here start to pile up.
Here's a roundup of what's been crossing my desk in the past two or three weeks.

• The Orillia Packet and Times on rebuilding a school;
• The Niagara Advance on NOTL council's consideration of the former Virgin PS lands;
• The Kingston Whig-Standard on a needed reno at a high school;
• The Sault Star on a ceiling collapse at a school in Chapleau;
• The Star again on a rodent problem in a brand new school, with a followup from the board response;
• The Timmins Daily Press on mothballing (but not selling) an empty school;
• The Mitchell Advocate on a church's purchase of a closed school;
• The Stratford Beacon-Herald with a related piece on the two schools that didn't sell;
• The Sarnia Observer on the Lambton-Kent DSB's decision not to start any closure reviews this school;
• The Peterborough Examiner on two surplus school sales; and,
• The Owen Sound Sun Times on a call from Kincardine for major renos at its high school.

I haven't included a number of other tabs relating to a few school-closure reviews, some more on the wi-fi in schools debate, some trustees getting slapped on the wrist and the continuing PCVS coverage from Peterborough. More on those in a day or two.
Kudos to these folks for the coverage. The sexy article is the one with the crying students and parents when a decision is made to close a school. These help explain that night is not the end of the story.

Could Peterborough break the mold?

Doubtful. Very doubtful on this one, despite a strong connection to the City of Peterborough and its collegiate and vocational institute.
For those who haven't met it, PCVS is the city's historic high school Built turn of the century ish, like many other schools across Ontario that have the CVS or CI to their names. In the heart of the city, surrounded by heritage buildings of a similar ilk. Home to a Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB specialty arts program that accepts students from the PCVS attendance area and from across the district after an entrance exam/evaluation of sorts. There is (or was) a school like PCVS in every city and larger town like Peterborough in this province.
Through my former camping career, I've had the honour of getting to know a few Peterborough families, most of whose children either attended or currently attend PCVS.
The school -- along with three others in the city -- was involved in a closure review. The numerical reality of life is that there aren't enough school aged students in Peterborough to support full programming, etc., at four schools. While the early bets, and committee report, suggested another school would close when it came time for trustees to vote they voted to close PCVS.
So the campaign -- not really in high gear during the accommodation review because, c'mon, who would close PCVS, after all -- has begun.
These clips are from the Examiner, although I'm sure Peterborough This Week's coverage has been similar.

• PCVS supporters plot school closure appeal
• PCVS school council not blocked from holding regular school council meetings at PCVS
• City council to debate action to take on PCVS closure
• Riel doesn't think appeal will change PCVS decision
• Riel, Parnell opposed as city council backs call for review of PCVS closure decision

First, allow me my usual bristling at the continued misuse of terminology. It's not an appeal. It's a petition to review the process that was used (under which the decision of the school board cannot be reversed). Appeal implies the possibility of a change in the result and the ministry's petitioning process doesn't allow for that.
In that sense, Coun. Riel was absolutely correct in earlier coverage linked above when he says it's all hot air for council to support or not support the petition since it won't change the result. I was also intrigued by his comments to council on what students are saying about the PCVS decision on social media.
Interesting also as he was the councillor on the accommodation review committee that looked at the four high schools and recommended (under a shotgun process he called flawed) closing one high school but not making any recommendation to trustees on which one should close. I have no doubts in my skeptical mind that if the board had chosen to close the high school in his ward instead of PCVS that Riel would be one of the ones leading the parade.
Anyway, regardless of all that.
Anyone drawn to this post involved in the PCVS campaign, please hit accommodation reviews in the labels box on the left and spend some time reading coverage of other reviews, other petitions to the ministry. Not one petition to the minister (or even judicial review) to review the process used for a school closure under the province's pupil accommodation review guidelines has resulted in overturning a school board's original decision. Not one.
Spend some time in particular looking at what happened in Niagara-on-the-Lake and that town's futile efforts after a District School Board of Niagara decision to close Niagara District Secondary School.
Peterborough is now treading down a road that many, many other communities have already tread. I know, maybe you weren't really paying attention at the time because it wasn't in your backyard yet. Well, now it's been in your backyard and there might be an opportunity to realize what lies ahead.
I don't think anything the save PCVS crew does will change this decision of the school board. Despite there being a new minister, etc. etc., the process won't change for the time being.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment on the last post, I would urge some contemplation of where energies are best allocated (somewhat tying into what Riel had to say). The programs and people are what makes a school like PCVS tick. What gives it is substance. The bricks and mortar can add character, but without the people and programs they don't do it alone.
So what are you going to fight to the end of days for? To keep the programs alive, healthy, sustainable and fully funded and enrolled? Or to save the building?
You can yell and scream that the process is flawed, but it's the process that exists and it can, rarely, net recommendations that school boards can support in their entirety. Just imagine, under a different government, under previous guidelines, whether the decision would have been as consultative and whether the end result would have been the same.

Clearing up my open browser tabs

Time is fleeting, but did want to share some of the non-election campaign ed-related stuff that I've clicked on and read over the past several weeks until this morning.

• The Globe and Mail on the TOPS program staying put at a Toronto school;
• The Goderich Signal-Star (pre-tornado) on a pending school-closure review;
• QMI Agency (through the St. Catharines Standard) on the Canadian Teachers' Federation decision to spend some time looking at concerns with wifi;
• The Peterborough Examiner with more on the city's recent high school closure review as well as city council's regrettable decision to stay out of the process;
• The Simcoe Reformer on a proposal for a school consolidation in Norfolk County;
• A short post on the SQE blog about a Globe article on full-day kindergarten and a childcare centre;
• The St. Catharines Standard on the launch of the DSBN Academy (others also did this last week);
• The Chatham Daily News on the renos, retros and construction that took place to prepare schools for today;
• The Belleville Intelligencer on schools that aren't quite ready for today;
• The Timmins Daily Press on a groundbreaking for a new school in Attawapiskat-- something many southern Ontario students have been advocating and raising funds to support; and,
• A nice preview of the work that lies ahead for Ottawa-area trustees from the Ottawa Citizen.

At some point this week (likely in and around the writ drop on Wednesday), I'll take a look at the parties' education platforms released to date and do some linkage and analysis. In the meantime, happy reading for those that click through on the links above.

Second thoughts in Peterborough

This hit the desk today from the Peterborough Examiner, regarding a recent high school school-closure review in the city. One of the participants in the committee, the city's appointed representative, is now stating the process was confusing and that committee members felt forced into making a decision to close a school.
Beside the obvious error in logic (yet another report where the writer explains the committee's role as making the decision when it's not), I'm left wondering whether Coun. Keith Riel would have said the same thing had the current recommendation on the floor for Kawartha Pine Ridge DSB trustees been to close a school other than Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School.

"This view is one shared by hundreds of people with whom I have spoken over the past few weeks," the letter (written by Riel) states. "In my view, there has been insufficient attention paid to the many alternatives available to the board to reorganize its services in a way that will maintain all four schools as valuable educational resources for current and future generations."
NOTE: Coun. Keith Riel is also a member of Put Students First — a new group, made up mostly of TASSS supporters — that has prepared its own plan of how to keep TASSS open by creating new and enhanced arts, science and technology programming. The group won't reveal details of the plan until presenting them to trustees Aug. 25. Riel said he's in the group as a private citizen. 

I would have bumped up this note at the end of the article a little higher. Mostly because Riel, as an elected city councillor, no longer really participates in anything within the city as a 'private citizen.' He doesn't stop being a member of city council when he does Put Students First business.
Despite how the article makes it seem that municipal involvement in this process is an unusual thing, there are good examples across the province where school boards and municipalities do get along (or at least when they find it of benefit). So is Peterborough going to go the London route, where they just crap on everything the school board does because they don't like the options? Or will the city choose to bring viable options to the table that trustees can actually act on in good conscience?
Declining enrolment is a reality city council needs to deal with, just as the KPRDSB does. Status quo is not an option and care needs to be taken with specialty programming-- while it might lead to enrolment increases in a few schools, the pool of students to draw from is fixed and as time passes, decreasing.

More misunderstandings

It's always interesting to read how different accommodation review processes are interpreted across the province. The latest example comes from the Orillia Packet & Times where the local trustee is adamant a review in the area conducted by the Simcoe County DSB should not go forward as planned.

Peter Beacock, representing Oro-Medonte and Springwater townships with the Simcoe County District School Board, will give notice at the August board meeting that he intends to ask that the accommodation review for Moonstone Elementary School, scheduled to take place this fall, be abandoned.
Beacock joins Simcoe North MPP Garfield Dunlop and a group of concerned parents calling on the board to leave the little school alone.
"Hold the train for a bit," Beacock said Thursday. "Get the (capital priorities) list dwindled down some and then have a look at it."
Board staff previously recommended the school be closed. As a result, the board plans to strike an accommodation review committee (ARC) to look at the school's value to the community, businesses and school board, and consider all options.

Right away this gets confusing for the reader because it gives the impression the review has already begun. Well, it hasn't according to the list of active reviews on the SCDSB site. So announcing that you're going to bring something to a stop that hasn't started yet is a bit redundant-- the same as Beacock's eventual notice of motion and motion. Most boards don't vote on negatives, meaning they vote to do things, they shouldn't really be asked to vote to "not do" something.
Beacock wins the political game (maybe) by coming out and announcing this plan now. Even if he loses the procedural logic and any eventual vote, he can play the hero to his constituents. Despite having an elementary school under 200 FTE, likely of a certain vintage, with other accommodation options nearby (well, maybe not in southern Ontario terms) whose population is dropping by a classful of students every two years.
Really, one could ask if the effort would be better placed in lobbying his fellow trustees to defeat the recommendation, should it come forward in the fall as expected, to strike the review for Moonstone.
The reporter also missed a step in the last sentence of what I quoted above-- should have noted the committee makes recommendations. That goes back to my consistent pleas with fellow reporters to adequately explain the process that a review committee makes recommendations to trustees. Not decisions.