Municipal councils and school boards

In this post-Community Schools Alliance age, there've been a few stories popping up in hotly contested school closure country where reports are near finalized or reviews well underway. Municipalities are now asking for a stronger voice at the table (er, that would be the review tables many are already present at) and asking boards to stop or slow down to wait for them to get their act together and contribute.
Niagara-on-the-Lake is one example, where town councillors continue their efforts to reverse a District School Board of Niagara decision to close Niagara District Secondary School if it doesn't find another 100 students before the end of October. The coverage has been consistent in the Niagara Region newspapers between the Advance, the Standard and the Review.
Simcoe County is another-- Warden Tony Guergis' recent meeting with Simcoe County District School Board trustees along with the recent decision to postpone any high school closures. With only one review underway -- an elementary one -- Clearview Township council is now getting hot under the collar and writing letters to fire off to various points, as reported in this Stayner Sun piece.

Council passed a motion Monday night, moved by Deputy Mayor Alicia Savage and seconded by Ward 7 councillor Shawn Davidson, asking the board to disband the committee.
Savage, who sits on the committee, known as ARC E, put forward the motion after growing frustrated with the board for its handling of the ARC and related issues, such as the board’s capital planning process.
The motion, which will be forwarded to board officials and Ontario Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne, received the unanimous support of council.
The township, in its motion, states that ARC E should be disbanded and that accommodation issues should not be dealt with until the board’s capital plan has been updated, which will determine what schools are to be improved.

Having looked at the agenda for the review committee's Sept. 22 meeting (minutes aren't up), I can also see why council is confused over whether the new provincial guidelines apply. What I would hope the committee learned is that they don't. Even if the board had revised its accommodation review policies to be compliant, the ministry already stated the new rules don't apply to any review struck before today (Sept. 30). This ARC "E" had its first meeting in June.
The request vis-a-vis the capital plan is one I can't speak to as I've not taken the time to read whatever capital plan the SCDSB has, though previous coverage and posts here suggest it wasn't a strong one given dollars haven't flowed as board staff members predicted and trustees expected.
If the committee isn't disbanded -- and given recent decisions, who knows whether it will be -- council is perhaps still taking a better approach. It realizes what's at stake (as I'm sure it always did), but should now realize its role and step up. Don't complain, as it appears to here, of being left out of the loop-- work to make sure you're in the loop and start sharpening your pencils. Come to review committee meetings with feasible solutions that work for the municipalities, the school board and students.
Writing letters shouldn't be the start of building a file full of excuses for feeling left out and unable to contribute to the process.

Blizzard's take on implementing Pascal

This Christina Blizzard column caught my eye-- ran in the TorSun over the weekend and will likely get picked up by a wide variety of Ontario papers this week as it gets tossed on editorial pages for local papers to run. Blizzard is Sun Media's designated Queen's Park columnist, who rarely writes about education. Given Minister Kathleen Wynne's assertions that some details about the first year of implementation of the Pascal report on early learning will be released in the coming weeks, it became Blizzard's column of the day.

Let's face it, kids at that age can only take in so much learning. It isn't necessary to have a teacher in the classroom the whole day.
Pascal's plan makes sense. Why pay a teacher's salary for a full day when kids of that age are more likely to spend most of the day glueing pasta to paper or making monsters out of Play-Doh? Why pay teachers to be babysitters?
The problem is, the government owes the teacher unions -- big time. They contributed huge amounts of money to Liberals in the last election.
I think Wynne's dilemma speaks to a bigger problem. I believe it is a conflict of interest for public sector unions to contribute to election coffers. Essentially, they're giving money to their employer. Is it any wonder the government constantly caves in to their salary demands?
In this case, they are trying to influence public policy. It is simply wrong for a union to have a disproportionate say on how a program will be delivered. It is wrong for them to influence how taxpayers' money will be spent.

She makes a point, one that I'm hesitant to agree with. Despite the coalition of federations that pumped mucho dollars into election ads to elect and re-elect McGuinty, Wynne and the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario are not what I would call bosom buddies. ETFO members have already seen that in their smaller retro cheques and lower salary increases after their latest contracts compared to their peers teaching high school and working in French and Catholic schools. The move towards salary parity amongst teachers is gone, at least until the next round of negotiations. ETFO bit the hand that fed it in negotiations and its play for full-day kindergarten is, in my eyes, a thinly veiled attempt at doing nothing more than increase the number of school staff members paying it dues. For their own sake, I hope ETFO members don't abandon this government and toss their support behind another party-- it could have disastrous results as it did in 1995.
I do object, however to Blizzard's characterization that Pascal's recommended model of full-day learning is nothing but a daylong babysitting service. She must have missed the part in Pascal's report and other early learning reports pointing to the importance of learning through play such as crafting things out of Play-Doh and glueing macaroni to things. She also gives opposition leader Tim Hudak his space to promote his perspective on early learning-- which given he was one of the leadership contestants to come out against Pascal in his campaign is only telling.
Blizzard's best point? This one:

Here's what I hope won't happen.
I don't want to see high-powered parents putting pressure on trustees and school boards to get full-day kindergarten in up-market schools.
The neediest schools -- where parents can't pay for decent daycare -- should be the priority for this program.

EQAO and conflicts

This one has bubbled up over the past few days, starting with a CBC report earlier this week pointing to Education Quality and Accountability Office board member Lorna Earl's work as an educational consultant. TorSun's Michelle Mandel Moira MacDonald writes about this today, pointing out how political and federation foes will try and use this alleged conflict of interest in a vain attempt to kill the agency's current testing practices.

But whether Lorna Earl has been in conflict with her private and public roles or not, watch out for those who will use this to show why province-wide testing should be canned.
They will latch on to this, especially as it seems critics such as the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario are getting nowhere telling parents, many of whom support it, that this kind of testing is bad.
When people don't agree with you, you can always try death by character assassination. Hammering away at the integrity of the testing agency -- the Education Quality and Accountability Office -- might be worth a shot.
...
Is teaching people how to use test data the same as giving them short-cuts to boost their marks? Could Earl have picked up special knowledge at EQAO that could help her at work? Should public sector boards not be allowed to recruit potential directors with expertise in the same field because of conflict of interest worries? These are questions the commissioner might ask.
Even if there's something there, I suspect it's not what (NDP education critic Rosario) Marchese is driving at. If Earl were using her connections to help Ontario boards "get the numbers up" it's hardly worked.
Grade 3 reading results are listless while Grade 6 results still fall short of government improvement promises. But discouraging news, like concerns about conflicts, is no reason to chuck the test. And Earl likely counsels the same.

I agree with what Mandel MacDonald is saying here. The critics of Earl's status on the board and continued work with her consulting company appear to show a basic lack of understanding of corporate governance. Boards don't usually do the nitty gritty work, they hire staff accountable to them to do this, of which EQAO has them. A conflict here would be if she still worked for EQAO in test development and then ran over to her consulting firm's offices with the confidential tests and data and then sold them to school boards across the province. Or, if she worked for EQAO and was on the board at the same time.
Or if she was using EQAO dollars to funnel test development and analysis work to her contracting firm without tenders or any similar scrutiny, a la eHealth or OLG.
Mandel MacDonald's right on the money on calling out the agency's opponents on how they're going to try and use this situation to their advantage. She's also hit the nail right on the head with her final graph included above on results.

Bluewater update No. 11

The more aggressive part of myself as a journalist has been extremely envious of my counterparts in Owen Sound / Bruce and Grey counties over the shenanigans that have taken place at the Bluewater District School Board this past year. Kudos to the Sun Times, particularly Maria Canton, for its ongoing coverage of the issues happening in that district.
Two updates posted last week, which as usual the folks over at MendEd had up far earlier than I. Both come out of the board's first trustee meeting of the new school year held last week. My fav of the two is Maria's on the exchange between the chamber of commerce member who called out the two superintendents on plagiarizing and the board chair.

(Peter) Ferguson, the Kimberley architect who pursued plagiarism allegations against two superintendents all the way to the Ontario College of Teachers, was only a minute into his public presentation when Yenssen, chair of the board of trustees for the Bluewater District School Board, ruled he was out of order and demanded he cease speaking.
The two then exchanged heated words back and forth about who was out of order before Yenssen abruptly called an emergency 20-minute recess.
"The board has to govern under the Education Act and our own bylaws. In the past we've accepted delegations that dealt with personnel matters, but after seeking legal advice we will not allow any delegation to speak about personnel matters again," said Yenssen afterwards.
"In the board's view the plagiarism issue is over and we've dealt with it and we'd like to move forward with developing a policy on plagiarism."
But Ferguson maintains his presentation at the BWDSB's first meeting of the new school year was one based on collaborating with the trustees and that he doesn't want "heads to roll"

That article was published alongside another outlining the presentation from Geoff Williams, one of the ministry appointed "Mr. Fix-its" that have been in the board since their appointment by Kathleen Wynne earlier this year.

"The most important thing to realize is that there are ways out of the situation in which they (the BWDSB) find themselves in now, they need to be responsible for the actions that will move them forward and that's clearly the most important thing," said Williams, who was dispatched to Chesley last spring to help the BWDSB work through its then self-described crisis.
"It is possible for them to move forward and build better relations and if they start acting on some of these recommendations, as well as recommendations that they get from other sources, they can position themselves well, but it will take some time."
Immediate changes the board can take, according to Williams, are ones that are already underway or have been fulfilled, such as the Monday launch of the online satisfaction surveys and the hiring of a communications officer.
The changes that will produce long-term improvements in the system, however, will likely only be put in place in time for the next election in November 2010.

I haven't read Williams' report to trustees, but from the commentary at MendEd and elsewhere they appear to be a set of common-sense recommendations many feel the board should have adopted a long time ago. 

Stats are an education story

The Tuesday release from Statistics Canada of the latest update on live births and the changes in the Canadian fertility rate actually holds important information for K-12 education in this country. I've reproduced a chart below, embedded from GoogleDocs, showing the percentage change specific to Ontario for live births from 2002-07. It's below the graph I created, however StatsCan's own national table is also here.

It's an education story because it helps explain declining enrolment and the gentle, slow rebound from its impact that is going to start to happen within the next 10 years. For the last decade (many boards' enrolments peaked in 1999-2000), all but five GTA-area boards have been facing declining enrolment-- meaning more students are graduating from high school that are coming into the school system from the bottom end in JK, SK or Grade 1. This demographic situation is tied to all sorts of reasons, but mostly because the children of baby boomers (the baby boom echo) are leaving schools and the GenX'ers and GenY'ers (like me) aren't having the same number of children. In my own defence, it's hard to have kids when you're single.

When those boom-echo kids start having kids -- which is starting to happen -- then the school populations will rebound with the boom-echo's echo. However echos are always smaller than the ones that preceded them.

Quick aside, the five GTA-area boards whose populations are still growing owe that to immigration and migration, as populations shift into their districts from elsewhere.

Long story short: an uptick in the fertility rate two years ago in 2007 in Ontario means the school-age population should see the same uptick starting in two years when these parents start sending their kids to JK. That uptick should become quite obvious in three to four years as those bambinis start Grade 1.

I only wish the data StatsCan provided for free included a breakdown by census tracts (large urban neighbourhoods) or dissemination areas (smaller communities), so we could see where these children are being born. School board and municipal demographers have access to this info however.

H/T to Rob at Cancrime, whose tweet earlier this week inspired this post.

Postponement in Simcoe County

Catching up to a few things today, including a series of developments on the northwest Simcoe County accommodation review and the Simcoe County District School Board's decision on the outcome for five high schools.
Readers here will be familiar with this review, involving schools in Midland, Penetanguishene, Elmvale, Stayner and Collingwood. Earlier this week, SCDSB voted to postpone any further consideration on any of the recommendations from either the review committee (it recommended a status quo, have your cake and eat it too solution) or its senior staff members.

The happiness may be only temporary. Trustees can revisit the issue in the future.
(trustee Brad) Saunders said the matter may be best dealt with by the next board of trustees, which will be elected next year.
"Given our division on this issue, it's the only way to go," he said.
Trustee (Donna) Armstrong disagreed.
"Postponing indefinitely is like putting our heads in the sand," she said, adding the decision does nothing to achieve much-needed renovations at EDHS (Elmvale), which is aging and overcrowded.
In the meantime, Tony Guergis and Anita Dubeau, the mayors of Springwater Township and Penetanguishene respectively, both said the decision gives their municipalities the chance to show that they are growth communities, and that their high schools should stay open.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks last night behind closing any high schools was the lack of provincial funding to build new ones.

Trustees have tried to point their finger at the province, blaming it for not making funding available to the board for either solution. I find these statements do more to show the failure of the board's staff members and trustees to dot their i's and cross their t's on their own capital planning documents. There are other boards in the province that have managed tens of millions in capital construction projects coming out of their first round of reviews (or not even) and SCDSB's cry of poverty lets it off the hook way too easily.
As to Guergis and Dubeau? Pardon the vernacular, but if it hasn't already been at several points in the past two years, now it's time for these mayors (and the others) to piss or get off the pot. Talk about what your municipalities can do and can show is cheap. Open your wallets and come to the board with genuine offers for partnership that will improve the physical spaces your community's students are learning in and meet your objectives. If this is a 'smart' moratorium on the closure of several schools as Guergis was requesting in his executive role on the Community Schools Alliance, now he's gotten one. What's he actually going to do with it?
The Examiner followed up its coverage with an editorial Friday, flawed in showing its writer(s) couldn't see past the dollars at play here.

Because the lack of provincial funding seems to be the over-riding reason why there's been, at least, a stay of execution for high schools in Elmvale, Midland, Penetanguishene, Collingwood and Stayner.
...

And after numerous meetings, this ARC recommended last May a five-school option to keep all five schools open -- including a replacement school in Elmvale.

But school board staff instead presented a three-school solution: keeping CCI and MSS open and building a new high school in either Elmvale or Wasaga Beach.
It was this action which trustees have decided to postpone indefinitely.
This isn't necessarily a victory for those opposed to school closures. It's just a battle won, not the war.
Trustees will eventually have to make a decision on these schools, although there are already indications that it might be the next board of trustees, not this one (there are municipal elections in 2010).
The problem with school closures is that trustees seem to look at the issue with dollar signs in mind. They have a budget to meet, as deficits are forbidden.
But students and parents look at it from an emotional point of view. They don't want to lose their school. Students get displaced, relationships are affected, not only with other students, but with teachers, as well.

Again, the Examiner is simply joining the board in looking for an easy scapegoat. It does ask, later in the editorial, why there doesn't appear to be funding available. If it scratched the surface, it might be able to answer that question. Passing off trustees' inability to pull the trigger and fire off any decision in this review as due to a lack of money shirks them of the responsibility they have to all of their high school students in northwest Simcoe County. A responsibility to have those students learning in the best possible spaces in the best possible places.
The next board of trustees will be no better prepared to settle this question than this group is. However maybe, just maybe, they won't be afraid to make that decision.

G&M on full-day kindergarten

Adam Radwanski's piece in Monday's Globe and Mail touched on the options at the McGuinty government's feet when it comes to implementing full-day kindergarten in Ontario. The first phase of this implementation is set for September 2010, about a year before the next provincial election campaign begins in the fall of 2011. From the piece:

At some point, the government will need to ramp up its spending commitment, or else some of today's toddlers may have children of their own before their schools have been expanded. But for future generations, a gradual phase-in may prove a blessing, since there is a strong element of trial-by-error to all this. Over the next few years, officials will be taking notes on everything from cost containment to curriculum to the allocation of human resources, and attempting to learn from their mistakes - of which, given the scramble to be ready for next year, there will probably be a good number.
Equally uncertain, until the phase-in has begun, will be the ripple effects. A particular concern among government officials is what effect full-day learning will have on private daycare services. If most of the four- and five-year-olds in an area are pulled out, will some of those centres be forced out of business, leaving children three and under stranded?
Ontario is entering uncharted territory with early childhood plans that will likely prove more ambitious than any that Canada has yet seen at a provincewide level. The slow pace won't thrill parents of children who will be too old to take advantage of the new services by the time they reach their areas. But over the next few years, Mr. McGuinty's government will be learning as much from its new education programs as the children enrolled in them.

He hits the nail on the head with some of his comments in regards to how this whole thing is going to be rolled out. While there was general commitment to fully implement Pascal's recommendations, the dollars being allocated will push that into the middle or end of the next decade, providing the government of the day remains supportive.
The impression I got from Pascal earlier this year was that he's OK with a staged, careful and possibly 'messy' implementation of his recommendations. Trial and error, etc., and constant re-evaluation will ensure the end goal remains in sight and can be reached eventually. It's more important to get it right than to rush towards it just to say it's been done.
H/T to Malkin over at the SQE blog.