Vancouver Sun Blogs: 2008 April 29
It is, of course, only a snapshot, but I was surprised by B.C.'s performance in the latest national test of reading, math and science. Our 13-year-olds scored below the Canadian mean, while Quebec, Alberta and Ontario continued to rank above.
Quebec and Alberta are often Canada's top performers in national and international standardized tests, but B.C. isn't usually far behind. Perhaps this was a blip.
Quebec students were best in reading and math while the Albertans were tops in science. Ontario was close behind. The test, called the Pan-Canadian Assessment Program, was administered last year to 30,000 students in public and private schools across the country.
Overall, the results were good, with 88 per cent of all students reading at expected levels. But the results from Quebec were several percentage points higher.
Why? Here's an interesting explanation from Kelly Lamrock, chair of the Council of Ministers of Education Canada, which administered the test:
"Quebec has a formidable record of having invested aggressively in early childhood education and interventions when kids struggle early," he said.
Canwest News Service quotes him further as saying Quebec is "ahead of the curve" and may now be seeing returns. Read the full story here.
This raises the bar for B.C. in its bid to become the most literate jurisdiction in North America by 2015.
To no one's surprise, the study also found that girls are stronger readers than boys. Lamrock is quoted as saying it's now probably safe to call that gender gap a trend.
Indeed.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/index.jsp
http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/index.jsp
'Depressing' budget on way
Surrey Now: 2008 April 29
Jessica Kerr
Delta school trustees heard pleas last week to save certain areas from cuts as they continue to struggle with difficult budget deliberations.
Those in attendance at a pair of public meetings acknowledged the Delta school board has difficult decisions ahead. The school district is facing a shortfall of $3.08 million, which has the board considering cutting 26 full-time equivalent positions, as well as reductions to several other areas, in order to produce a balanced budget.
"This is bad, and will probably get worse," said Colin Pawson, president CUPE Local 1091, at Tuesday's meeting.
"At least 26 families will have their family income impacted. This is the human cost of these cuts," he said.
The deficit, the worst the board has seen in almost a decade, can be attributed to a number of factors - a loss in government grant funding, a decline in student enrolment and a decrease in the number of international students.
Cuts will impact a wide range of areas, including administration, custodial, teacher-librarians, clerical and educational assistants. The board is looking at reducing teacher-librarian time in some of the smaller elementary schools as well as reducing educational assistant time for special needs students by an average of five hours per week per elementary school.
Val Windsor, president of the Delta Teachers' Association, called it an "equal opportunity depressing budget."
"When the district is striving to maintain the goal of literacy... when you're cutting out time from the library you're cutting at the heart of that."
Windsor appealed to the board to submit two budgets to the Ministry of Education - a balanced budget, which the school district is legally required to do, and a "needs" budget, which will show the government how much funding the district needs to maintain its current levels of staff and programs.
The two special meetings were a chance for stakeholders and the public to offer input into the proposed budget. The board will vote on the budget today (Tuesday).
Jessica Kerr
Delta school trustees heard pleas last week to save certain areas from cuts as they continue to struggle with difficult budget deliberations.
Those in attendance at a pair of public meetings acknowledged the Delta school board has difficult decisions ahead. The school district is facing a shortfall of $3.08 million, which has the board considering cutting 26 full-time equivalent positions, as well as reductions to several other areas, in order to produce a balanced budget.
"This is bad, and will probably get worse," said Colin Pawson, president CUPE Local 1091, at Tuesday's meeting.
"At least 26 families will have their family income impacted. This is the human cost of these cuts," he said.
The deficit, the worst the board has seen in almost a decade, can be attributed to a number of factors - a loss in government grant funding, a decline in student enrolment and a decrease in the number of international students.
Cuts will impact a wide range of areas, including administration, custodial, teacher-librarians, clerical and educational assistants. The board is looking at reducing teacher-librarian time in some of the smaller elementary schools as well as reducing educational assistant time for special needs students by an average of five hours per week per elementary school.
Val Windsor, president of the Delta Teachers' Association, called it an "equal opportunity depressing budget."
"When the district is striving to maintain the goal of literacy... when you're cutting out time from the library you're cutting at the heart of that."
Windsor appealed to the board to submit two budgets to the Ministry of Education - a balanced budget, which the school district is legally required to do, and a "needs" budget, which will show the government how much funding the district needs to maintain its current levels of staff and programs.
The two special meetings were a chance for stakeholders and the public to offer input into the proposed budget. The board will vote on the budget today (Tuesday).
Monday, April 28, 2008
Authors of The 100- Mile Diet
Vancouver Sun: 2008 April 28
BY REBECCA WIGOD
VANCOUVER SUN
Sun Books Editor rwigod@ png. canwest. com
To no one’s surprise, The 100- Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating has won its authors, J. B. MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, a coveted BC Book Prize.
The memoir, cast in the popular form of a year- long experiment, documents the pair’s effort to eat nothing but locally grown food, for environmental reasons. It won them the Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize and $ 2,000 at a downtown ceremony Saturday night.
Because of the book, the expression “100- mile diet” is now known around the world. The memoir spent months on bestsellers’ lists, neck- and- neck with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book with a similar theme by the famous American novelist Barbara Kingsolver.
At the BC Book Prizes gala, emceed by TV talk- show host Fanny Kiefer (who invites her guests, many of them authors, to “tell us more”), Mary Novik took the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for her historical novel, Conceit.
Nominated last fall for the prestigious Giller Prize, it’s set in 17th- century England. Its characters include Samuel Pepys and Izaak Walton, but it’s primarily the story of poet John Donne, his passionate love for his wife and his relationship with daughter Pegge — a storyline that sprang from Novik’s imagination, since the historical record of Margaret Donne’s life is scanty.
Novik, a former English literature instructor at Langara College, has spent the last two months reading the novels of her competitors in the fiction category. Like her, finalist David Chariandy ( whose Caribbean-inflected novel is titled Soucouyant) made last fall’s Giller short list.
The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize went to Quadra Island polymath Robert Bringhurst for Everywhere Being Is Dancing. It’s a collection of talks and meditations on the principle that “everything is related to everything else.”
Bringhurst is a translator known for his English renderings of Haida legends, so accompanying the book’s English narrative are passages in Haida, Tlingit, Cree, Chinese, German and Russian.
Rita Wong, an assistant professor at the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for Forage. It’s her second collection and, with a cover photo showing a mountain of discarded circuitboards, is concerned with the environment and methods of taking political action.
B. C. Lt.- Gov. Steven Point attended the festivities, presenting the $5,000 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence to Gary Geddes. It was established five years ago to reward writers who have made major contributions to the development of literary excellence in B. C. Geddes has an impressive body of work in several genres — poetry and memoir, particularly — and had vast influence on emerging writers during his years as a professor.
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/winners
BY REBECCA WIGOD
VANCOUVER SUN
Sun Books Editor rwigod@ png. canwest. com
To no one’s surprise, The 100- Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating has won its authors, J. B. MacKinnon and Alisa Smith, a coveted BC Book Prize.
The memoir, cast in the popular form of a year- long experiment, documents the pair’s effort to eat nothing but locally grown food, for environmental reasons. It won them the Roderick Haig Brown Regional Prize and $ 2,000 at a downtown ceremony Saturday night.
Because of the book, the expression “100- mile diet” is now known around the world. The memoir spent months on bestsellers’ lists, neck- and- neck with Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a book with a similar theme by the famous American novelist Barbara Kingsolver.
At the BC Book Prizes gala, emceed by TV talk- show host Fanny Kiefer (who invites her guests, many of them authors, to “tell us more”), Mary Novik took the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for her historical novel, Conceit.
Nominated last fall for the prestigious Giller Prize, it’s set in 17th- century England. Its characters include Samuel Pepys and Izaak Walton, but it’s primarily the story of poet John Donne, his passionate love for his wife and his relationship with daughter Pegge — a storyline that sprang from Novik’s imagination, since the historical record of Margaret Donne’s life is scanty.
Novik, a former English literature instructor at Langara College, has spent the last two months reading the novels of her competitors in the fiction category. Like her, finalist David Chariandy ( whose Caribbean-inflected novel is titled Soucouyant) made last fall’s Giller short list.
The Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize went to Quadra Island polymath Robert Bringhurst for Everywhere Being Is Dancing. It’s a collection of talks and meditations on the principle that “everything is related to everything else.”
Bringhurst is a translator known for his English renderings of Haida legends, so accompanying the book’s English narrative are passages in Haida, Tlingit, Cree, Chinese, German and Russian.
Rita Wong, an assistant professor at the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize for Forage. It’s her second collection and, with a cover photo showing a mountain of discarded circuitboards, is concerned with the environment and methods of taking political action.
B. C. Lt.- Gov. Steven Point attended the festivities, presenting the $5,000 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence to Gary Geddes. It was established five years ago to reward writers who have made major contributions to the development of literary excellence in B. C. Geddes has an impressive body of work in several genres — poetry and memoir, particularly — and had vast influence on emerging writers during his years as a professor.
http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/winners
Saturday, April 26, 2008
PROVINCE EXTENDS LITERACY SERVICES TO NEWCOMERS
Ministry of Education: 2008 April 26
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2008EDU0050-000627.htm
VICTORIA – The Province is backing a pilot program to increase immigrant families’ literacy skills, Education Minister Shirley Bond and Attorney General and Minister responsible for Multiculturalism Wally Oppal announced today.
“This government is committed to making B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent,” said Bond. “While more than one million adult British Columbians struggle with low literacy levels, they come from every background imaginable, and we know that immigrant families have unique challenges and need these unique services.”
The Immigrant Parents as Literacy Supporters (Immigrant PALS) pilot is for immigrant families and preschool-aged children who have been in Canada for up to three years. The program responds to the cultural and linguistic needs of immigrant families while helping their children start school set for success.
The announcement is taking place to wrap up English as an Additional Language Awareness Week.
“The language and literacy abilities of refugee and immigrant families impact every area of their lives,” said Oppal. “This program is another creative approach that WelcomeBC is taking to ensure the successful adaptation and integration of newcomers and their families to British Columbia.”
The pilot will take place in the Lower Mainland at seven different neighbourhood schools in the Abbotsford, Burnaby, Langley and Surrey school districts. The North Shore Multicultural Society will pilot a site in a North Vancouver school. Most sites will be tailored to specific languages, whether Farsi, Karen, Mandarin, Punjabi or Vietnamese. Each will host up to 25 families for half-day workshops 10 times a year for three years.
Through WelcomeBC, the Ministry of Attorney General is providing $615,000 over three years to the Ministry of Education in support of the partnership between the Ministry of Education and 2010 Legacies Now.
“With the support of government, we are focusing on those groups that will benefit most from such a program,” said Brenda Le Clair, managing director of strategic development and partnerships for 2010 Legacies Now. “Immigrant PALS will help us include everyone as we create lasting legacies in British Columbia, leading up to 2010 and beyond.”
Immigrant PALS will generate materials that could help grow the program into schools across the province. The program, administered by Literacy Now, part of 2010 Legacies Now, will build on the success of the existing Parents as Literacy Supporters (or PALS program) that gives all parents and caregivers strategies to encourage learning in their preschool and kindergarten-aged children.
Immigrant PALS is made possible through funding from the Government of Canada, and is one of many services available through WelcomeBC, a provincial initiative to help immigrants access existing and expanded services under a single umbrella. For more information, visit www.WelcomeBC.ca.
Immigrant PALS and PALS also complement ReadNow BC, the province’s literacy action plan, which includes a growing number of StrongStart BC early learning centres. Since 2001, the Province has now announced more than $136 million in new literacy programs and services in support of its goal of making British Columbia the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America.
Visit www.2010LegaciesNow.com/PALS/ to view an outline of a typical PALS session.
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2008EDU0050-000627.htm
VICTORIA – The Province is backing a pilot program to increase immigrant families’ literacy skills, Education Minister Shirley Bond and Attorney General and Minister responsible for Multiculturalism Wally Oppal announced today.
“This government is committed to making B.C. the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction on the continent,” said Bond. “While more than one million adult British Columbians struggle with low literacy levels, they come from every background imaginable, and we know that immigrant families have unique challenges and need these unique services.”
The Immigrant Parents as Literacy Supporters (Immigrant PALS) pilot is for immigrant families and preschool-aged children who have been in Canada for up to three years. The program responds to the cultural and linguistic needs of immigrant families while helping their children start school set for success.
The announcement is taking place to wrap up English as an Additional Language Awareness Week.
“The language and literacy abilities of refugee and immigrant families impact every area of their lives,” said Oppal. “This program is another creative approach that WelcomeBC is taking to ensure the successful adaptation and integration of newcomers and their families to British Columbia.”
The pilot will take place in the Lower Mainland at seven different neighbourhood schools in the Abbotsford, Burnaby, Langley and Surrey school districts. The North Shore Multicultural Society will pilot a site in a North Vancouver school. Most sites will be tailored to specific languages, whether Farsi, Karen, Mandarin, Punjabi or Vietnamese. Each will host up to 25 families for half-day workshops 10 times a year for three years.
Through WelcomeBC, the Ministry of Attorney General is providing $615,000 over three years to the Ministry of Education in support of the partnership between the Ministry of Education and 2010 Legacies Now.
“With the support of government, we are focusing on those groups that will benefit most from such a program,” said Brenda Le Clair, managing director of strategic development and partnerships for 2010 Legacies Now. “Immigrant PALS will help us include everyone as we create lasting legacies in British Columbia, leading up to 2010 and beyond.”
Immigrant PALS will generate materials that could help grow the program into schools across the province. The program, administered by Literacy Now, part of 2010 Legacies Now, will build on the success of the existing Parents as Literacy Supporters (or PALS program) that gives all parents and caregivers strategies to encourage learning in their preschool and kindergarten-aged children.
Immigrant PALS is made possible through funding from the Government of Canada, and is one of many services available through WelcomeBC, a provincial initiative to help immigrants access existing and expanded services under a single umbrella. For more information, visit www.WelcomeBC.ca.
Immigrant PALS and PALS also complement ReadNow BC, the province’s literacy action plan, which includes a growing number of StrongStart BC early learning centres. Since 2001, the Province has now announced more than $136 million in new literacy programs and services in support of its goal of making British Columbia the best-educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America.
Visit www.2010LegaciesNow.com/PALS/ to view an outline of a typical PALS session.
The library's dynamo in high heels
Rebecca Wigod
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A klezmer band played in Library Square after Wednesday's announcement that The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, a 500-page novel about the Jewish immigrant experience in Canada by Karen X. Tulchinsky, is the choice for the Vancouver Public Library's 2008 One Book, One Vancouver program.
The library has hundreds of copies available, including sets of 10 for book clubs, so you'll be seeing lots of people engrossed in it on beaches and patios this summer.
Librarian Janice Douglas, who started One Book and a host of the VPL's other community-minded programs, was there in her trademark jewelry and spike heels. She's retiring Friday, after a 41-year career, so getting the city-wide book club's seventh season off the ground set her reminiscing about how it all started.
"[Librarian] Nancy Pearl was the first one to start one, in Seattle. People were saying, 'Why don't we start one?' I thought, 'One more thing!' But then we got a little group together and put it in our strategic goals. I thought, 'We can just do this. It can't be that difficult.'
"The part that kind of floored me was that when we were looking at the budget, [we discovered that] Seattle had taken three years to plan and had a budget of $103,000. I just laughed hysterically.
"We had $3,000. We're nickling-and-diming all the time to try and make a great idea come to fruition, but in this case it was such a good idea."
Finding a book that will get all of Vancouver talking, ideally a gem that people might have missed when it appeared, has become increasingly difficult, she says. The search now takes five months.
Douglas, who believes in the power of story to illuminate and educate, has a bifurcated job title: She has been the library's director of youth services and community programming.
On the programming side, she can take credit for inviting authors into the library to read from their work. These readings have been going on for 25 years -- they started in the old Burrard Street library, back before there was a Vancouver International Writers Festival -- and are now so numerous that some nights there are two or three to choose from.
"It's music to my ears," she says, "when somebody comes down the stairs, looks at the posters and says, 'Oh, I want to go to all of them!' "
Nonetheless, library staff didn't like the readings at first. "They resented the incursion on their study space, they resented the noise and, most of all, because we were allowing booksellers and publishers to sell books, this was [seen as] huge commercialization of the public library."
She loves the way readings give emerging and mid-list writers exposure while offering the public a stimulating evening with no admission fee. "Not everybody can afford the writers' festival."
On the youth-services side of her job, Douglas started storytime for babies, inviting toddlers and even infants into the library because being read to at a tender age is a foundation for literacy.
"Many of my colleagues really thought we were crazy. Of course, now everybody does it."
On Thursday at 7:30 p.m., a stiletto-shod Janice Douglas will be in the library's Alice MacKay Room to introduce Tulchinsky's first reading in what promises to be a lively One Book season. After that, she'll be doing other things with her evenings.
rwigod@png.canwest.com
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A klezmer band played in Library Square after Wednesday's announcement that The Five Books of Moses Lapinsky, a 500-page novel about the Jewish immigrant experience in Canada by Karen X. Tulchinsky, is the choice for the Vancouver Public Library's 2008 One Book, One Vancouver program.
The library has hundreds of copies available, including sets of 10 for book clubs, so you'll be seeing lots of people engrossed in it on beaches and patios this summer.
Librarian Janice Douglas, who started One Book and a host of the VPL's other community-minded programs, was there in her trademark jewelry and spike heels. She's retiring Friday, after a 41-year career, so getting the city-wide book club's seventh season off the ground set her reminiscing about how it all started.
"[Librarian] Nancy Pearl was the first one to start one, in Seattle. People were saying, 'Why don't we start one?' I thought, 'One more thing!' But then we got a little group together and put it in our strategic goals. I thought, 'We can just do this. It can't be that difficult.'
"The part that kind of floored me was that when we were looking at the budget, [we discovered that] Seattle had taken three years to plan and had a budget of $103,000. I just laughed hysterically.
"We had $3,000. We're nickling-and-diming all the time to try and make a great idea come to fruition, but in this case it was such a good idea."
Finding a book that will get all of Vancouver talking, ideally a gem that people might have missed when it appeared, has become increasingly difficult, she says. The search now takes five months.
Douglas, who believes in the power of story to illuminate and educate, has a bifurcated job title: She has been the library's director of youth services and community programming.
On the programming side, she can take credit for inviting authors into the library to read from their work. These readings have been going on for 25 years -- they started in the old Burrard Street library, back before there was a Vancouver International Writers Festival -- and are now so numerous that some nights there are two or three to choose from.
"It's music to my ears," she says, "when somebody comes down the stairs, looks at the posters and says, 'Oh, I want to go to all of them!' "
Nonetheless, library staff didn't like the readings at first. "They resented the incursion on their study space, they resented the noise and, most of all, because we were allowing booksellers and publishers to sell books, this was [seen as] huge commercialization of the public library."
She loves the way readings give emerging and mid-list writers exposure while offering the public a stimulating evening with no admission fee. "Not everybody can afford the writers' festival."
On the youth-services side of her job, Douglas started storytime for babies, inviting toddlers and even infants into the library because being read to at a tender age is a foundation for literacy.
"Many of my colleagues really thought we were crazy. Of course, now everybody does it."
On Thursday at 7:30 p.m., a stiletto-shod Janice Douglas will be in the library's Alice MacKay Room to introduce Tulchinsky's first reading in what promises to be a lively One Book season. After that, she'll be doing other things with her evenings.
rwigod@png.canwest.com
Friday, April 25, 2008
Too many schools, not enough students: TDSB
National Post: 2008 April 25
By Natalie Alcoba
The forecast at the Toronto District School Board is one of decline. It has lost about 30,000 students over the past eight years, and will lose another 30,000 by 2016. Forty schools sit half-empty, dozens more are barely at 60% capacity.
Meanwhile, the cost of repairing and refurbishing ageing facilities is on the rise. The board says it will need $1.4-billion in maintenance work by the fall. “The TDSB is spending too many dollars on buildings instead of students,” trustees learned from staff in the facilities department last summer. “Change is inevitable.”
Now the TDSB is looking at the very properties that are draining its resources as a possible solution.
Staff estimate that as much as $3-billion in excess real estate could be sold off — some of it tied up in 83 buildings that sit empty or leased.
Last year, the board convened a group of well-respected urban development giants to review those properties; this month, it approved a blueprint for future school closures, which pushes a bigger school model that maximizes space, and suggests middle schools might be phased out.
But as this month’s debate over closing 39 school pools illustrated, any changes will likely be met with fierce resistance. Even on the board there are divisions on what kinds of schools Toronto children need.
Trustee Bruce Davis offers a passionate defence of “village” schools. He counts a number of small schools in his ward of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and said they are in the business of “incubating” student success. Virtually every staff member knows every student, and “that is a very powerful thing.”
“It’s just a different vision,” said Mr. Davis, who voted against the closures blueprint. ‘‘Maybe we can’t have everything, but I don’t think it’s a crisis, and I don’t think we should be going to a widget model of large schools.”
TDSB chairman John Campbell asked: “How low does enrolment have to go before we take action?”
Students across the system are being shortchanged, he argues, from those attending small inner-city schools that cannot offer an array of courses, to suburban children who have waited five years for a local school to be built.
“It’s about making better use of the school space that we have, and it’s also providing more enriching program opportunities for students.”
Adding to the TDSB’s quandary is the burgeoning enrolment in some inner suburbs.
The TDSB gets no money from the provincial government to build schools because of its surplus space, said Sheila Penny, in charge of the facilities department.
It has been able to pay for new schools in suburban areas that are growing by quietly selling off properties it no longer needs. That is how Thomas L. Wells elementary school in Scarborough-Rouge River was built three years ago. With 618 students, it is four children shy of capacity.
“In the northeast part of the city, our schools are literally bursting at the seams,” said trustee Shaun Chen.
Five hundred students living near Meadowvale Road and Sheppard Avenue have been taking a five-kilometre bus trip to a holding school for the past few years because the board has been unable to build a school sooner.
Scarborough-Rouge River and Don Valley West were the only two wards in the city facing space crunches last year. In contrast, the inner-city ward of Davenport is the most under-enrolled.
“To me, there are some areas where consolidation makes common sense,” Mr. Chen said.
Investing in new schools, or upgrading dilapidated older ones, also makes sense: Thomas L. Wells’ environmentally sensitive design shaves 40% off its energy bill.
But it is not easy to find money for new schools at the TDSB, Mr. Chen said.
That the province “sees us as a system and doesn’t see us as a collection of individual, very diverse neighbourhoods” sets the stage for trade-offs, he lamented.
Further, he said, the province now wants to expand to full-day kindergarten. ‘‘If we are going to have our kindergarten doubled, we’re going to need space across the city,” Mr. Chen said.
One thing that is clear: The board is gearing up for a major reorganization that will start small, in wards with trustees who are eager to tear down the old to make room for the new.
“Politically, there’s a stronger will and recognition on this elected board than there was in the last elected board on moving in that direction,” chairman John Campbell said.
“Yes, some schools will close that have students in them. Those students will hopefully be better off by going to a new school where there are more students, more programs. And with the selling off of some properties we will have raised money to make capital improvements in the remaining schools.”
The recently approved report from the General Asset and Program Planning (GAPP) committee sets parameters that will keep schools accessible to its students, either by foot for the younger students or by public transit for those in high schools.
And it pushes for innovation in education — secondary students may in the future, for example, attend “a network” of schools that offer a larger breadth of programming. It also pegs optimal school size at 450 for elementary schools, and 1,200 in high school, a point that drew Mr. Davis out of his chair in opposition at the last board meeting.
Mr. Davis was one of five trustees to vote against the report.
“I’m not sure there is an optimal size,” Mr. Davis said in an interview this week. “There may be a size below which a school is not viable... and I see some schools that are so small, that it’s hard to get the grade configuration.”
But he worries that the guidelines set out in the GAPP report were made with the provincial funding formula, not the interests of the child, in mind.
“The funding formula says you get a teacher-librarian if you have 450 kids, so where do you think the 450 came from?”
Meanwhile, he pointed out, the boards energy bill is $75-million a year.
“We don’t have one solar panel on one school, anywhere. There are [other] things we can do to help reduce the $40-milion shortfall.’’
By Natalie Alcoba
The forecast at the Toronto District School Board is one of decline. It has lost about 30,000 students over the past eight years, and will lose another 30,000 by 2016. Forty schools sit half-empty, dozens more are barely at 60% capacity.
Meanwhile, the cost of repairing and refurbishing ageing facilities is on the rise. The board says it will need $1.4-billion in maintenance work by the fall. “The TDSB is spending too many dollars on buildings instead of students,” trustees learned from staff in the facilities department last summer. “Change is inevitable.”
Now the TDSB is looking at the very properties that are draining its resources as a possible solution.
Staff estimate that as much as $3-billion in excess real estate could be sold off — some of it tied up in 83 buildings that sit empty or leased.
Last year, the board convened a group of well-respected urban development giants to review those properties; this month, it approved a blueprint for future school closures, which pushes a bigger school model that maximizes space, and suggests middle schools might be phased out.
But as this month’s debate over closing 39 school pools illustrated, any changes will likely be met with fierce resistance. Even on the board there are divisions on what kinds of schools Toronto children need.
Trustee Bruce Davis offers a passionate defence of “village” schools. He counts a number of small schools in his ward of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and said they are in the business of “incubating” student success. Virtually every staff member knows every student, and “that is a very powerful thing.”
“It’s just a different vision,” said Mr. Davis, who voted against the closures blueprint. ‘‘Maybe we can’t have everything, but I don’t think it’s a crisis, and I don’t think we should be going to a widget model of large schools.”
TDSB chairman John Campbell asked: “How low does enrolment have to go before we take action?”
Students across the system are being shortchanged, he argues, from those attending small inner-city schools that cannot offer an array of courses, to suburban children who have waited five years for a local school to be built.
“It’s about making better use of the school space that we have, and it’s also providing more enriching program opportunities for students.”
Adding to the TDSB’s quandary is the burgeoning enrolment in some inner suburbs.
The TDSB gets no money from the provincial government to build schools because of its surplus space, said Sheila Penny, in charge of the facilities department.
It has been able to pay for new schools in suburban areas that are growing by quietly selling off properties it no longer needs. That is how Thomas L. Wells elementary school in Scarborough-Rouge River was built three years ago. With 618 students, it is four children shy of capacity.
“In the northeast part of the city, our schools are literally bursting at the seams,” said trustee Shaun Chen.
Five hundred students living near Meadowvale Road and Sheppard Avenue have been taking a five-kilometre bus trip to a holding school for the past few years because the board has been unable to build a school sooner.
Scarborough-Rouge River and Don Valley West were the only two wards in the city facing space crunches last year. In contrast, the inner-city ward of Davenport is the most under-enrolled.
“To me, there are some areas where consolidation makes common sense,” Mr. Chen said.
Investing in new schools, or upgrading dilapidated older ones, also makes sense: Thomas L. Wells’ environmentally sensitive design shaves 40% off its energy bill.
But it is not easy to find money for new schools at the TDSB, Mr. Chen said.
That the province “sees us as a system and doesn’t see us as a collection of individual, very diverse neighbourhoods” sets the stage for trade-offs, he lamented.
Further, he said, the province now wants to expand to full-day kindergarten. ‘‘If we are going to have our kindergarten doubled, we’re going to need space across the city,” Mr. Chen said.
One thing that is clear: The board is gearing up for a major reorganization that will start small, in wards with trustees who are eager to tear down the old to make room for the new.
“Politically, there’s a stronger will and recognition on this elected board than there was in the last elected board on moving in that direction,” chairman John Campbell said.
“Yes, some schools will close that have students in them. Those students will hopefully be better off by going to a new school where there are more students, more programs. And with the selling off of some properties we will have raised money to make capital improvements in the remaining schools.”
The recently approved report from the General Asset and Program Planning (GAPP) committee sets parameters that will keep schools accessible to its students, either by foot for the younger students or by public transit for those in high schools.
And it pushes for innovation in education — secondary students may in the future, for example, attend “a network” of schools that offer a larger breadth of programming. It also pegs optimal school size at 450 for elementary schools, and 1,200 in high school, a point that drew Mr. Davis out of his chair in opposition at the last board meeting.
Mr. Davis was one of five trustees to vote against the report.
“I’m not sure there is an optimal size,” Mr. Davis said in an interview this week. “There may be a size below which a school is not viable... and I see some schools that are so small, that it’s hard to get the grade configuration.”
But he worries that the guidelines set out in the GAPP report were made with the provincial funding formula, not the interests of the child, in mind.
“The funding formula says you get a teacher-librarian if you have 450 kids, so where do you think the 450 came from?”
Meanwhile, he pointed out, the boards energy bill is $75-million a year.
“We don’t have one solar panel on one school, anywhere. There are [other] things we can do to help reduce the $40-milion shortfall.’’
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