Deputation to the ARC of the Brookview cluster of schools, February 18, 2010

Good evening,

My name is Frans Bronkhorst and I am a member of the ARC. I would like to thank the TDSB for initiating this review process in our community since it has prompted us to inform ourselves about the state of the schools in our community and to debate their future.

However, I am completely against the way this debate is being directed by the TDSB staff. I strongly feel that the Board, through the procedures followed and the type of information provided, is taking a patronizing and counterproductive attitude towards parents and the community.

I want to mention in particular the fact that the ARC chairman refused to give me contact information of the other parent ARC members, information I requested for the purpose of discussing with the other parents community concerns beyond the Board’s vision.

I wonder how the Board pretends to get an integrated community proposal regarding the 5 schools considered, while at the same time refusing to facilitate the information needed for the parents to arrive at a balanced proposal.

Another such patronizing incident occurred when the chairman decided to close the January 12th meeting after the community, albeit loudly, decided to speak with one voice. As if the community was not wanted, or not deemed able, to speak united in the interest of its school-going children. By closing the meeting the chairman moreover accentuated the division and mistrust of the community towards the Board.

As for the information provided on our schools and school related issues: it has been voluminous but one-sided : bigger schools are better, enrollment is declining, buildings are deteriorating and funding is lacking.

Regarding that last point: it is a scandal that the Board, being the landlord of these properties, has failed over the years to take the necessary steps to keep these buildings in good shape.

With respect to selling off schools for the sake of funding the ones not sold, I find it revolting that the Board now comes to the community to clean up its mess.

As for the question of enrollment, the argument that bigger schools are better, seems to hold only in so far as that they are better for the Board’s budget. Most studies I have come upon give evidence to the contrary : the smaller the school, the better the quality of the education provided.

We also have received Option Sheets with Possible Accommodation Models, with the invitation to indicate the options of our choice. But how does the Board conceive of the parents choosing options when valuable information to do so has been withheld? 

The guidelines clearly state that : “The option(s) will address where students would be accommodated; what changes to existing facilities may be required; what programs would be available to students; and transportation. If the option(s) require new capital investment, board administration will advise on the availability of funding, and where no funding exists, will propose how students would be accommodated if funding does not become available”. With the exception of the place of the accommodation, all the other points have been left out. As if only the fact that we choose for the closing of 1 or 2 schools is of importance to the Board. According to the board’s guidelines we are still owed a significant amount of information before we can even think of making a decision.

It puzzles me that the Board has chosen the schools of the Jane and Finch neighborhood for this ARC process. From my knowledge about the needs of Gosford PS, and even more so other schools in our cluster, there is an enormous need among the children of the New Canadians attending, for special programs that will make them fluent and completely comfortable with the English language. As it is, a big portion of our kids will be handicapped for life because of a lack of adequate funding for this and other special programs, needed to give them the same opportunities as those kids that have English as their mother tongue and come from homes steeped in Canadian traditions and culture. To mind comes the Full-Service Programs defended by education director Chris Spence. This concept, resembling the school-community-hub concept, is in my eyes the only viable alternative to the existing discriminating state of affairs.

In 1968 students in France suffered from the patronizing and outdated way of university education. They came together to imagine new ways of teaching. They erected barricades and fought the system under the slogan “L’imagination au pouvoir”, “Power to Imagination”. It took time and lots of work to realize the goals the students had imagined in those days.

I was reminded of that episode when visiting recently the website of the ministry of education, reading the following statement : “Imagine working together to improve our schools and neighborhoods and manage our assets and your tax dollars responsibly”. It sounded preposterous. Why would we have to imagine it? It should be happening. But it is not happening. Politicians and communities have very different views on the future of the education of their youth. From experience we can be sure that it will take lots of effort and time on the part of our community and the education authorities to realize this goal. 

Because of all this and the promise of the provincial government to review this year the Board’s funding formula, I believe in, and ask the Board for, a halt to the closing of all schools in our community.

Frans Bronkhorst , ARC member, Brookview cluster of TDSB schools

(reproduced by permission)