Dear Parents,
Please join me tomorrow, Thursday, February 6, at North Toronto Collegiate, from 6:30-8:30 for my first ward forum of 2020. Trustee Shelley Laskin and I will be hosting an evening with our Director of Education, Dr. John Malloy, who will speak about what's happening at the TDSB and his vision for education in Toronto schools. There will be ample opportunity for Q and A, and we are really looking forward to an interesting and dynamic session!
As many of you are aware, staff at the TDSB are working on a review of our secondary schools to determine recommendations to be brought to trustees as as early as June 2020 to improve our schools and to deal with the 20,000 surplus pupil places we have across our secondary schools. As part of that review, we have been receiving considerable feedback. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to learn about this review and provide us with their insights. However, there were some emails I received that contained some misperceptions about what the TDSB's Secondary School Program Review is aiming to do -- across our system but also, in particular, at Ward 11 schools. I am hopeful that on Thursday evening, parents will get a better sense of some of the issues the Secondary School review is looking to address, but for those of you who cannot attend, I do want to clarify a few issues that have been raised in emails sent to me and to our Board.
The Secondary School Program Review does not propose the removal of optional attendance, technical programs, gifted programs or specialty programs. Nor does it propose the elimination of specialized programs. Staff are currently working on a draft of a new policy for Specialized Schools and Programs. This new policy will encourage the development of specialized programs at the local school level and also support the Board’s commitment to regional specialized programs in various areas including the Arts, Athletics, Skilled Trades and STEM. As for technical programs, we strongly support the Ministry’s commitment to promoting Skilled Trades as a viable pathway for our students, and this can only be done with strong technical programs in our secondary schools. This new policy will work its way through our Governance and Policy Committee starting this year and will involve community consultation as part of that process.
The consultation process on the Secondary School Program Review has been extensive and ongoing. As a school board, we have held four public consultation meetings so far, and have had a survey posted online since the beginning of October. There were also two public online information sessions last week. We have also been conducting consultation with specific groups and will continue to do so. Such groups include:
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Representatives from each of the TDSB’s Community Advisory Committees;
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Trustees;
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Principals and Vice Principals - Toronto School Administrators’ Association *(TSAA);
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CUPE staff and Schedule Two staff (non-unionized employees);
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Senior Team;
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Parent Involvement Advisory Committee (PIAC);
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Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC);
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Students from the Urban Indigenous Education Centre (UIEC);
Student Senate.
In addition, a survey is being drafted for students which will be widely distributed in the coming weeks. As in the past, we encourage students, parents, teachers, and administrators to participate in these consultations. For those who wish to provide written feedback, we have set up an email address (secondaryreview@tdsb.on.ca) specifically for this purpose; staff working on the review will be compiling all feedback for presentation later this spring. Finally, parents, community members and staff are always welcome to provide feedback to our Board of Trustees through the delegation process. To learn more about the delegation process, click here.
As some parents may have noticed in the ongoing discussions about numbers in our high schools, staff have put forth a vision for schools that propose populations of approximately 1100-1200 students. This target has been suggested because staff believe schools with a critical mass of just over 1000 students allow for the creation of rich, varied, sustainable programming. Currently, we have schools in our system operating with very low enrolment -- some with only 400-500 students. High schools with such limited populations are not able to offer enough choices. Limited populations are not a problem in Ward 11. Ward 11 high schools are all full and have sizeable populations. In fact, two of our schools have even higher numbers than the proposed target (Northern and Marc Garneau). I have received emails from parents who are concerned that the Board is looking to downsize our larger schools and create a one-size-fits-all approach. This is just not the case.
Some schools in the city were built to accommodate a maximum of 1100 student spaces and cannot physically accommodate more; other schools can accommodate 1800 to 2000 students. In these cases, the Board is not looking to reduce the numbers to 1100 to 1200. The Secondary School Program Review is not about dismantling programs or schools. On the contrary, the intent is to create circumstances whereby robust, successful programs and environments are available in all secondary schools in the TDSB so that all students have access to an excellent education, with multiple choices and opportunities. Secondary schools with 400 or 500 students cannot offer these opportunities and it is incumbent on the TDSB to fix that issue.
To learn more about the Secondary School Review, please read the Questions and Answers provided on our website. Or, better yet, come and learn about this review and other important matters at tomorrow evening's ward forum with our Director of Education, Dr. John Malloy! For more information on this event, please see the flyer below.
I hope to see many of you there!
