Those who remember the December 2013 Ice Storm, will have a lot of sympathy for those people in New Brunswick who have been without power for 11 days.
Glenn Thibeault listen to Gerry Smallegange as he explains where a new hydro cable had to be put in place in north Burlington during th 2013 ice storm
Burlington Hydro learned a lot from that 2013 experience and determined that they would be handling this differently when the next storm hits – and they are convinced that there will be another storm – sometime.
A new Outage Management System, complete with a real-time outage map for customers, to upgraded phone systems, website enhancements and a new mobile application were brought forward with the intention of improving Burlington Hydro’s power outage communications..
The upgrades to the Operations room at Burlington Hydro make more information available in real time – which gets passed along to the customer base.
Launched in 2014, Burlington Hydro’s Management System (OMS) includes a web-based Outage Map that provides current information about power interruptions so that customers can access information on power outages in real time. In addition to a comprehensive map of the outage area, the web-based tool allows customers to access the cause of the outage if known, and the estimated time that power will be restored.
The OMS allows customer service and call centre representatives to link customer outage reports directly to the utility’s Control Centre. As each incident is updated, service representatives are able to provide the customer with updates and relevant information about the power outage.
These improvements complement the recently announced upgrades to the company’s customer call-in capabilities. The ability to handle a greater number of customer calls at one time – 24/7 – is another way that Burlington Hydro has improved its customer service competencies in 2014.
“We partnered with our mapping vendor to develop the customer Outage Management System which we call LiveOps. The new system aggregates data and produces a comprehensive central information repository of current system outages. Cutting-edge technology integrates smart metering and Geographic Information System (GIS) map platforms, and enhances Burlington Hydro’s Control Room Operators’ ability to manage, quickly deploy crews, and track power outages.
Gerry Smallegange, President and CEO, Burlington Hydro
Gerry Smallegange, President and CEO, Burlington Hydro Inc., remembers how tough things were in December of 2013 – he wasn’t going to go through that experience again. He wants it to be “as convenient as possible for customers to stay informed during power interruptions and extreme weather events.”
Christmas of 2013 for Smallegange was spent in the field trying to get a grip on the scope and scale of the damage.
Last night, Eleanor McMahon, MPP for Burlington and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, presented the Burlington Public Library with the Angus Mowat Award of Excellence at the Ontario Public Library Service Awards in Toronto, Ontario.
The Ontario Public Library Service Awards identify and promote creative public library service ideas. There are two types of awards: The Minister’s Award for Innovation and the Angus Mowat Award of Excellence, which recognizes a commitment to excellence in the delivery of public library services.
(L-R) Burlington Public Library staff members Amanda Wilk, Shelley Archibald, Minister McMahon, and BPL CEO Maureen Barry at the Ontario Public Library Service Awards.
Angus Mowat was a Canadian librarian who initiated and contributed to the continuing improvement of the library systems in Saskatoon and Ontario, from the 1920s through to the 1960s.
He was the Inspector of Public Libraries for the province of Ontario and remained head of the provincial library office – a part of the Ministry of Education – until his retirement in 1960.
Throughout his career he encouraged better quality collections for adults and children, professional staffing and library training, the necessity for improved finances, more efficient management by trustees and librarians, and upgraded or new buildings. He believed strongly that the ‘personal touch’ was essential for library service and that local effort, supplemented by provincial assistance, was the key ingredient in advancing local library development.
One wonders if he ever said hush in his life.
The Burlington Public Library received the Angus Mowat Award in recognition of the library’s community led youth service model, which provides empowering leadership and growth opportunities for teens.
“Libraries, librarians and the staff who run them”, said Minister McMahon, “are at the heart of our communities. I’m proud of the work that these incredible institutions do for everyone across the province, and I’m particularly proud that the Burlington Public Library’s achievements were recognized last night at the Ontario Public Library Service Awards.”
Burlington’s MPP brought one home to a library system that deserved this award
Sometime later this year the Director of Education will present the Halton District School Board trustees with a report on what he believes should be done to solve the problem he has with more than 1800 empty high school seats in Burlington.
The four Burlington trustees are glued to this issue.
Director of Education Stuart Miller is going to have to write a major report on school closings sometime in May.
Each will read over the Director’s recommendation and consider the views of those who chose to communicate with them.
When the four Burlington trustees decided to run for office and serve on the school board they entered public office with a set of values they would use to guide them in their deliberations.
The Gazette wanted to know what the driving force was for each trustee.
Was it a desire to serve the public? Was there a burning desire to resolve a school related problem in their community?
Maybe they just wanted to get out of the house a couple of nights each month.
The Gazette set out some of the possible driving forces and asked each trustee to rank them from their perspective and the importance they give to each when they make a decision on accepting or not accepting the Director’s recommendation.
We asked:
Is the driving force for you:
The financial impact of closing or not closing a high school in Burlington?
or is it
The impact the closing of a high school will have on the quality of the academic offering the closing of a high school will have on students in the communities that will be impacted?
or is it
The impact the closing of a high school will have on the community it is located in. Where does community rank in your view?
We asked: Do you feel schools are a vital part of a community and that every community should have a school in its neighbourhood?
In ranking the possible driving force for each trustee we asked:
Financial – academic – community. Label them 1, 2 or 3.
There are going to be some long hard board of trustee meetings in April and May.
We added that a trustee may feel there were other choices and invited them to add those choices but to first rank the three we set out or them.
We then invited each trustee to write whatever you wanted to expand on your choices and the views they had to support their choice.
We suggested 350 words on each choice is reasonable but write longer if they wished.
Leah Reynolds – trustee for the ward Central high school is located in.
We asked the trustees to respond within ten days but added that – if you feel you need additional time – be in touch and we will work with you to give you the time you need.
In our request we made some comments saying that “The closing of two high schools is a very significant event – it is a decision you are going to have to make based on the information you are given.
“We would like to report on the philosophy and vision for education that you bring to the responsibility you have as a school board trustee.”
We thought the request was a reasonable one.
Andrea Grebenc: “I’ll get back to you” – she didn’t.
Tracey Ehl Harrison: A polite note – but no answers.
The trustees didn’t see it that way. Two of the 11 trustees sent a note saying they would get back to us; they didn’t.
One trustee, Leah Reynolds, sent a very long response which we will publish as a separate article.
The Chair of the Board of trustees stunned us with her response which was:
The Program and Accommodation Committee (PARC) have not started their work and trustees are reluctant to comment on anything that might either impact or impede the work of the PAR committee.
We (the Board of Trustees) are ultimately the decision makers and are aware of the importance of letting the process proceed as outlined in the policy. Trustees must maintain our objectivity, without influencing or appearing to influence the PARC process.
School board chair Kelly Amos – decides to speak for all the trustees.
The Gazette felt this was a critical time and that the public deserved to know where these women come from in their thinking.
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident who comments frequently in the Gazaette said: “This is their job, and if they don’t want to do this for their own “political” motives then they have lost their way, and are not representing us. Commenting is not the same as trying to affect the vote
We will put these questions to the trustees again once the Director has sent them his report.
Having the views now would give the public an opportunity to lobby the trustees who are there to listen to the views of the people they represent.
These people cannot hide – they have an important job to do.
They don’t get to make a decision – they are asked to advise, the decision lies with Board of Trustees
The (PARC) Program Accommodation Review Committee is to act as the official conduit for information shared between Trustees and school communities
They are expected to provide feedback on the option considered in Director’s Preliminary Report They can seek clarification on Director’s Preliminary Report and provide new accommodation options and supporting rationale.
The members of the PARC getting introduced to the rules they are going to work within.
The end result is a big one for Burlington and people in the communities that will experience the change. Both Central and Pearson high schools believe they have strong arguments for being kept open – both arguments seem to rest on the way the board has changed boundaries.
The committee that is going to produce a report is made up of representatives from the seven high schools as well as advisors. They are expected to stick to a framework that has been given to them. Will they do that?
Criteria the PARC is expected to adhere to.
Set out below are the names of the representatives for each school as well as the email address you can reach them at – a single email address gets your comments to both representatives for a school;
Parents who want to ensure that the school in their neighborhood is not closed.
Aldershot HS: Email: aldershotparc@hdsb.ca Steve Cussons and Eric Szyiko
Burlington Central HS: Email: centralparc@hdsb.ca Ian Farwell and Marianne Meed Ward
Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS: Email: dfhaydenparc@hdsb.ca Matthew Hall and Tricia Hammill
Lester B. Pearson HS: Email: lbpearsonparc@hdsb.ca Steve Armstrong and Cheryl De Lugt
M.M. Robinson HS: Email: mmrobinsonparc@hdsb.ca Marie Madenzides and Dianna Bower
Nelson HS: Email: nelsonparc@hdsb.ca Kate Nazar and Rebecca Collier
School parent association representatives worked at a different table for part of the meeting.
Robert Bateman HS” Email: rbatemanparc@hdsb.ca Lisa Bull and Sharon Picken
They meet for their next meeting as a group on Thursday evening.
It is too early to tell if the report they come out with will be a unanimous document or if some people will want to issue a minority report.
The community got to get a bit of a sense as to where the Halton District School Board is going with the Program Accommodation Review that is now underway.
The Board recommendation to the trustees is to close two of the seven high schools in the city.
The parents at Central high school oppose this and are providing the board and the public with data to support their argument that there is no need to close Central high school.
Parent representatives from the seven Burlington high schools discussing the high school closing options that were being considered. Some of the words used were less than respectful.
The parents at Lester B. Pearson argue that their school was fine until the Board of Education changed boundaries and had students taken away from Pearson and sent to Hayden which is now at 125% + capacity.
The procedure is a multi-level process. The Board of Education staff see a problem with accommodation levels – a report is given to the trustees,
The trustees decide that there should be a Program Accommodation Review.
A PARC (Program Accommodation Review Committee) is formed and begins to hold their meetings.
The first public meeting of the PARC was held last week.
The PARC will produce a report which they will give to the Director of Education who will then prepare a report to the elected trustees who will make a decision as to whether or not any of the high schools should be closed.
The Gazette has reported extensively on the various meeting. Those news reports can be found elsewhere.
The process of reviewing the available information and going through the mountains of data given to the PARC has begun.
Central high school parent had a front row seat.
For the next several months a group that includes two parents from each high school along with a number of advisors will review, discuss, debate and finally produce a report for the Director of Education on what they feel are his options.
The Director of Education will then give the trustees his final recommendation and they will decide what should be done. They can do whatever they think is in the public interest.
What was taking place last Thursday was a meeting where between 40 and 50 people watched what 30 people were doing on the other side of the room – with no microphones to pick up the sound.
The public got to hear Chair Scott Podrebarac, a Board of Education Superintendent tasked with shepherding the PARC process, outline the procedures. He is supported by Kirk Perris, a senior vice president with Ipsos, a leading public opinion research firm who is serving as a facilitator and data analyst on contract with the Board of Education. Perris has a doctorate.
One could pick up some of the conversation at the tables. It was obvious that the PARC people were heavily engaged in discussion working from 3 inch loose leaf binds containing all kinds of data.
The PARC had the framework they are expected to work from presented to them with some explanation
There were comments on the December 8th public meeting where it became evident that there were competing interests. The data collected indicated parents wanted their children to be able to walk to school; less use of any form of transportation.
Parents wanted more information on the fiscal issues and wanted to hear a lot more about boundaries that are created.
The public wanted to know more about what there was going to be in the way of future public meetings. Kirk Perris admitted that they lost the debate on how the December 8th public meeting went and asked rhetorically what a public meeting would/should look like? The old chestnuts transparent, robust and clearer got tossed into the discussion.
While Director of Education Stuart Miller is not part of the PARC process he did say in his short remarks that the data the public and the PAR Committee have been working from is based on the LTAP – Long Term Accommodation Plans; a document that is revised every year by the Board’s Planning department.
The Board has surveyed anyone that moved. The students were surveyed; the school board staff were surveyed and the parents were surveyed.
As the 30 some odd people settled in to begin their work Miller again commented that the recommendation that was put forward was “the one that fit”: he didn’t say what it was being fitted to.
Hayden high school – opened in 2012 took in students who used to attend Pearson. That reduced the Pearson enrollment to the point where the school was recommended for closure. Meanwhile Hayden is now at close to 120% capacity.
The parents at Pearson high school are saying that if the board gave that school back the students that were transferred to Hayden – a school that is over capacity now and has 12 portables with WiFi that could be a lot better, Pearson would not be at the 65% accommodation level that requires a PAR.
When the PAR process started there were 19 options – there are now 23.
The first task now is to begin eliminating some of those 23 options.
With the introductions and the overview explanations done with – the PAR Committee members were broken into two groups.
One group had the parents who were chosen by the parents group of each high school plus Milton school board trustee Donna Danielli who served as an advisor.
The other table had the people chosen by the Board of Education from people who had “expressed an interest” in serving on the PARC. The Board asked people who wanted to serve to apply and the board vetted that group. They were looking for balance in age, gender, diversity and geography.
PARC chair Scott Podrebararc, on the left with city manager James Ridge who is representing the city.
City manager James Ridge was put in with the Expression of Interest group. He didn’t appear to be saying all that much. What isn’t clear to many is what does Ridge have as a mandate? Is he there to serve as an information resource? Has he been given a clear mandate from city council? All we know is that the Mayor thought he would be a great choice to represent the city. Nothing was heard at a city council meeting on what he supposed to do – other than “represent” the city which was invited to be at the table.
The seven representatives from the high school parent groups and the seven representatives from the Expression of Interest groups are the people who will decide what the report that goes to the Director of Education will contain.
Scott Podrebarac who chaired the “Expression of Interest” group started by going through the 19 options staff had identified and getting a sense as to what his group felt about each option. While it was very difficult to hear what was being said at the tables Podrebarac seemed to be leading the conversation and working at whittling down the list that kept getting longer.
Principals from each high school were on hand to answer questions; the Manager of Planning Dom Renzelli was prowling from table to table answering questions.
The evening got off to an interesting start when about 50 parents from Pearson high school put on a boisterous demonstration outside the Board offices on Guelph Line where the meetings were taking place.
While very difficult to hear what was being said it was evident that Podrebarac was leading his group while Kirk Perris was letting his group work out where they wanted to go. Hearing a PARC participant say “Oh come on” suggested that the conversation was animated
Podrebarac later said that he and Perris would compare and compile notes and get the agenda ready for the February 2 meeting.
The PARC is scheduled to hold four working meetings.
There will be tours of the high schools set up for February 7th and 8th.
What came out of the first working meeting? Difficult to tell at this stage.
Parents paying close attention to the PARC proceedings last Thursday.
It was a full meeting – but very much in the early stages. The members of the PARC are getting a feel for each other – where each school representative is. Sharon Picken, a parent representing Bateman high school was very direct with her comments which members of the audience found a little offensive.
Picken was overhead saying to former trustee Dianna Bower, who is representing M.M. Robinson, that she, Picken, thought “whoever wrote this isn’t even human”. Picken was commenting on the submission from Central high school parents. The PARC has meeting norms about respectful comments that the Central people want to see put firmly in her place.
Meed Ward who is participating as a parent with a son at Central high school – she also has a daughter at Aldershot high school, was her usual self – asking questions and pressing for answers.
Bateman high school parent and PARC member Sharon Picken.
Three of the four Burlington school board trustees attended. Trustee Richelle Papin was ill. The trustees play no role in this part of the process – all they can do is observe.
What was interesting was that none of the trustees from Milton or Oakville attended – Burlington has four of the 11 votes that will decide what gets done with the high schools in the city. How the other seven trustees vote is critical. Burlington needs to ensure that it has the support of at least two of the other seven trustees.
If the issues becomes one of how does the Board of Education pay to keep high schools that are nowhere near their capacity open – and there are trustees who see fiscal prudence as their primary role – then Burlington might have a problem.
These meetings are going to be drenched in data – keeping on top of it all is going to be a challenge.
The Halton District School Board has set two dates for public meetings related to the Program Accommodation Review that is has residents reviewing the recommendation to close two of Burlington’s seven high schools..
The content of both meetings will be the same – just offered in two different locations in the city on different dates
Parent paying close attention to the Program Accommodation Review Committee proceedings.
Meetings will be held on February 28, 2017 at Dr. Frank J. Hayden Secondary School, 3040 Tim Dobbie Drive at 7:00 pm
On March 7, 2017 at the New Street Education Centre, 3250 New St. at 7:00 pm The New Street location date is a change from what was previously announced.
NOTE: This date has changed from a previously scheduled date.
The purpose of the meetings is to share the work of the PAR Committee to date and to explain the process for gathering further community input.
Members of the Program Accommodation Review Committee meet to discuss the options while the public look on.
The Program and Accommodation Review (PAR) has been is reviewing and providing feedback on the Director’s Preliminary Report.
Through the problem solving process of the PAR Committee, it is expected that further options will likely come forward, which may involve the closure of other schools than those that have currently been recommended.
In a much anticipated meeting the Halton District School Board Program and Accommodation Review Committee (PARC) formed to let people representing residents an opportunity to make suggestions and present new ideas on the the recommendation to close two of Burlington’s seven high school has released the agenda for the first PARC meeting.
The meeting will be held at the Board room at the J. W. Singleton Board office on Guelph Line at 7:00 pm on Thursday January 26th
The agenda is as follows:
Scott Podrebarac will chair the first meeting of the PARC.
1. Welcome 5 minutes i. Instructions for gallery ii. Instructions for PARC members
2. Meeting and Group Norms 5 minutes
3. Brief Summary of PAR process 5 minutes i. Terms of Reference PARC ii. Work of the PARC
4. Public Meeting Report and PARC Framework 15 minutes
5. Student Survey Questions 10 minutes
6. Additions to School Information Profiles 5 minutes
Stuart Miller – Director of Education
7. Director’s Preliminary Report 15 minutes i. Current Situation ii. Review and discussion on Option 19
8. Examination of Existing Options of Interest or Present new options 45 minutes
9. Homework for February 2nd Working Meeting 5 minutes
10. Ongoing Communication with Communities 5 minutes
11. Additional Meetings 5 minutes i. Determine after February 2nd…(hold Feb 16th)
There is no mention in the agenda of the questions that were asked at the December 8th public meeting when an audience of close to 300 were asked 25 different questions.
Upcoming Meetings:
PARC Working Meeting #2: 7:00 pm on Thursday February 2, 2017 PARC Working Meeting #3: 7:00 pm on Thursday February 9, 2017 Public Meeting #2 (Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS): 7:00 pm on Tuesday February 28, 2017 Public Meeting #2 (New Street Education Centre): 7:00 pm on Thursday March 2, 2017 PARC Working Meeting #4: 7:00 pm on Thursday March 23, 2017
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs or more than 25 years. He has been described as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom. He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools. In this article, one of a series Muir suggest what he feels are obvious solutions to the problem the Board of Education believes it has. There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy means you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed.
What does the city do?
This school closing issue and decision-making process is by definition political.
That makes it personal, so we are all involved, elected official or not.
Is saving a school the same as saving a community?
The City is involved regardless of opinions. Elected city officials and city staff are involved as our representatives. I want them to comment on what various options and issues mean for the city.
This is their job, and if they don’t want to do this for their own “political” motives then they have lost their way, and are not representing us.
And I have to wonder what the Mayor is thinking when he avoids involvement, saying it’s political, which is just a truism, and thus a disingenuous dodge, in my opinion. He’s playing politics himself.
City Manager Jim Ridge has been appointed to the PARC to represent the City, and I can only hope that he takes a full briefing to that table of the many City interests that are involved and at stake in this issue.
It’s not just Central and Pearson on the block – everything and every school, including elementary, are in there somehow, and in some way.
It is not just a school board issue, although they have the vote, and make the final decision.
I realize that the decision is for education trustees to make, but Councilors that claim they have no role whatsoever are abdicating their duty to politically represent residents and the city as a whole.
To say that the city has no interest in whether there are schools in the city or not is just out to lunch. The city has key interests, which are obvious.
City manager James Ridge will represent the city on the Program Accommodation Review Committee. What is his mandate and is it public?
These interests need to be outlined by the City and Council, and injected into the debate and dialogue.
Jim Ridge can take these to the table, but the Council and Mayor must take their public responsibilities in this matter seriously and not dodge the political reality they are elected and empowered to carry forward.
If the intensification development plan that the Mayor and city are pushing does not need a school in the downtown, where 70% of the new is supposed to go, then the plan is fundamentally flawed in its conception and contradiction with any closure plan.
There’s no “complete communities” in this plan, and never will be if it happens.
Mayor Goldring decided he would have the city manager represent the citizens on the Program Accommodation Review Committee. It was a controversial decision.
Let’s hear from the Mayor and Council on this. We need a motion to direct staff to provide a report on potential school closings and the strategies that can be developed to protect community assets for future generations.
I would start with the following investigation. I would like Jim Ridge to direct staff to examine what the City and communities will lose if schools close, considering at least the following.
We all know that schools have many uses and many values. They are not just for educating the young during the day. It shouldn’t matter that they are not completely full right now – the neighborhood needs them for the future, which will certainly change, and this change is evident now.
People come and go from our schools at many times of the day and week all year, and for many reasons. I ask that the City document all these comings and goings, all of the ways that people interact with the schools.
They belong to the residents that fully paid for them, and own them, and the school board holds them in trust, or is supposed to.
They are a bought and paid for part of the community fabric, the community capital stock, and an asset that has many uses and values, including recreation, sports, social clubs, adult education, clubs, green-space, heritage, school spirit, memories, diversity of city form and landscape, and the list can go on.
They contribute to property values and a sense of the familiar and well-being – the quality of life.
Pearson was a purpose built school -intended to serve both students and a wider community. Are the Catholics going to be able to come to terms with the Board of education and acquire the property?
Are not most schools considered to be community schools? These interactions are in fact part of the glue that ties neighborhoods and communities together.
This will include recreation, sports and athletics, adult education, day care, social and other clubs, public meetings, and any other activity that uses the school buildings and property.
Indeed, the Alton (Hayden) school construction and opening was delayed 2 years because of the partnership between the Board and the City of Burlington to augment the on-site facilities, with city funding, providing 8 gymnasiums, a library, and community meeting spaces.
So this city partnership shows there is a clear city interest in this matter and issues arising.
I also ask that you consider how the schools enter into the City parks and green-space plans, and into good municipal planning in general.
What about the loss of property values, since we all know that schools, and green-space in a neighborhood, add to the price of housing there.
Is the City prepared for assessment appeals and the loss of tax revenue, or is this something to be ignored, and denied when the time comes?
We need a certain irreducible level of schools capacity, and this includes an appropriately located capacity to have schools.
So my point is we need schools everywhere they were built. The extra capacity is money in the bank to buffer the changes that are certainly going to come from the growth and changes the city is facing, and that the province and Council are advocating.
I don’t think it can be said that we absolutely have too many schools, and especially too much and too many of the functions and products and factors that schools represent and deliver to people.
So the city has a big stake in this for all the things I listed, and Council has a responsibility to the residents they represent to pay attention to these things and account for them.
This is no time for silos, artificial divisions, and neglect of care and concern for these things.
Is a Board of Education matter likely to become an election issue for city council?
So let’s stop talking about closing schools right off the bat, as a starting opinion, and exhaust ourselves figuring out creative and adaptive ways to reconfigure how we make do and keep what we have.
We will surely need it sometime in the future.
Following this we need a City organized public debate on this threatened confiscation of community assets and the multi-faceted impacts on the city.
If Council can’t see their role in this important matter, that goes to the heart of everything the city is planning – strategic plan, growth, Official Plan, intensification, community, and so on – then, again I say, they have lost their way.
Tom Muir is a resident of Aldershot who has been a persistent critic of decisions made by city council. He turns his attention to the current school board mess. He recently suggested to Burlington city council that “If you are so tired of and frustrated by, listening to the views of the people that elected you, then maybe you have been doing this job too long and should quit.
Muir explains that the PARC will only get what people send in, what they come up with from their own efforts, and what they ask/demand from the board. They have to decide what they want and go after it ruthlessly. They will have to fight with tooth and claw and take no prisoners.
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs or more than 25 years. He has been described as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom. He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools. In this article, one of a series Muir suggest what he feels are obvious solutions to the problem the Board of Education believes it has. There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy means you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed.
The Gazette published the results of the 25 questions put to residents at the public meeting held by the Board on December 8.
There has been some concern expressed that the responses may be biased because of the representation by school is not even.
This is because all of the schools are not explicitly named as the primary option for closures, so there is a selection bias built right into the sampling frame itself, used by the Board consultant.
This sample of the resident/parent/student populations reflects the selection of schools that are directly named for closure or other changes – Central, Pearson, and Hayden. It is expected that the population of these schools would self-select to participate.
The low turnout from the other schools is also expected on similar grounds as not being in the selected schools directly affected.
These are the parents that answered the 25 questions put to them by the Ipsos facilitator the Board of education hired to collect and analyze the data. The vast majority of them were from Central high school.
In my opinion, the selection of schools is biased, so the turnout population sample reflects this bias – in effect the net bias balances out.
This is my summary of the details of the responses. The opposite views and votes are found by subtraction from 100%.
When you consider these closely, you can see what parents think about what they were asked, and what they want.
We have set out all 25 questions and the responses to each question – they are shown in red.
The Questions and the responses:
Question 1: Which high school are your representing tonight? The number beside the school was the number people in the audience would key in. The screen displayed a number that indicated how many devices had been handed out and another number showing how many people had responded.
7. Aldershot 7
6. Dr. Frank J. Hayden 43 5. Lester B. Pearson 43 4. Nelson Public 6 3. Robert Bateman 5 2. Burlington Central 150 1. M.M. Robinson 2
Question 2: How important is the availability of mandatory / core courses for your child(ren) within your home school?
3. Very Important 187 3. Somewhat Important 58 2. Not Very Important 12 1. Not at all Important 3
Question 3: How acceptable is it to attend a school outside of a home school for mandatory / core programming for your child(ren)?
4. Very Acceptable 22 3. Somewhat Acceptable 42 2. Not Very Acceptable 64 1. Not at all Acceptable 135
Question 4: How important is the availability of optional / elective courses within your home school for your child(ren)?
4. Very Important 94 3. Somewhat Important 117 2. Not Very Important 38 1. Not at all Important 14
Question 5: How acceptable is it for your child(ren) to attend a school outside of a home school for optional/elective courses?
4. Very Acceptable 37 3. Somewhat Acceptable 92 2. Not Very Acceptable70 1. Not at all Acceptable 62
Question 6: How willing are you to have your child(ren) take a mandatory/core course in an alternative method (e.g., summer school, night school, e-learning or attend another school?
4. Very Willing 55 3. Somewhat Willing 54 2. Not Very Willing 57 1. Not at all Willing 96
Question 7: How willing are you to have your child(ren) take a optional/elective course in an alternative method (e.g., summer school, night school, e-learning or attend another school?
4. Very Willing 90 3. Somewhat Willing 74 2. Not Very Willing 46 1. Not at all Willing 49
Question 8: How important is it for you high school to offer a full range of pathway programming (e.g., workplace, college, university)?
4. Very Important 120 3. Somewhat Important 89 2. Not Very Important 33 1. Not at all Important 15
Question 9: How concerned are you that your child(ren) has access to appropriate learning facilities (e.g., kitchens, science labs, gyms, libraries)?
4. Very Concerned 165 3. Somewhat Concerned 58 2. Not Very Concerned 16 1. Not at all Concerned 19
Question 10: How concerned are you that some high schools have large amounts of specialized learning spaces that remain underutilized?
4. Very Concerned 18 3. Somewhat Concerned 56 2. Not Very Concerned 92 1. Not at all Concerned 92
Question 11: How important is it for your home school to have a full range of extracurricular activities (e.g., drama, arts, athletics, clubs) for your child(ren)?
4. Very Important 121 3. Somewhat Important 92 2. Not Very Important 35 1. Not at all Important 13
Question 12: How likely are you to support your child(ren) participating in extracurricular activities at another school?
4. Very Likely 72 3. Somewhat Likely 69 2. Not Very Likely 49 1. Not at all Likely 68
Question 13: How important is it for your child to have access to the highest level of competition in athletics?
4. Very Important 19 3. Somewhat Important 30 2. Not Very Important 170 1. Not at all Important 141
Question 14: How important is the physical condition of your existing school to you (e.g., environmental sustainability, energy consumption, safety)?
4. Very Important 75 3. Somewhat Important 37 2. Not Very Important 32 1. Not at all Important 95
Question 15: How important is it to you that the board ensures schools have an up-to-date, fully-accessible learning environment (e.g., elevators, air conditioning)?
4. Very Important 56 3. Somewhat Important 38 2. Not Very Important 32 1. Not at all Important 116
Question 16: How important is it you to preserve existing community partnerships at your child(ren)’s current school (e.g., swimming pool, library, community centre)?
4. Very Important 97 3. Somewhat Important 36 2. Not Very Important 49 1. Not at all Important 69
Question 17: How important is it you to minimize the use of portable classrooms?
4. Very Important 159 3. Somewhat Important 27 2. Not Very Important 27 1. Not at all Important 39
Question 18: The Board’s current walk distance is a maximum of 3.2 km. How important is it that your child(ren) are within the Board mandated walking distance to reach school?
4. Very Important 198 3. Somewhat Important 22 2. Not Very Important 21 1. Not at all Important 12
Question 19: Which of the following is your child(ren)’s most common form of travel to school currently? (list methods)
6. School Bus 37 5. Car (drive or drop off) 32 4. Public Transit 0 3. Walk 176 2. Bike 17 1. Other 4
Question 20: How important is it to you that the Board be fiscally responsible by reducing transportation to reach school?
4. Very Important 151 3. Somewhat Important 44 2. Not Very Important 22 1. Not at all Important 30
Question 21: How important is it for your child(ren) to spend their secondary school years in one school community?
4. Very Important 238 3. Somewhat Important 14 2. Not Very Important 6 1. Not at all Important 0
Question 22: The Ministry does not fund empty pupil places. To what extent do you agree that the Board should reallocate its limited budget to fund these spaces?
Question 23: The Board’s MYP states it will maintain a minimum overall average of 90% building capacity. To what extent to do you agree with this goal around future sustainability of Burlington secondary schools?
Question 24: The goal in the current MYP is to use innovative approaches to student learning spaces (e.g., classrooms, gymnasiums). To what extent do you feel the current situation of Burlington high schools is sustainable?
4. Very Sustainable 91 3. Somewhat Sustainable 55 2. Not very Sustainable 20 1. Not at all Sustainable 25
At this point people began walking out. Answers for the 25th question were not collected.
Question 25: Of the four themes, which is most important to you?
4. Programming and enrollment 0 3. Physical state of existing schools 0 2. Geographical and transportation Issues 0 1. Fiscal responsibility and future planning 0
Very little is known about the parents who are members of the Program Accommodation Review Committee other than that they have a tremendous amount of work ahead of them. There is no remuneration for the members of the committee.
Tom Muir’s analysis of the answers that were given to the questions asked.
Readers are going to have to shift up and down the pages to read the question and all the responses Muir has analyzed. Awkward – but it was the only way to set the data out for readers.
1) It is apparently important there be no school closures:
– the Board allocate the budget to fund empty spaces (Q22, 74%);
– present empty spaces are sustainable (Q24, 76%) – question also said MYP goal is to use innovative approaches to learning space use;
– response disagrees with Board 90% utilization goal (Q23, 78%);
– response not concerned about empty spaces being underutilized (Q10, 71%).
2. The importance of the home schools for core/mandatory subjects, and even optional/elective, is quite emphatic (Q2, 94%; Q3, 76%; Q4 80%; Q6, 58%; Q5, 51%), and consistent;
– Q7 indicates some support (63%, but only 35% are very willing), for optional/elective in alternatives like summer school, night school, e-learning, another school.
– do not agree with the Board 90% utilization goal (Q23,78%); – and again, want the Board to allocate the budget to fund empty spaces (Q22, 74%); – see being within 3.2 km, or 2 mile, Board mandated walking distance to home schools as important (Q18, 86%) – 69% already walk, 14.5% ride bus (Q19); – see reduction in bus transportation to each school as important (Q20, 79%); – see spending secondary years in one school as important (Q21, 98%); – are concerned that appropriate learning facilities be accessible (Q9, 86%); – want a full range of pathway programs (Q8, 81.3%); – feel current situation is sustainable – as above in 1. (Q24, 76%); – see it as important to minimize the use of portables (Q17, 74%).
4. Suggesting further support for retaining all schools are the following:
– a full range of extra-curricular activities (e.g., drama, arts, athletics, clubs) is important (Q11, 82%) – in my view, this implies more schools with more space for fewer students, means more opportunities; – parental support to help students do extracurricular at another school is not at all likely, or not very likely, for 45% of respondents, compared to 55% at somewhat or very likely (Q12); – the importance of the highest level of competition in athletics is not important (Q13, 81%) – in my view, this implies the larger top tier schools with large student populations are not important in this regard.
5. Other parent/resident views reflect a small majority percent expressing that:
– the physical condition of the school as not at all or very important (Q14, 53%); – that the importance of the school as up-to-date and fully accessible, with elevators and air conditioning, is not at all or not very important (Q15, 61%); – preserving existing community partnerships at current school (pools, libraries, community center) is very to somewhat important (Q16, 53%).
Again, the opposite views and percent support can be derived by subtraction with regard to response preference bracket.
I believe my analysis is accurate. It is unbiased and done in good faith.
Tom Muir is a resident of Aldershot who has been a persistent critic of decisions made by city council. He turns his attention to the current school board mess. He recently suggested to Burlington city council that “If you are so tired of and frustrated by, listening to the views of the people that elected you, then maybe you have been doing this job too long and should quit.
Muir explains that the PARC will only get what people send in, what they come up with from their own efforts, and what they ask/demand from the board. They have to decide what they want and go after it ruthlessly. They will have to fight with tooth and claw and take no prisoners.
Today I’ve decided to share with you a new word that recently made a special appearance in my daily life: eponym. It is pronounced (EP-uh-nim) and I have to be frank, but I was somewhat at a loss when I saw it.
James Burchill at one of his Social Fusion events congratulating a guest who won a bouquet donated by Brant Florist,
I mean, I write, communicate and persuade using words for a living…but this one had obviously been hiding somewhere far away because although I could pronounce it, I could not recall its meaning.
So I grabbed my dictionary… then I realized that I now reside in the 21st Century… so I put down the book and I went on to the ‘Net’ instead. I found the definition (actually I found a few versions) and then settled on the one I’ve included below.
In A Word
One way that we use the word “eponym” (EP-uh-nim) is in reference to a specific brand name that has come to mean a generic product. Examples:
Jacuzzi has become an eponym for a type of product – when it is really a well developed and valuable brand name.
Jacuzzi = whirlpool bath
Band-Aid = plastic bandage
Chapstick = lip balm
Jell-O = gelatine dessert
Kleenex = facial tissue
Q-Tips = cotton swabs
Bit of cotton on a plastic stick – with the brand name Q tips which made all the difference.
Scotch Tape = cellophane tape
Styrofoam = plastic foam
Teflon = non-stick coating
Vaseline = petroleum jelly
Walkman = portable cassette player
Xerox = photocopier/photocopy
Sounds fantastic doesn’t it. I mean, your own name or your product name being so popular that it has been absorbed in to the general vocabulary. Now that’s branding at work… that’s branding on ‘go-go’ juice!
But hold on a moment! You might think this is really great ‘branding’ however I’d like to offer an alternate viewpoint…
Too Much Of A Good Thing
If you were the lucky/unlucky manufacturer of ‘band-aids’ you’d now be in the unfortunate position of seeing your brand lose most of its value because it has passed into the vocabulary of the buying public as a GENERAL term.
Your product which you worked so hard to promote… has lost all its specificity. In other words, your product branding is now helping the competition sell there alternate ‘band-aid like’ products.
Brand Life Cycles
You’ve probably heard me say that for most of us (probably 80% or more) we need to focus on selling not brand building. Sure branding is a great add-on if you can do it, but you have got to have deep pockets to pull it off successfully. And you’ve have to be very, very, very patient.
Assuming that you create the next super brand, and your product takes on a life of its own, there will be that first glory phase when your products name will be uniquely linked to you, your product and the benefits and value it provides.
If you keep going strong your product will be synonymous with the brand name… and eventually the unthinkable will happen: One day, the buying public will use your product name – your brand name – to refer not to your specific product, but to the family or type of product!
The End Of An Ear… Or Is That Era?
You don’t have to turn your company into a brand name – but if you can create a brand name – you’ve added value to the company.
From that day forth, your product name, your brand name will now be an eponym. You’ll be the Kleenex of facial tissues, the band-aid of plasters, the Teflon of non-stick coatings. Life will be grim…
Of course, you’ll be filthy stinking rich at that point and whether you get another dime off the brand name is really neither here nor there.
But I’m sure you see my point. The brand is born, it develops over time, if you’re lucky it is welcomed by the masses and they embrace your brand product. It over stays its welcome and eventually becomes a mainstay of conversation – the end.
Do you think Good Year or Pirelli or Firestone or some of the other tire manufactures will suffer that ignominious fate?
They should be so lucky – until next time.
James Burchill is the founder of Social Fusion Network – an organization that helps local business connect and network. He also writes about digital marketing, entrepreneurship and technology and when he’s not consulting, he teaches people to start their own ‘side hustle.’
Part 4 of a series: Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs or more than 25 years. He has been described as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom. He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools. In this article, one of a series Muir suggest what he feels are obvious solutions to the problem the Board of Education believes it has. There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy means you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed.
I have set out what I think is the background reason for the situation Burlington parents and their high school level students face with the possible closing of two high schools in the city and I have suggeted that the mess we asre in is one we created for ourselves.
How do we get out of the mess?
Where does the Board staff appear to sit?
The Board seems to be into closing schools. Almost all the options close schools. Some seem nonsensical. I was surprised by this very limited plan.
They say 1800 empty seats is not sustainable long term. And the Board staff data is said to be accurate now, and and has been accurate in the past.
Go back to the Board data for 2010 when there were 495 actual empty seats, and 92% space utilization, in the 6 then existing schools in Burlington.
They developed plans, with no evident justification, to build another school in Alton – add 1200 seats plus about 280 in portables.
Empty classroom seats. Burlington has 1800 of them. These seat are in Hayden high school which some feel should not have been built. The recreation centre and the library made sense – the facts suggest the building of a high school in Alton created the problem that exists now south of the QEW.
Build school, open in 2013, fill with about 1400 students by 2017, mostly from schools within the six existing high schools. These 1400 now become empty seats in the south Burlington six high schools.
This adds up to about the 1800-1900 now cited as unsustainable.
This is based on the past and forecast data that is said to be accurate.
So it can be said with accuracy that the Board created the 1800 empty seats that they now say are not sustainable. Why and how?
Building Hayden in Alton can be said with accuracy to be a blundered construction of most of the 1800 empty seats.
So they now want to close two schools of the original six that housed all these students, before Hayden, within the comfortable 90% utilization.
So the Board itself created this so-called unsustainable 1800 empty seats, and they did it with accuracy.
They have also gotten away with this unexplained blunder with no accountability for what is incompetent planning in my opinion, based on the face of the so-called accurate data.
Director of Education Stuart Miller during an on-line Q&A which some parents thought was rigged.
So how does this work that the Director isn’t sure now what the residents/public of the south Burlington six expect from him and the Board?
Well, what I expect is that the Director offer innovative and management solutions to clean up the mess you have created.
And don’t tell us that your forecast data are accurate. It’s seems to be a new age for housing costs and form, so families will likely have to more and more occupy higher density.
The historical pupil yield curves used may be too low in this new age. That’s what happened in the Alton community, and the Board data didn’t catch it.
Don’t make more mistakes and cost the community dearly by closing schools based on methods and attitudes that actually created the mess.
It is possible to use the toolbox to keep all the schools open. Go to that toolbox and show us how we can make the empty spaces of use.
Don’t impatiently make irreversible quick decisions that we will all have to live with in regret.
That’s what people expect, among other things, I think.
What about the efficiency and sustainability of 1800 empty seats?
But if we accept that 1800 empty seats are not sustainable, at face value, what does it imply about the strictly business end of producing student spaces?
In 2012 the utilization of SRA 100 Burlington spaces was 87%, so there was a minimal excess over the Board target of 90%. It was also projected to fall and is now at about 75%. But it only fell because Hayden was opened and students were transferred there, and this continues to date, filling up portables and a projected student surplus of about 600.
What the hell is going on here may I ask, with the Board sense of planning? And this just looks to continue in this PAR.
Was Hayden high school needed? Depends on what you wanted. The high school seats may not have been needed but the Board of Education, the Library and the city’s recreation department had skin in the game. The idea was to create a structure that would become a community centre and when that was decided upon – an excess of students seats got forgotten – the bureaucrats were building and if that meant the death of two high schools so be it. Where were the trustees at the time? Did they not see this coming and did they not ask questions?
The point being for our business model, is that there is no apparent rationale, no business case, to build Hayden, as there was no shortage of supply of student places. There was already some identifiable surplus.
With such an excess supply identified, and projected to worsen, on the basis of this issue definition, what reason existed to build additional supply of students spaces at Hayden? In fact, we still don’t need Hayden on this basis.
If most people made this kind of business decision, they would be in deep doo-doo, and in deeper when there are serious consequences, which there are, but not for those who made the decisions.
This decision by the Board had no justifying business case in terms of student spaces, but created an excess which is now being used to justify closing schools to make up for their mistake.
Everyone knows this has just made things much worse and created a divisive mess for which no one is being held accountable.
Regarding the provision of student opportunities as a reason for the PAR, there was never any evidence provided to show that Hayden provided any opportunities that didn’t already exist. And there is still no evidence provided that closing other schools will provide any additional opportunities that also don’t already exist.
In fact, closing schools will require that 500 to 600 additional students are provided, rather “necessitated”, the “opportunity” to ride the bus to school instead of walk, which most of the would be displaced do at present. Some opportunity this is.
Hopefully, you can see the thinness of putting the issue as just about excess student spaces. The Board itself created the excess. It didn’t exist before Hayden.
Why was Hayden built? Where’s the cost-benefit analysis of what has been created?
The only thing I have even remotely heard, is that the people in the north of Burlington, in Alton, were entitled to, or “needed” schools in their neighborhood.
Which begs the question, what about the rest of Burlington, now under the gun because of the Board building a Hayden not needed for student spaces.
And here is where the real issue mess lies, the part left out of your issue definition.
Because the students were transferred in ever greater numbers, even overflowing into portables, exceeding the Hayden built supply of places, from the existing schools, and then their feeders, thus creating the excess in those schools.
It is the trustees that are accountable. But the trustees who made the decision to build the Hayden high school aren’t there anymore. Of the 11 in office now eight are serving their first term of office. Burlington’s ward 5 trustee Amy Collard is serving her second term – both by acclamation, Trustees Kelly Amos from Burlington and trustee Donna Danielli from Milton were on the board at the time the Hayden high school decision was made.
So that’s where this logic of this issue definition takes us. Based on this definition, Hayden should not have been built. Is anyone going to be held accountable for this?
If Hayden neighborhood residents and parents and students “needed” their own school, whatever happened to the rest of us down here in the south? Do we not count in this?
This is the real mess that this issue definition is too thin to manage. It is much more than excess student places, which is a red herring.
What have parents, residents and students to say about their concerns and what they want?
A perusal of the Gazette archive will get at least some sense of what some people are saying and/or want. As I noted earlier, one key thing that is missing on the accessible website are enough years of the LTAPs and reports to go back to the time that Hayden SS in Alton was being rationalized and justified. I described this situation in detail above.
So if the Trustees know that set of facts, and others do as well, what do they think resident feelings and concerns are?
Tom Muir is a resident of Aldershot who has been a persistent critic of decisions made by city council. He turns his attention to the current school board mess. He recently suggested to Burlington city council that “If you are so tired of and frustrated by, listening to the views of the people that elected you, then maybe you have been doing this job too long and should quit.
Muir explains that the PARC will only get what people send in, what they come up with from their own efforts, and what they ask/demand from the board. They have to decide what they want and go after it ruthlessly. They will have to fight with tooth and claw and take no prisoners.
Building community happens when groups partner and create a situation when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
The Burlington Foundation has partnered with the Community Fund for Canada’s 150th to help make a major investment in Burlington.
The Foundation announced a record $120,000 in Community Fund grants to be invested in 14 local projects. This represents the largest amount of Community Fund grants the Foundation has distributed in a single year since its inception in 1999.
In 2017, the Foundation’s community funds and field of interest funds are granting $60,000 and the Community Fund for Canada’s 150th is providing $60,000 in matching dollars. This initiative is made possible by the Community Fund for Canada’s 150th, a collaboration between Burlington Foundation, Community Foundations of Canada, the Government of Canada, and extraordinary leaders from coast to coast to coast.
Ron Foxcroft, Chair of the Burlington Foundation; he gets most of them into the hoop.
Foundation Board Chair and legendary community supporter Ron Foxcroft notes, “Burlington Foundation has a long history of making change happen. Our annual Community Fund grants help address Burlington’s highest priority needs, as outlined in our Vital Signs reports, as well as several field of interest focus areas. In just 18 short years, Burlington Foundation has provided more than $4.1 million in grants to charities.”
“We’re thrilled to partner with Community Foundations of Canada and the Community Fund for Canada’s 150th to help make a major investment in Burlington. Thanks to this historic collaboration, we’re bringing Burlingtonians together, fostering a greater sense of belonging and creating a lasting legacy of 2017 community initiatives for future generations,” says Colleen Mulholland, president of the Foundation. “We’re proud to help unite the generous gifts of local community members with federal funds to create a positive and lasting ripple effect across our great city.”
Burlington Foundation’s 2016-17 Community Fund Larger Grant Program is providing 14 grants ranging from $5,000 to $13,000. For example, Burlington Public Library will use the grant to support Honouring the Truth, an initiative that builds upon the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.
Maureen Barry, CEO of the Burlington Public Library
Maureen Barry, Library Chief Executive Officer notes, “Honouring the Truth celebrates Indigenous historical legacy and ceremony within Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. Public initiatives that pay tribute to the native lands and stories of First Nations peoples will help build a deeper understanding and awareness of reconciliation as a collective, ongoing process.”
ArtHouse will use the grant to support Mending Fences, a collaborative public arts project for vulnerable youth. More than 650 local youth will help transform 40 designated sites across Halton Region into ”creative spaces”, all in vibrant celebration of Canada’s 150th. Don Pangman, ArtHouse Founder and Executive Director explains, “Mending fences will allow us to hear the voices of our youth through the arts by providing a safe place for them to express themselves and to unleash their creativity.”
Grant to provide Ontario farm fresh food through the summer months.
As well, Food4Kids Hamilton Halton, Foodland Ontario, Feeding Halton and Food for Life will collaborate and use the grant to supply 100 children living in low-income homes with Ontario farm fresh food through the summer months, ensuring access while also engaging them to grow, cook and enjoy healthy food.
Additionally, the Foundation awarded 12 grants of $500 to $2,000 in November 2016. The Foundation’s local Seed Grant Program features a simplified application process and supports smaller-scale initiatives.
About Burlington Foundation
Since 1999, individuals, agencies and corporate donors have partnered with us to make change happen. We understand the difference we make is greater when people work together. Burlington Foundation collaborates with donors to build endowments, give grants and connect leadership. We help people give brilliantly, build legacies, address vital community needs and support areas of personal interest.
About Community Fund for Canada’s 150th
The Community Fund for Canada’s 150th (CFC150) is a collaborative effort, seeded by the Government of Canada and extraordinary leaders from coast-to-coast-to-coast. The Fund is matched and delivered locally by Canada’s 191 community foundations.
CFC150 projects are building community and inspiring a deeper understanding of Canada throughout the sesquicentennial
2016-2017 Larger & Seed Community Fund Grants
Trevor Copp of the Tottering Bipeod Theatre
Acclaim Health – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Art Gallery of Burlington – $6,500 (Larger Grant) ArtHouse for Children and Youth – $10,000 (Larger Grant) Burlington Baptist Church – $12,462 (Larger Grant) Burlington Public Library – $5,000 (Larger Grant) Calvary Baptist Church Burlington – $5,480 (Larger Grant) CameronHelps (2006) Inc. – $6,575 (Larger Grant) Carpenter Hospice – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Community Living Burlington – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Food4Kids Hamilton Halton – $13,000 (Larger Grant) Halton Catholic Children’s Education Foundation (HCCEF) – $1,400 (Seed Grant) Halton District School Board (Aldershot School) – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Halton District School Board (Burlington Central High School) – $1,000 (Seed Grant) Halton Learning Foundation – $6,000 (Larger Grant) Holy Rosary School – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Literacy South Halton – $1,100 (Seed Grant) Muscular Dystrophy Canada – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Shakespearience Performing Arts – $500 (Seed Grant) Shifra Homes Inc. – $8,183 (Larger Grant) St. Christopher’s Anglican Church – $13,000 (Larger Grant) Summit Housing and Outreach Programs – $8,500 (Larger Grant) Support & Housing – Halton – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Symphony on the Bay (Greater Hamilton Symphony Association) – $12,500 (Larger Grant) Tetra Society of North America – $4,800 (Larger Grant) The Bridge From Prison to Community (Hamilton) – $2,000 (Seed Grant) Tottering Biped Theatre – $8,000 (Larger Grant)
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs or more than 25 years. He has been described as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom. He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools. In this article, one of a series Muir suggest what he feels are obvious solutions to the problem the Board of Education believes it has. There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy means you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed.
The Board of Education advised its trustees that there were 1800 empty seats in Burlington’s seven high schools. The Director of Education, Stuart Miller, brought forward a number of recommendations. The trustees decided to create a Program Accommodation Review Committee (PARC). That committee will begin its meeting later this month.
Director of Education Stuart Miller, on the right engaging a parent at Central high school.
The PARC will review the data – there is tonnes of it, and send a recommendation to the Director of Education who will then make his recommendation to the trustees who will make a final decision as to whether or not any high schools should be closed. The schedule calls for this to be done by May of this year.
Other ideas are suggested by residents in the on-line conversations in the Gazette. There are other more inclusive lists of such ideas elsewhere. Surely, the Board staff and consultants, and education researchers, have a cornucopia of ideas that just need to be unleashed. As Rudyard Kipling said, “there are 99 and 9 ways to make tribal lays.”
This, I think, is a way to go to get to a plan fitting with the times, changing demographics and adaptability to such changes, fairness, and the patterns of the Growth Plan for Halton.
A new community was created when Hwy 407 was built. The Alton Village underwent significant growth requiring public and high schools. Some are not sure the high school was such a good idea..
It is just not right that existing residents are required to give up their schools, in order to build new schools in areas where the high growth in population is being directed under the force of the provinces’ orders in the Growth Plan.
Why should this be a forced confiscation in service of the province’s growth orders? Why should we pay for another part of the growth with our schools?
As I said, things are being taken too far in this insensitive and unlimited logic of efficiency, narrowly defined, leading to fewer and fewer schools in existing neighborhoods.
Once these school sites are gone, they are gone – there are no other places to site new schools. What kind of municipal and community planning is that?
And for those seeming to be okay with the closure of two high schools, as inefficient, and needing to be eliminated, I have to ask if they have ever considered what might be the limits of their criterion or their logic?
Burlington Central high school – the oldest in the city located in a neighborhood with intense loyalty to the place. There are some fourth generation students at the high school.
Do they propose to applaud this process year after year until “most efficient” and “biggest” become synonymous with “only”?
Do these schools have any value not subsumed under the heading of “efficiency”? And who benefits by their closure?
Is “any” degree of “efficiency” worth any cost in our schools?
Can progressively closing more and more schools be treated with such regardlessness, by merely asserting a justification that leaves out all the cultural and community values that they embody?
The point being that there must be limits imposed to this process before our cultural institutions of education have been corrupted to calamity.
This process is leading to no good, and is rotten politics.
Halton District School Board trustees sit at the back of the room during a December public meeting. From the left: Papin, Reynolds, Ehl Harrinson and Grebenc.
Some things the Trustees can do.
Hayden has 500 to 600 pupils too many in the LTAP forecast. The Board moved 600 to 900 from the area of concern, such as Pearson, Nelson, Bateman, and Robinson. You can see this in the capacity utilization rates in the Board reports and reproduced in the Gazette.
They can simply move some number like the 600 back, as they have the power to do that, just like before, when they moved them out. We need to know what the numbers by school were that were moved to Hayden.
They can even shuffle students from Hayden around the Board SRA 100, which is also in the plan but only at a low scale. Shifting students and programs around all of Burlington, including SRA 100, can be considered.
Secondary Review Area where all the high school are concentrated.
Closing portables and using the bricks and mortar OTG capacity for students fits into using excess spaces, and is something that parents and students have expressed the desire to see. It will certainly be better for students.
Closing the 2 schools mentioned is reported to mean almost 600 more students from them need to be bused, increasing the number from 1000 to 1600.
So no closures, and moving students from Hayden back to the other schools – some of which is in the Option 19 for French Immersion at least – is a perfectly logical thing to do.
It will also save significant busing dollars (not specified in the reports I saw), that won’t need to be added to the already $15 million transportation bill of the Board as a whole, and will avoid big disruptions to students lives.
At least one or two SRA 100 schools are close enough that busing of students is not needed.
Again, shuffling the excess around, and changing the catchments accordingly are all possible and will facilitate the adjustments.
The Lester B. Pearson high school was “purpose built” with an extra gymnasium and a Day Care Centre.
The Halton Board has many programs scattered around, and these can be expanded perhaps by shifting some to schools with surplus space.
The Community Partnerships and Hubs outreach, partly funded and touted by the Province on their website as involving schools, can be tapped to expand uses of space.
The existing daycare at Pearson is exactly what the province mentions as one of the possibilities. What happens to that with a closure of Pearson and Central?
Where are these options in the plan? These things are obvious solutions.
I’m confident that the PARC members also have a great number of ideas, and they are much more intimate with the schools and what they want than I am.
Tom Muir; an acerbic community advocate.
Tom Muir is a resident of Aldershot who has been a persistent critic of decisions made by city council. He turns his attention to the current school board mess. He recently suggested to Burlington city council that “If you are so tired of and frustrated by, listening to the views of the people that elected you, then maybe you have been doing this job too long and should quit.
Muir explains that the PARC will only get what people send in, what they come up with from their own efforts, and what they ask/demand from the board. They have to decide what they want and go after it ruthlessly. They will have to fight with tooth and claw and take no prisoners.
You may be one of those people who knows all about the Lowville Festival – an event that takes place every July in Lowville.
Last season there was a rendition of Northwest Passage delivered by the widow of Stan Rodgers, the man who wrote it and performed it for tens of thousands of Canadians.
Paul Novotny playing the double bass at the 2016 Lowville Festival.
There was a performance on a base fiddle that was the best I have ever heard. Paul doing the Porter’s Hymn on his double bass was the star of the evening. Seldom does one hear this quality. You could have heard a pin drop while the sound was being plucked from the strings of the bass.
The team that puts together the Lowville Festival each summer has put together a winter program that begins with Robert Priest, Canada’s finest spoken word poet and singer who will delight the audience with some of his poems and compositions along with a salute to Robbie Burns. Schoolhouse Series
Lowville School House – Locale for the Lowville Festival winter series.
That event takes place Saturday January 21, 2017. Titled “Words to Warm a Winter’s Night” it will beheld in the Lowville Schoolhouse
Saturday March 4, 2017:
Racy Artists from the Renaissance to the Rococo.
Real lives of the artists will be revealed by Barbara Anderson-Huget in this multi-media presentation. Murder, adultery, fanaticism, broken vows and fashion.
Sports concussions are the topic for the final evening of the Lowville Festival Winter series.
Saturday April 1, 2017:
Head Games: the Global Concussion Crisis
After viewing the movie, Concussion, Lorretta Bailey and guest will lead a discussion about how to prevent concussions in our youth, the warning signs and possible treatments.
$20 /person for each event to defray costs.
RSVP to tickets@thinkspot.ca to reserve a seat
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs. Our colleague, Joan Little described Muir as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom. He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools. There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy mans you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed. This is a multi part story.
The Board keeps repeating the phrase – “we have too many empty seat” and that is true.
If you are asking the question “whodunnit” to us, the answer is, “the Board dunnit”. They created this awful mess and our trustees have just been sleepy collaborators in this doing.
And the Board just lets this pass by the trustees with no emphatic warning to parents, residents and city Council, of what was coming?
In my opinion, no one was in charge to see this coming and head it off, or at least give a lot of early warning, underlined and publicized.
A message that might have been a little on the late side.
Why you would build a new school, with projected enrollment of 1600, when the surplus of available places in the existing schools were projected to increase to 2500, and nobody says anything about this disconnection, is beyond me. Or anyone else I know who has talked about the problem, and how the Board operates.
Where is this problem going, and where might it go?
I can tell, more broadly from my study of this, that there is a lot more of this issue still underwater, and coming, but it’s understated there in the LTAP reports.
Burlington SRA 100 catchments (which can be changed, and were changed for Hayden) are in mature communities, and with the transfers to Hayden, are not projected to grow enough students to fill schools built in another era. This Burlington area is also not taking on the endless high growth of other parts of Halton.
There are new high, and elementary, schools in the pipe for this growth and the Board will be sooner or later coming for more closures to get the available place capacity down to some level to get grants for the new schools for the growth. But these new schools will be put somewhere else.
This will only cause more trouble in the future, and the suggested closures at present foretell more in the future. The elementary schools are linked, and next for PARs – stated in the current LTAP – and will be domino-ed if there are closures.
My general impression is that new schools are planned for, and built in the growth areas when grants are available. If there is too much excess students spaces elsewhere, the Board goes there, does a PAR, and takes back – closes – schools in areas with available spaces, which are in the elsewhere.
That’s like what’s being done here now, but parents and residents aren’t really being told about that part. But hints are in the LTAP reports.
Was Hayden high school needed? Was there a business case for the construction of the school. When originally planned it grew from a high school – that had a public library and a Recreation Centre added to it. There came a point when it all looked just too good. And the growing Alton community needed a high school.
There seems to be no limit to this, just the timing. It’s outrageous, and a rip-off, as we paid for the schools in the first place, and now have to pay twice for new ones – the province funds new schools with our money, then takes back some old schools, so we pay again, but with an added insult.
This is what I fought back in 1998-2000. This time, it has been hidden. You see it coming in the LTAPs, but it’s subtle.
What can Trustees do?
The Trustees of course work within the provincial rule book, but they definitely DO NOT have to choose to close schools.
Of the 19 options – this is the one the Board of Education staff recommended. Why?
They have a tool kit that they can pick and choose from so as to spread the student numbers around, together with the dollars, and innovate to keep the schools open.
However, the Board staff has chosen to make pretty much all the options presented as mostly about closures. As far as I’m concerned this is the bureaucrat in them defending their past decisions that led to this messy situation.
The Trustees have the authority to change this, and to give the Board marching orders to come up with another plan that uses all of the tool kit.
Will the 11 school board trustees hang together as a group and really think the issue through or will they leave it to the Program Accommodation Review Committee to come up with an answer they can live with.
One problem that is foreseeable is that the Trustees are played off against each other depending on the part of Halton they represent. Milton is projected to grow a great deal in population, and Oakville is next in numbers.
Milton and Oakville each have 2 elementary schools in the planning pipe for 2018 to 2021, and these are not yet funded. Each also has a high school in the planning pipe for the 2019 to 2021 period and these are not yet funded either.
These proposed schools are all for students and parents that are not even born yet, but are projected from the future growth driven by provincial orders.
This is the rub. Will the Milton and Oakville Trustees put these possible future students that are not even here yet, before existing students, already living here but in schools somewhere else – in Burlington?
Will these trustees turn against their colleagues and neighbors and vote to close their schools, so they can have some new ones for people who aren’t here yet?
People who obviously do not vote here yet, and certainly didn’t elect any of the Trustees.
This large poster hangs on the wall of the school board meeting room
The Trustees don’t have to vote that way, but who knows? People are strange.
However, they do have the power to unite and stick together. They can put together better ideas, and order the Board staff to make another plan that keeps schools open.
This will be a testing time for these trustees. Burlington Central high school is putting up quit a fight – they raised $14,000 at a Silent Auction. These people are not going to go quietly into the night.
Such a plan may contain innovative elements – which just happens to be in the latest Board Multi Year Plan goal to use innovative approaches to using learning spaces.
Tom Muir, an Aldershot resident, has been an active participant in civic affairs. Our colleague, Joan Little described Muir as “acerbic”, a fair term for Tom.
He has outlined, in considerable length, a large part of why the parents at Central and Pearson high schools are in the mess they are in as a result of the recommendation to close their schools.
There is a lot of material; it gets dense at times. Living in a democracy mans you have to accept the responsibility of citizenship and stay informed. This is a multi part story.
1. How was this problem created and why is it a mess?
Everyone needs to appreciate that there is a lot of Long Term Accommodation Plans (LTAP) and other reports and information on the Board website, but knowing how to find them, and have the time to read and comprehend it all, are daunting for people not used to this kind of analysis. And if they have both jobs along with their kids and home responsibilities, this just gets much worse.
The Board writes these long LTAP reports but the trustees I think seem to be snowed under by them, over time. There are plenty of warnings and facts presented about what is going on, but somehow it doesn’t fizz on them, and parents and residents are not given any warning of what lies ahead on the path the Board is on. That’s the case I found here, and it’s not hard to find if you know how to look and take the time.
One thing that is missing on the accessible website are enough years of the LTAPs and reports to go back to the time that Hayden SS in Alton was being rationalized and justified and a new SRA 101 was created..
This Secondary Review Area contains one school. Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS opened with grades 9 and 10 in September 2013, and grew one grade each year. Enrolment currently exceeds OTG capacity, resulting in the placement of 6 portables on site. A high percentage (30%+) of grade 8 students from Orchard Park PS and Alexander’s PS enrolled in a secondary school other than Dr. Frank Hayden SS in 2015. More than 90% of grade eight students from the following elementary schools attend Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS: Charles R. Beaudoin PS FI program, John William Boich PS FI program Alton Village PS Dr. Frank J. Hayden SS is projected to be over-utilized. Enrolment is approaching Total Capacity by 2016. Boundaries may need to be re-evaluated as part of a future Program and Accommodation Review. To Be Determined Area, students are projected in this area within the next five years. Consideration should be given to establishing school catchments for this area as development approvals move forward.
Data is avalable for as far back as 2010-2011 where toy can already see the troubles looming. But there is no hint of how Hayden was justified on pupil place needs – there weren’t any – when it was already known that building the school would drain all the students from the existing high schools and create large and growing surplus places there, while overfilling Hayden, even with Portables, right from the start.
Secondary Review area 100 shows the high schools south of the QEW where the population was concentrated. The creation of the Halton community when the 407 highway was built suggested the need for an additional high school.
For example, in 2010-2011 LTAP report, we see the following.
The Board data for 2010 indicates there were 495 actual empty seats, and 92% space utilization, in the 6 then existing schools in Burlington. There was obviously no problem with surplus places and the trends stayed in a 90 to 80% bracket to 2020.
With the projected opening of the Alton school, the transfer of students from the other schools to the Alton school began, and the steep increase in available places in the existing 6 Burlington schools began.
From the 2010-2011 LTAP commentary:
– New subdivision development in SRA 101 contributes to the high utilization of Lester B. Pearson H.S., M.M. Robinson H.S., Nelson H.S. and Robert Bateman HS
– Opening of the proposed Alton community high school (2011) will cause enrollment to drop in most schools.
– A boundary review for the proposed Alton community high school has been initiated.
– There is potential for a PARC (Program and Accommodation Review Committee) Process to be initiated.
The plans were to build another school in Alton – add 1200 seats plus about 280 in portables.
The Board set out to build the new high school and decided to make it both a public library, a recreation centre and a high school and opened it in 2013 (at first it was 2011/2012), filled it with about 1400 students by 2017 from schools within the six existing high schools. These 1400 now become empty seats in the south Burlington six schools.
Together with the 495 cited above, this adds up to about the 1800-1900 empty seats now cited as unsustainable.
So this was basically already known before 2010, but the possible consequences were never made public or explained to anyone, from all appearances.
As well, in this 2010-2011 LTAP, there is no business case, or any other rationalization, based on a deficit in pupil places, for building a new school in Alton. This may have been done in earlier years, but there is no visible evidence of the need anywhere, and it is not available or provided for public information right now.
This rationale needs to be provided.
2. How did we stay on this path to problems?
The path Burlington was put on by these Board decisions continued unabated, but the consequences continued to be unexplained to the public, and seemingly were not appreciated or were ignored by Trustees.
I went back to the LTAP for 2012-2013. It quite clearly states that opening Hayden was going to cause problems.
Here’s something I copied out of that report (my underlining). SRA 100 contains the 6 Burlington High schools, besides Hayden the new one.
BURLINGTON – Secondary Review Areas
With the development of the new Secondary Review Areas (SRA) 101 Burlington NE High School (1200 pupil places) in the Alton Community, a school boundary review process was undertaken and completed in June 2012.
The opening of the new high school would result in students being redirected from SRA 100 to this new school. The additional capacity meant a reduction in the number of students in classroom seats. The Board appears to have convinced itself that Alton needed a high school and built one – at a time when the high school population wasn’t growing.
Enrollment projections indicate the utilization of space in SRA 100 secondary schools is currently at 87% in 2012, which will decline to 60% in 2022. Moreover, given the capacity of the schools, it is projected once the new high school opens there will be 2503 secondary pupil places available in 2022 within SRA 100.
In reviewing SRA101, it is projected that the new school will continue to grow in enrollment to the point that by
2019, On the Ground (OTG) building and portable capacity could be exceeded, with a utilization rate of 131% by 2022.
Overall for Burlington, by 2022 the OTG utilization is projected to be 72%, with approximately 2129 empty
pupil places. It would appear that within the next few years, consideration should be given to undertaking a
PAR for all secondary schools in Burlington.
So you can see again, that the building of Hayden, the lack of a rationale, and the plan for filling it, was a root cause of the current problem.
A number of years ago Bateman students demonstrated to keep their football team – parents may find themselves demonstrating to keep their high schools open.
Looking at another Table shows that the actual student numbers in SRA 100 was 5530 in 2012 and was projected, by opening Hayden in 2013, to decline down to 4913 in 2013.
So in that time period, the Board moved about 600 Grade 9 and 10 students from the SRA 100 to Hayden, and then in time would drain other grades and feeder students greatly to get to the overshoot of capacity that they are at now.
The student numbers in Hayden went to 860 in 2014; 1250 in 2015; 1350 in 2016; about 1400 in 2017; and is projected to grow to about 1600 in 2020.
The students could have remained in, and new ones put into, other schools of the 6 existing, and Hayden was not really needed given the pupil places already available at the time as indicated. Further, the school is already overfull, with portables, and this will continue with the present catchment and policy.
From another section of the LTAP 2012-2013 I copied this. I had to take the format from a Table, so that’s why it is what it is.
SRA 100, includes Aldershot, Burlington Central, Lester B. Pearson, MM Robinson, Nelson and Robert Bateman where school enrollments are below OTG capacity and will continue to decline from 87% in 2012 to 60% of OTG
capacity in 2022.
This is a result of the opening of the new school in the Alton High School.
By 2022 there will be approximately 2500 available pupil places in this review area and all schools will be operating below their OTG capacity.
Hayden is already overcapacity in 2016. This is just getting worse and will continue unless policy changes are made.
All these decisions and descriptions are made by the Board, and then rubber-stamped by the Trustees, who I think didn’t really comprehend what was happening.
The near total turn over of trustees in Burlington in the 2014 election didn’t help.
Tom Muir is a resident of Aldershot who has been a persistent critic of decisions made by city council. He turns his attention to the current school board mess. He recently suggested to Burlington city council that “If you are so tired of and frustrated by, listening to the views of the people that elected you, then maybe you have been doing this job too long and should quit.
Muir explains that the PARC will only get what people send in, what they come up with from their own efforts, and what they ask/demand from the board. They have to decide what they want and go after it ruthlessly. They will have to fight with tooth and claw and take no prisoners.
That December 8th meeting that was held by the Halton District school board has come to be an experience the Board has learned something from.
Trustees were telling staff that many people didn’t feel they had had a real opportunity to ask questions or voice their concerns.
Director of Education Stuart Miller getting ready to address parents at Central high school.
Director of Education Stuart Miller admitted that there was something to be learned from that first experience and has said that the Board’s administrative committee will review what has taken place so far and decide if there should be another public meeting at which people can voice their concerns and grievances.
Miller didn’t sound all that happy with the idea of a meeting at which he has to stand up in front of a couple of hundred unhappy people who get quite emotional about the possibility that there local school might be closed.
But he did say that if the view was that another public meeting was necessary then he would take part and listen.
Miller isn’t sure what the public expects. He refers again and again to the facts he has to deal with – 1800 empty seats – something that just isn’t sustainable on a long term basis.
He argues that the data provided by the Boards Planning department has been accurate in the past and he believes that what he is getting from them now is also accurate.
That might not really be the case.
The board was caught by surprise when it found registration at the Alton public school to be much higher than projected – then realized that a significant number of the houses in the relatively new community was housing two and sometimes three families.
These elementary school students will move on to the high school in the community which is already well over its intended capacity.
Miller told staff that his planners work closely with the city of Burlington and share information.
One of the problems is that the city can only pass along what it has in hand in the way of new residential projects. There is a project well past the drawing board stage for the intersection of Brant and Ghent streets that will involve three of the four corner properties at that intersection.
The properties within the black outline are part of a development that is well past the drawing board stage. The hold up is at city hall where the planners need more time to figure out how this will fit in with their mobility hub plans.
City hall has asked the developer to wait a little longer before talking about the development – which means that development is not real yet from the city’s point of view. The plan is for there to be a mobility hub at the Burlington GO station where a five tower project is currently under construction. The city to get its mobility hub thinking completed before looking at additional new projects.
The developers are way ahead of the city. They have measured the market, done their research and determined what the public wants and have put their money on the table and begun construction.
It is very real in the minds of the developer – several housing were recently demolished to clear the Brant Ghent site.
The board isn’t even aware of that development which is a couple of blocks from Central high school.
There also appears to be an assumption that there will be very few families living in the five condominiums that are going to be part of the Paradigm project on Fairview next to the GO station.
A five tower project currently under construction is less than a ten minute walk from Central high school.
To assume that a community of 2000 people is going to be made up of foot loose and fancy free singles or seniors that want to downsize may turn out to be a mistake equal to the problem that cropped up in the Alton village when the board got caught with close to hundreds of additional students.
The board of education needs to find a way to meet privately with the larger developers to get a sense of where they want to go long term. There is vital data that is being missed.
The sense one gets is that the Planning department isn’t all that sophisticated and appears to rely on the tried but not always true demographic tools when perhaps something that permits the planners to dig down a lot deeper is needed.
School boards know about the project – their signs warn parents that there may not be space in local schools for any children living in the project.
There is little argument that the role of the board is to educate our children – but the job doesn’t stop at that border – an education is vital – a community is the space within which the student is going to exist and make their mark in this world.
There is a lot more talking to be done and some parents at Central high school are not convinced that the board really wants to listen.
One parent sent in these comments: “I think the PAR process will be a sham. But the Ministry designed it so it would be. There are PAR committee members in Ontario quitting in disgust of the whole thing before it’s even over. I talked with our MPP Eleanor on my thoughts about all this from a provincial perspective a while ago. She actually said “there is nothing wrong with the funding formula” and “I have faith in the process.” Our meeting was over the phone so I couldn’t tell if she said it with a straight face or not, but really!
There are two public meetings scheduled as part of the PAR process – no word yet on the format of those meetings.
The flow of information between the Program Accommodation Review Committee (PARC) and the Board of Education trustees is a concern that Leah Reynolds brought up at the school board meeting last night.
Trustee Leah Reynolds, centre, wanted to know why she wasn’t getting copies of emails sent to the PARC members.
Reynolds, who represents Burlington wards 1 and 2, wanted to know when she would get copies of the emails that get sent to the PARC people.
Reynolds wanted to be fully aware of what the PARC members are hearing and said she “owed it to the community to fully understand what the feelings and concerns are”.
It wasn’t immediately clear just what was happening to the emails that citizens send to the PARC members. A concern was expressed about email that may not be at all appropriate and that doesn’t get through the system.
Reynolds wanted to know who was responsible for the distribution of email that goes to PARC members. The Board created email addresses for the PARC members the public can use to communicate. Reynolds feels that communication is important and she would like to know what is being said.
The Board of Education created special emails for members of the PAR committee. Citizens could use the one address to communicate with the PARC member representing their school
There was discussion about support for PARC members who might be finding the content of some of the email objectionable and inappropriate.
The PAR committees meeting immediately after the early December public meeting.
Scott Podrebarac, a Board of Education Superintendent and chair of the PARC said that the PARC people have had meetings and that minutes are being taken. However, the trustees have not seen these minutes.
Superintendent of Education, Gord Truffen, who oversees information technology for the board, expressed some concern over the confidentiality of email addresses and told the Board meeting that there hasn’t been all that much traffic to the members of the PARC at the email addresses created for them.
Ward 2 Councillor Marianne Meed Ward with ward 1 and 2 school board trustee Leah Reynolds. Meed Ward sits on the PAR committee which will produce a report for the Director of Education who will use the contents of the report in his recommendation to the trustees on which high schools, if any, to close.
What trustee Reynolds wants are the opinions people are expressing so that she can have a clearer sense as to just what the community wants. She doesn’t feel she is getting what she feels she needs.
There may be a communication problem. Reynolds was the only trustee to speak to that matter.
The nightmare is” said Halton District School Board Director of Education Stuart Miller, “for me to decide that the school buses should not run and then see a significant change in the weather hours later.”
Miller was explaining to school board trustees last night how the decision to cancel school bus service when the weather is bad.
Stuart takes those 5:30 am weather report phone calls.
“I got a phone call at around 5:30 (my wife remembers exactly what time the call came in) telling me that the weather reports were not good.
Miller then makes a number of call to other school board’s in the area to see what they have planned. He has to make a decision by 6:30 am and prefers to have made up his mind by 6:00 am.
“There is freezing rain in Toronto but the local spotters report nothing in Oakville or Burlington – but the reports have the weather heading west.
“So I decide that the roads are not good enough for safe passage and I cancel the service.
“And sure enough – it is close to balmy sunshine weather in the southern part of the region and blizzard like weather in the rural areas.”
Miller explained that his decision is based on what he determines to be in the best interests of the students and the men and women who have to drive those school buses.
Winter weather means slower bus service and at times a decision to cancel the service.
Many of the buses he explained have several runs – and if they are late completing one run the students are left standing in the cold for as much as half an hour while the bus drivers work with difficult roads.
So now you know – the decision gets made at the very top – and he gets that first call at about 5:30 in the morning.
By Staff
