ARC Tonight

I am hearing that there are some parents in the Jane/Finch area that are upset over the possibility of school closing here. They are forming some discussion groups and many plan to attend the ARC meeting tonight.  This area is not known for its activism and that is one reason that the Board is targeting it. Perhaps it is changing.

According to one member of the ARC, staff has not addressed where the all day kindergarten classes will fit into the grand plan. Will this put 14 year olds in portables?

The ARC is tonight 6:30 at Westview.

T’is the season to close schools.

Jane/Finch’s first ARC meeting is being held at Westview S.S., 6:30PM, on Wednesday the third and a few of us are getting ready for it.

We wonder why none of the meetings are being held in the targeted schools. Is it too hard to look upon the thing that they must pass sentence on?

We also have heard that this ARC meeting is a private one. That is even stranger.

This is supposed to be a community consultation process. However, the board has hand picked the members of the ARC and wants to set the ground rules for them behind closed doors.

Our position, now, is that no schools should close. I expect that the trustees and staff look askance upon us, perhaps a bit condescendingly, because we do not have all the facts or understand the rules. Fair enough.

Then why do they not bring us along with them by holding all meetings in public?

Since there is no mention in the euphemistically titled Better Schools, Brighter Futures letter that they distributed to the community, I intend to be a member of the public on Wednesday.

Come join us.

ARCs can be and are ignored

The separate board is also involved in its own holly war to close small schools. I admit that I am not following them all that closely because I have fundamental problem with the two board system but they are under the same pressures from the province.

Just look at what is happening to St. Catherine according to this Mirror article. The ARC did not agree to close the school even though it has only 150 students. But the board staff knows better and has recommended closing it.

So why hold an ARC when you plan to ignore heir recommendations if you do not gree with them? Well the Province wants boards to have one when they close a school. But the rules never say that the staff or the board will have to listen to them.

As far as the community is concerned, ARCs give them an oppertunity to organize around the issue and fight it. But if that fight remains inside the ARC, then it is clearly powerless. The real meetings happen in peoples living rooms, on the street and in the press.

The article also points out that the school property is very saleable. They estimate that they could make over two million dollars if it is sold to a developer. Located near Lawrence and the Don Valley Expressway it is prime real estate.

Herein lies the real agenda. Soon that land will be covered in townhouses that will generate profits many times the selling price of the school land. And the community will have lost limited green space.

There is also no gurentee that the board will use the cash generated in that community. It has a lot of capital needs that could gobble up the money.

Next week the board will decide on St. Catherine’s fate. Don’t hold your breath that the community will win.

Pick me – no way

I just found this quote in a Toronto Sun Article (2nd November 2009)  that shows how school staff want to change community attitudes to school closing.

“When we finish this first series of (ARCs),” said Daryl Sage, the board’s director of strategy and planning, “as challenging as they will be, when people see the reinvestment of money I wouldn’t be surprised if communities will come forward and say, ‘Pick me next.’”

More than wishful thinking, this is the actual political agenda. He is promising that when a school closes in a community, the replacement school will be such a welcome change that other communities will want the same thing to happen to them.

But what if the board dose not build the ’school of the future’ for their kids?

What if the board uses the cash that they get from selling the local school site to a developer who will build profitable townhouses on the greespace to pay for the tens of hundreds of million dollars of needed repairs to the buildings that it has now?

How happy will that community be? Might they not feel betrayed in stead of enthused?

And will the residents a few blocks over start begging for the same treatment?

I think not.

But Mr. Sage puts out the board political line. He may even believe it. He might just be surprised at the reaction.

Do you?

Location, location, location

If the board gets away with closing some community schools in the poorer neighbourhoods of the city like Jane/Finch as it is trying to do now for politically convenient reasons how can it benefit financially beacuse as the People for Education Report on school closing wisely states, schools are closed for financial reasons not pedagogical ones you might ask.  (sentence too long for a blog)

I would.

After all, think of a couple of empty school sites next to the infamous high rises of the corridor.

Not very marketable.

Perhaps they could get the city to pave them over and build more affordable housing in the land of affordable housing but in that case the board would not get top dollar for their efforts.

No, the board is not looking for a short term profit here. It is thinking ahead.

Closing sites anywhere in the city psychologically will start the political ball rolling.

“Look,” they will say to Willowdale, “if the poorer people can make these sacrifices, why can’t you.”

As well, the more K-8 schools there are, in the city, the more pressure there will be to create others that fit the pattern.

That is what happened when North York decided junior highs were out and middle schools were in.

So the first fight against this agenda of manufacturing consent for communities to agree to act against their own interests will happen in the areas of the city less able to defend themselves.

But, perhaps, the board and the trustees will find that this is not such an easy nut to crack.

Lets keep an open mind

Chair Campbell has asked residents of the Heathercrest Park area to “keep an open mind.” and I would support him in this sentiment.

The only problem is that an “open mind” could work both ways.

He would like the crowd to go away and rest assured that their betters, the trustees and staff of the TDSB, will make all the right decisions. While we are all doing that, he gets to attend meetings of the Toronto Lands Corporation, as a board member, which is set up to sell school lands no matter what.

But what if this community and others kept their mind open in ways that did not trust the trustees? What if they used their little gray cells to formulate methods to stop the board and the province from closing schools and selling the land period?

The ARC process cuts the city into isolated chunks to manipulate residents and parents into accepting school closures. But these chunks have a lot in common with each other.

What if they got together and set an agenda of their own just like the staff and trustees of the board have done?

They could be quite a large force advocating for the preservation of small community schools and public property.They could disrupt meetings of the board and the TLC, calmly at first, with questions about their motivations. They could hold their MPPs accountable for this rape of public assets that is being promoted.

What if?

Thanks for the plan John.

What a timeline

The board is moving on a lot of school areas this year in spite of the election next year. But I think that they are thinking strategically. They must move on this because of the pressure from the province’s formula and because this is part of their Margret Thacher neo-liberal belief system.

So they decided to pick on the economically working class areas of the city because their ability to resist is less than say Willowdale.

If they could close 10 school sites by next June and they do not loose many trustees in the November election, then there will be a momentum to closes schools in the more affluent areas and they will be four years away from any retribution.

But what if this sparks some real interest in the board elections.

This could be interesting.

If you want to resist this maniacal sell off of our school lands, consider joining the Campaign for Public Education.

 

Trustees sell land only at their peril

Have a look at this article on Heathercrest Park. Etobicok Board bought the land and decided not to build a school three decades ago and is used as a community park.

Now that it is in the greedy hands of the Toronto Lands Corporation, residents are miffed that it could be turned into townhouses.

Chair Campbell, one of the most enthusiastic advocates of selling off school lands, had to face down his constituents on the issue. He wants residents to “keep an open mind” on the issue. What does that mean?

Does he think that these people have closed minds on this issue. I thought the board was the one with a closed mind here: they want to sell community property as quickly as possible.

Well, in one year’s time there will be an election and heads have rolled for lessor issues than this.

It is hard to unseat an incumbent but not impossible.

Watch out John.

P4E report worth reading

People for Education has a new school closing report and it is worth reading.

It points out that the main reason that board’s are closing schools is based on the provincial school funding formula not good pedagogy.

It does miss the point in Toronto where the board expects to sell off 40-50 school sites after it closes the community based schools on them. I supposed this to is a funding formula issue too since this is going to be done to pay for capital expenses that the formula should but does not cover.

But alas, P4E lives up to its milk-toast political agenda and does not propose any effective actions beyond some wording about community hubs that the province is not going to fund.

Political action will have to be taken mainly on the street level.

Protesting today a closed school ten years ago

A Protest at the School Programs Committee of the board 5050 Yonge St. 5:30 PM by the  Queen’s Plate Drive Parents and Community

Here is their message:

A Message to the Media
From 900, 910, 930 Queen’s Plate Drive Parents and Community

Please speak to the Toronto District School Board for us

In May 1999, the Toronto District School Board removed our children from their neighbourhood school, Humberwood Downs Junior Middle School, and forced them to attend Elmbank Middle School, which then added a junior school program. Elmbank was much further away and across very dangerous roads. This move has badly hurt our children and our community, as you will see from our attached presentation to the School Programs Committee, which we hoped to put forward on November 11, 2009.

Over the last 10 years we have protested the move the best we could, but most of us were new to Canada, we hardly spoke English at all, and we had few resources to understand or to fight the school system we experienced.

We are now trying to bring our problem to the Toronto Board but without success. We have been turned down in our request to speak to the School Programs Committee. They told us our problem was going to be handled “locally.” For us, that has stopped being a solution.

Our problem has been handled “locally” for a decade now, and nothing has changed for our children. Their situation may, in fact, have gotten worse.

Please help us tell our story. We will be on the steps of the Toronto District School Board at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, November 11 – a half an hour before the School Programs Committee meets – to tell you what has happened to our children and to answer any of your questions. We will then go to the School Programs Committee and pass out our presentation, with the hope that at least some of the trustees will pay attention.

We hope you will join us.

Hibo Hagi-Nur and Abdullah Wardhare
Co-Chairs 900, 910, 930 Queen’s Plate Drive Parents and Community
Contact: Phone: (416) 679-9568, Email: hhaginur@hotmail.com