So one day you get a call from the principal. Nothing to worry about he says. Johnny hasn’t done anything wrong. Just a change in policy.

“The school board is taking a new approach that’s going to be fairer to all students,” he says when you meet. “Johnny’s a star player on our school’s hockey team. But we’ve realized there aren’t enough girls playing hockey. And not everyone can try out – some parents can’t afford the equipment. So we’re doing away with the competitive hockey program. We think Johnny will get just as much out of regular gym class.”

“Our experts say athletically gifted kids do just as well whether or not they get to play at a competitive level.”

Could this happen? Probably not in Canada. But watch out, because it’s exactly the reasoning that the Ottawa Carleton District School Board would use to close down most gifted classrooms from Grades 1 to 8. I shake my head when I hear these arguments. I was a gifted student and have raised two more. Let’s debunk these arguments one by one.

Regular gym class: The idea is that intellectually gifted students do just as well academically in a regular classroom. (In fact, the research says the opposite.) Johnny’s already good at hockey, so won’t he be okay in gym class while the rest of the kids catch up? Can’t he still aim for a career in the NHL – later on? The problem is that talent doesn’t get you very far without hard work. Playing at your level, you face challenges, persevere, improve, sometimes fail and try again. For all the hockey moms and dads with a talented player, I don’t think I have to belabour this point.

Not enough girls: The OCBSD wants to completely shut down Grades 1 to 4 gifted classrooms, in part because they attract more boys than girls. When kindergarten kids get frustrated, boys are more likely to act out and misbehave, while girls tend to internalize their feelings. What frustrates some kids? Being in a school environment where they don’t fit in and are bored because they have no intellectual challenge. If they misbehave (boys), adults pay attention and get them educational testing.

I’m proud to be the mom of a young woman who graduated from a gifted program and is now excelling in math studies at the University of Waterloo. We need more women in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and math). The obvious solution? Do more screening of girls in the early years. They too could benefit from an early gifted program.

It’ll be fairer to everyone: Canadians love an appeal to fairness. So do I. Some argue that gifted programs take resources away from the regular classroom. But teachers who have hands-on experience can tell you that not only is it tough to support a gifted kid in a regular classroom – answering an endless stream of questions and providing more challenging work – but doing so actually takes their time and attention away from the rest of their students.

Unfair access: Because of long waiting lists for psychoeducational assessments provided by the school board, many parents pay out of pocket for testing. But if income is a barrier, the Board should provide anyone who can’t afford it with proper assessment. Would we deny kids testing for learning disabilities? Then we shouldn’t restrict it for intellectual ability.

Saving money: The school board should be clearer about how money will be saved by integrating gifted students into regular classrooms. They’ll still be educating the same number of students. The Board says its current proposal will save $305,500 on a budget of $865 million – 1/28 of a percent.

Why does it matter? In the next 15 years, over 6 million baby boomers could retire in Canada. The more we can help kids reach their full potential, the better Canada will be able to compete, not only in hockey leagues, but in the world.

Eva Schacherl is an Ottawa writer

Many of the 10,000 intermediate and high school students in Ottawa who are given OC Transpo bus passes might lose them next year.

That’s the warning from the school-bus authority responsible for transporting students in the Ottawa English-language public and Catholic school boards. City council voted Wednesday to raise the price of youth bus passes by $3.50 to $87.75 a month.

The increase will push the cost of buying OC Transpo passes so high that it will be cheaper to provide yellow school buses to transport many students, said Vicky Kyriaco, the general manager of the Ottawa Student Transportation Authority.

The authority will switch “as many students as possible” to yellow buses next school year, Kyriaco said in an interview. The OC Transpo price increase goes into effect Jan. 1.

The school bus authority now spends $7.8 million a year on bus passes for about 10,000 students in Grades 7 to 12. Losing some of that money would be a financial blow to OC Transpo.

Kyriaco and several school board trustees say the bus-pass increase will hurt both students and the environment. Adding more yellow buses would increase traffic and pollution.

Students don’t use their bus passes just to get to school, wrote Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee Theresa Kavanagh in an open letter to her constituents.

“A bus pass gives students independence, and it will be a financial blow to many Ottawa families that their son and daughter will no longer have this option to get around town for part-time jobs and after-school activities on their own.”

Encouraging high school students to use OC Transpo also helps nurture a new generation of transit users, said Kavanagh.

Parents should understand, her letter said, that if bus passes are gone next school year, it’s because the City of Ottawa, “without warning,” increased the prices. Some parents and students will be upset with the change, she said in an interview.

City councillor Mark Taylor fired back with his own letter.

“While I believe that there is value in having students experience the freedom and benefit of public transit, I am not sure that it is solely the city’s responsibility to encourage this. If the collective trustees of the boards believe in this value as well then perhaps the $3.50 cost per student is a worthy contribution on your part.”

Taylor, fellow councillors Keith Egli and Stephen Blais, and OC Transpo general manager John Manconi all said they were perplexed by the last-minute protest from the school-bus authority.

There is disagreement over whether the school-bus authority was told about the proposed fare increase before it was debated by the transit commission in June, but it has been public knowledge since then.

“They could have thrown down the flag and said, ‘Look, this is going to be a problem for us,’ ” said Taylor. “The business we are in, when people are concerned about something, you hear it early, and you hear it loudly. You don’t hear about it at the last minute, and kind of in a milieu of confusion.”

After Kyriaco brought her concerns to a city budget meeting last week, OC Transpo staff invited her to meet them early this week, said Manconi.

Kyriaco said she was unavailable to meet until Friday — two days after city council’s vote on the budget, which included the fare increase.

Manconi said he doesn’t want to get into a war of words with Kyriaco, but he was puzzled by her response. “If this was so urgent, and it was going to be such an impact …

“To this day I still don’t know what the issue is. And I can’t fix what I don’t know.”

Manconi said OC Transpo is glad to listen to her concerns. “And with listening and good communication, people can get innovative.

“The first question is going to be, help us understand what the issue is, and then we’ll go into solutions mode.”

Kyriaco said she didn’t ask to speak to OC Transpo staff after the transit commission recommended the fare increase in June because it would have been pointless. “To talk about it and do what, exactly? Go back to transit commission and say, ‘We goofed, let’s review what we said we are going to do with fares?'”

The school-bus authority has been talking to OC Transpo for years about the difficulties posed by increasing bus-pass costs, she said. “Why would we bring it up again to the same people that just presented a report (in June) without telling us? To me it’s really clear that they are not listening to what we have to say.”

Kyriaco said she could not meet earlier this week because she had appointments booked. “Is the expectation that we were going to drop everything to meet with OC Transpo?”

Besides, her understanding was that Transpo staff wanted to talk about “next steps”, not lowering the bus-pass rate, she said.

Kyriaco met with OC Transpo staff Friday, but nothing was immediately resolved. They shared information, and more meetings are planned, say both sides.

A controversial code of conduct that public school board trustees adopted to discipline each other for bad behaviour is about to get its first major test.

Trustee Christine Boothby has filed a formal complaint against Donna Blackburn, her outspoken colleague who had predicted that the code passed last spring would be used to silence her.

“I knew this was going to happen,” said Blackburn, who was notified Friday about the allegation that she violating the code by failing to act professionally and with decorum, not upholding the dignity of the office, and engaging in conduct that discredits or compromises the integrity of the board.

Boothby asked for a formal inquiry into Blackburn’s behaviour at a Ottawa-Carleton District School Board committee meeting Wednesday during a discussion about changes to the board’s program for gifted children. The special education advisory committee is made up of both volunteers and trustees.

Blackburn “publicly belligerently berated” the volunteer chair of the committee, Rob Kirwan, after he refused her request to add an item to the agenda, said Boothby’s complaint. Blackburn’s behaviour was intimidating and disrespectful, said the complaint. “I believe we need to demonstrate to our volunteers this type of behaviour will not be tolerated.” 

In an interview, Kirwan said that’s a fair characterization of Blackburn’s behaviour at the meeting. when she argued against his ruling on the issue. “She was totally and completely disrespectful.”

Intimidation is the wrong word, however, he said. “I’m not going to be intimidated by someone like Donna Blackburn. But I don’t have to put up with it, either. I’m a volunteer.”

Blackburn said she was trying to make sure the committee realized that trustees planned to debate a motion by Boothby next week asking for a halt to a review of the gifted program.

“I was just doing my job, plain and simple,” said Blackburn, adding that she didn’t swear. She got into trouble last year for using  profanity and calling fellow trustees “whackjobs,” for which she apologized.

“(Boothby) didn’t like what I had to say and how I said it, so now she is code of conducting me. This is beyond ridiculous.”

Boothby’s complaint kickstarts a process that starts with an investigation of the complaint by either the board chair and vice chair or an “outside consultant.”  The complaint and investigation are confidential until they go before the board to decide whether the code has been breached. The vote is taken at a public board meeting, and must have the support of two-thirds of trustees.

Penalties can include censure, barring the trustee from attending all or part of a board or committee meeting, or barring them from sitting on a board committee for a maximum of six months.

“There’s going to be a trial of some sort, whatever,” said Blackburn. “Does she think she is going to shut me up? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Blackburn says two informal complaints against her by fellow trustees have been resolved since April. They both involved e-mails she wrote, said Blackburn, although she declined to give details.

jmiller@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JacquieAMiller

It seems too illogical to be true: Ottawa’s English public school board is proposing a policy that would cut English-language instruction out of some elementary schools – barring kids from attending those neighbourhood schools unless they’re able, and willing, to learn in French.

It is a travesty for an English-language school board to prevent small children from attending their local, walkable public school, simply because those children need or want to study in their native language: English. It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that English is one of Canada’s two official languages; the official language of Ontario; and the operating language of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board itself.

Yet buried within the board’s blandly titled “school framework proposal” is a recommendation that would have the effect of turning some elementary public schools into French Immersion-only schools, if there are not enough children in a school’s English stream to form 1.5 classes per grade level. In these schools, all students from grades 1 to 6 would learn every subject – except for English and math – in French.

The proposal will be debated by the Board on Jan. 17, 2017, and come to a vote Jan. 31.

Let’s leave aside the question of how many children constitute “1.5 classes” – a number not defined in the document. That’s a technicality, and there’s no point wasting time in debating technicalities, when the whole principle behind this proposal is wrong-headed and legally questionable.

The Ontario Education Act does not give an English school board any legal mandate to create French Immersion-only schools.

The Act states that there are four types of schools: English-language public schools governed by an English-language public district school board; as well as French-language public schools,  English-language Roman Catholic schools, and French-language Roman Catholic Schools (all governed by their respective school boards).

There is no such thing in the Act as a French-language school governed by an English-language school board. And make no mistake: a school in which all children must learn all subjects except math and English in French is – from the point of view of the child’s learning experiences – a French-language public school.

The Act does state that the  education minister may “permit” an English board to establish French-language programs for English-speaking pupils. But the Board can only do so “provided that programs in which English is the language of instruction are made available to pupils whose parents desire such programs for their children.”

In other words, the Act explicitly protects the rights of English-speaking children to go to school in English. The board needs to take its role as protector of English-language education more seriously, especially in schools where children in the English stream are now in the minority.

Data from Statistics Canada and the Toronto District School Board show that if English-language students are excluded from their neighbourhood public schools, the impact will be greatest on certain groups of children: boys, new immigrants and children from families of lower socio-economic status.

Excluding these children from their neighbourhood school contravenes the Ontario Education Act which states that “Every board shall … promote a positive school climate that is inclusive and accepting of all pupils, including pupils of any … place of origin (or) sex.”

The OCDSB’s own 2014-2015 annual report states that “there is a drop in the retention rate by Grade 8 for the Early French Immersion program, primarily due to students moving over to the English program.”

If the board creates exclusive French Immersion schools, children who do not thrive in French Immersion will be forced to change schools midway through their elementary education, and transfer to English-stream schools outside of their neighbourhoods, severing ties of friendship and community.

This is too high a price to make an English-speaking child pay for the perfectly reasonable desire to go to school in English.

 Kate Jaimet is an Ottawa writer.

Michael and Elaine Merker moved from Barrhaven to Kanata to be closer to the school where their two children are enrolled in classes for gifted students.

Now the family faces the prospect of losing the classes that have provided Jennifer, 10, and Erich, 8, with the specialized instruction their parents say has allowed them to thrive at school.

“We’re freaking out,” said Michael Merker, reflecting the sentiments of dozens of parents who have shown up at public school board meetings to lobby for the preservation of the special classes. A key vote arrives Tuesday when the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board considers a motion by trustee Christine Boothby to halt a review of the gifted program.

The board was poised to begin public consultations on a staff proposal to end specialized gifted classes for grades 1 to 4. Students would be moved into regular classrooms and given individual education plans. Older children would receive a mix of programs: the profoundly gifted and students with both a learning disability and giftedness would still have specialized classes, while other students would be integrated into regular classrooms but pulled out occasionally for enriched work.

A board report on the gifted program raised questions about the fairness of the specialized classes. They contain more boys than girls, and half the students gain entrance to them after their parents pay for private psychological tests. The board could also save money on buses if there were fewer specialized classes.

Reviews of several other programs were conducted last year. Specialized classes for students with learning disabilities were reduced, for example, and kindergartens were made bilingual.

Staff said the gifted program has not changed for decades. The focus on specialized classes at the Ottawa board goes against a trend across the province toward integrating students with special learning needs into regular classrooms.

But parents whose children are in the specialized classes are passionate about them. They have brought to board meetings emotional stories about how their children were bored, bullied and depressed in regular classrooms.

Merker says his daughter, Jennifer, started acting up in kindergarten, swinging like a monkey under her desk and disrupting the other children because she was bored. They had her privately tested, and by Grade 2 she was happily enrolled in a specialized class at John Young Elementary School in Kanata.

Teachers there are trained to challenge gifted children and deal with their personality quirks, says Merker. The school board provided a car and driver to transport Jennifer and a couple other students, and the trip took 30 to 40 minutes.

When their son, Erich, was also tested as gifted, Michael and Elaine made the difficult choice to move their family to Kanata, leaving friends and neighbours behind, in order to be closer to John Young Elementary.  “We always felt they should grow up in the neighbourhood of their school and have friends there,” says Michael.

If the proposal goes through, Erich, who is now in Grade 3, would no longer be in a specialized class, and chances are Jennifer wouldn’t be either unless she qualified as “profoundly” gifted.

Other parents who have appeared at board meetings suggest the board widen the definition of gifted so more children could be put into specialized classes, which would reduce busing costs.

Retired teacher William Morton told trustees that he had taught 2,800 gifted children in his career, and they need specialized instruction. Regular classroom teachers don’t have the time to teach gifted children at the depth they require, especially when classrooms are full of other needy children, he said.

Trustee Boothby, whose own daughter attended a gifted program in high school after she was teased in middle school for being smart, said she’s opposed to a review of the program because she’s heard loud and clear from parents who support the specialized classes.

Trustee Donna Blackburn said it would be anti-democratic for the board to react to pressure from some parents and cut off debate before the public is consulted. The board spent thousands of dollars hiring an outside expert to help compile the report, and staff have spent hundreds of hours on it, she said in an interview. “So we just throw it out the window?”

For years, the board has spent more on special education than the province provided in funding because it was able to draw on an accumulated surplus. But that surplus is now gone, and the board is under pressure to cut costs.

Money spent on busing gifted children to specialized classes could be used instead for educational assistants in regular classrooms and psychologists, which were trimmed in last year’s budget, said Blackburn.

jmiller@postmedia.com

twitter/com/JacquieAMiller

Climate change is the least of Kiribati’s problems

Re: Migration with Dignity, Dec. 17.

I found the article on Kiribati interesting. However, permit me to add a few details in the spirit of helping understand these issues. First, most of Kiribati’s GDP is mainly government revenue from tuna fishing licences to Japanese and American fleets; and over-fishing may destroy the economy long before climate change has any impact.

The worst pollution in Tarawa is the fine sandy dust thrown up by cars on the sole road, and lung disease is endemic. These flat islands are ideal for bicycles but people who can afford them love cars. The Chinese have just constructed a new road but the drainage was dropped from the project because the road went over budget, so it will likely be heavily damaged (and dusty) after one or two cyclone seasons.

The second-worst environmental problem is sanitation, to be precise, defecation directly into the lagoon. This is related to a lack of infrastructure but also to over-population. I think that 100,000 may be an exaggeration of the population numbers; but traditional fishing and small farming and a little tourism could reasonably support only a fraction of that number.

The government’s claims about extreme weather events being much more frequent, indeed hundreds of times more frequent, is not plausible. Flooded villages from cyclonic storms have always been a feature of island life. Climate change and rising sea levels will impact these very low-lying islands in the long run but the sustainability of the communities is threatened by more immediate problems.

I was also puzzled about the claims about decades of “slavery.” Really? I think it was the 1860s, not the 1960s, when “blackbird” labour was being kidnapped from the islands to work sugar plantations. Trafficking in girls, often underage, is a serious problem in the islands but not, to my knowledge, particularly in Kiribati.

Kenneth Watson, Ottawa

Show us where Kiribati is

Your article about Kiribati was fascinating. But surely, somewhere in the four pages, you could have included a small map showing readers exactly where the islands are in the South Pacific and their proximity to Australia and New Zealand. I found a perfect one online in less than 10 seconds. Couldn’t the Ottawa Citizen have done the same?

Shelagh Needham, Ottawa

It’s nonsensical to teach French so badly

Re: Don’t cut the English stream from Ottawa’s English schools, Dec. 20.

As a francophone reading Kate Jaimet’s article, I agree completely. Speaking a secondary language (and several others if possible) is very useful for anyone who wishes to travel internationally, do commerce, enjoy the diversity of other cultures, understand politics and how the world works; speaking the second official language is very useful for obtaining employment in our country. But no secondary benefit should outweigh the necessity of mastering one official language as the mother tongue. Jaimet is absolutely right.

In English-unilingual Ottawa, many Anglophone parents recognize the need for their children to learn French and attempt to register them in French immersion programs. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board spends a lot of our tax money to teach French, but yet it is most discouraging for Francophones like me to observe how little our high school graduates bother to speak French and how poorly they do speak, after having learned it for many years.

The real problem is how badly French is taught in English public schools. In Canada, we are proud to speak “Québec French,” although using the universal French vocabulary. We do not much like the spoken accent of Frenchmen, we do not like their fancy words, and we get along perfectly well with a simpler grammar (no subjunctive please!) French Canadians do very well in international French circles. But, for some stupid reason (I should say for misplaced elitist aspiration), we buy school textbooks from France, we force pupils to study texts from renowned French authors, but we ignore our own colourful Québec authors (and also from other provinces), while also starving Canadian publishers of French language books.

We are shooting ourselves in the foot! It is therefore not surprising that the OCDSB states that “there is a drop in the retention rate by Grade 8 for the Early French Immersion program.” The students are not stupid: by age 15 or so, they realize that they have wasted a lot of time learning a language that does not match what they are hearing around them. They have often been taught by Anglophone teachers who have not even been able to show them how to pronounce correctly. That French is like the Latin and Greek that I studied in high school: dead.

The OCDSB has to turn toward Québec for authors, books and language style; it has to start training its teachers to teach French as a living Canadian language. It has to stop wasting our children’s time and my money!

Richard Asselin, Ottawa

Why did this language training take so long?

Re: Second senior NRC exec goes on leave; Language skills training cited, Dec. 16.

As a strong believer in minority language rights and official bilingualism, I was dismayed to read of a senior government executive going on full-time language training five years after being appointed to the position. The article makes no mention of how the executive is supposed to have fulfilled his responsibilities without meeting such a basic job requirement as bilingualism for so long, or of what efforts, if any, were undertaken to improve the executive’s second-language skills while on the job. Nor does it mention how close the executive may be to retirement age.

Perhaps the most disconcerting statement in the article is that the executive’s absence in this case “is part of normal training.” The situation as described should be anything but normal more than 40 years since the adoption of the Official Languages Act. Such reports give official bilingualism a bad name and undermine the tremendous benefits of a federal public service that respects linguistic equality.

David Phillips, Wendover

Please speak out to help Aleppo

In 2016, Christmas Eve and Chanukah both fall on the evening of Dec. 24. It’s a time when people of each faith think about “Light in the darkness.”‎ Message themes in our synagogues and churches focus on helping and healing, new birth and transformation, giving and generosity, miracles and meaning. And, yet, in a city half a planet away, the people of Aleppo see only darkness. If we can do anything to help them – at this special time of year – we can urgently pick up a pen and paper and send a message of concern and compassion to government and world leaders, including the United Nations, urging them to step in and stop the murders and carnage. Isn’t it time we all begin making meaningful change to our world?  

Mark Dickinson, Stittsville

Aleppo is our modern-day Nanking

Re: We are disgraced, Dec. 15.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. A cliché, no doubt, but it contains a lot of truth. Terry Glavin held a mirror to our collective selves and we should be ashamed.

Aleppo is the 21st century’s Nanking. In the 1930s, when Japan invaded Manchuria and went on into China, the League of Nations failed to act and showed itself impotent. As a result, the Japanese laid siege to Nanking, then captured and began the slaughter of innocents. The West did nothing.

Fast-forward to 2014-2016. The United Nations failed to act because the Security Council was trapped by the permanent members’ veto. Russia would not let anything interfere with its puppet, Bashar Assad. The West only blustered and whined that a tragedy was occurring, but no one would take action. President Barack Obama said he drew a line in the sand over chemical weapons, but when Assad crossed it, Obama failed to act, opening the door for Vladimir Putin and his desire to be a major power in the Middle East. 

The West has now lost credibility in the region and Russia is on the rise. It could be the 1930s all over again. Peace is not the goal at any price. Assad and Saddam Hussein were and are evil men who need to be deposed. They kept their people in slavery, arresting and torturing their citizens. Peace cannot be a goal if it means that humanity is destroyed and humans are enslaved. 

Aleppo should be the West’s badge of shame, and the rallying cry should be “never again,” but politicians for the most part are not statesmen and I very much doubt that Aleppo will be the last atrocity. I doubt that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or President Donald Trump will act, and the next attack could very well be the Baltic States or the overrun of the Ukraine. What then?

Ian Moffat, Cdr (Ret’d) RCN, Ottawa

Be careful with crime statistics

Re: The media focus on the homicide meter, but the running total is not the story, Dec. 16, and Stop telling us that Ottawa is a safe city, Dec. 16.

I read these two articles with interest. The first, by Kelly Egan, says that despite the near-record number of murders this year, Ottawa is still considered a safe city. He cites Ron Melchers, a professor of criminology, who explains that simple statistics such as the number of murders do not tell the story. Prof. Melchers then goes on to say that making policy changes based on a simple statistic is “a dumb thing people do.”

A few pages later, Mohammed Adam writes “Stop telling us Ottawa is a safe city” and does what the expert warns about: he cites the simple statistic of the number of murders, then advocates for more CCTVs across the city. I guess the professor knows what he’s talking about.

David Johnston, Ottawa  

Let’s thank those who help seniors

Re: Ontario is failing to care for sick and dying seniors, Dec. 22.

After reading Randall Denley’s report, I had to write. I am living at Bruyère Village, where the most caring folks are working hard all of the time to make sure we’re not facing what the Szmigielskis are going through.

Yes, there is a huge shortage of  these establishments. But as for the ones that are presently trying to fix this problem, please give them credit. Let’s try to achieve this goal for all Ontarians.

From one who is darn lucky and knows it,

Francine Durand, Ottawa

Let’s not rush to judge the less fortunate

Re: Letters, Dec. 15.

I would like to respond to the letter-writer who described seeing a woman begging in front of the Rideau Centre. She commented that the woman wasn’t even holding her begging cup, in favour of working her phone. 

I teach at Nepean High School, and I read this letter to my Grade 12s. They were shocked and saddened that there is still such judgment towards people on the street.

Phones are often the only method of communication a street person has in order to juggle their lives. I would encourage the writer to consider this before she throws her next stone.

Gwen Smid, Wakefield

Reasons to applaud Arctic oil exploration ban 

Re: New oil exploration banned in Arctic, Dec. 22.

The recent decision by Canada and the United States to ban new oil and gas exploration in the Arctic should be applauded by northern residents and all Canadians. The toxic legacy of drilling waste from exploration in the 1960s through 1980s underscores the need for this ban.

From 1999 to 2004, I studied the ability of permafrost to contain drilling waste in the Canadian Arctic, finding that more than 25 per cent of the sumps failed to contain their toxic waste. Permafrost is more permeable than some might believe. My studies and those of others clearly show that heavy metals and hydrocarbons can — and do — migrate through permafrost into adjacent ecosystems, lakes and rivers. Warming temperatures will further increase the number of sump failures.

The lessons learned from past resource development in the Arctic show that any future development must be evidence-based. Fortunately, our government’s approach to science-based policy development will lessen the likelihood of more toxic legacies such as those already witnessed in Canada’s Arctic.

Thomas L. White, PhD, Ottawa

Trustee shouldn’t insult others

Re: Trustees’ War Of Words, Dec. 22.

I think trustee Donna Blackburn should be taken to task for her continuous outlandish comments. She is an elected official and her personal  comments attacking Chris Ellis and Erica Braunovan are not in her terms of  employment. Any personal problems she may have had should never have a bearing on the quality of her current job. Do what you were elected to do and quit publicly slighting your fellow trustees with profanity-laden texts!

Rick Dowd, Orléans

Project will hit several neighbourhoods hard

Re: New Edinburgh Gets the Shaft, Dec. 12.

Kelly Egan’s article rightly notes that City Hall’s decision to turn our quiet neighbourhood into a massive quarry site has hit hard. 

Two points of clarification: Our objection is not the Combined Sewage Storage Tunnel (CSST). The project is important for the health of Ottawa’s rivers, and we knew it would require major construction work in the middle of New Edinburgh. Our argument is against the city’s decree to make Stanley Park the “staging area” (big hole) for all the tunnelling work.

This will effectively close a much-loved park for three years and cause traffic chaos. And there is an obvious alternative: LeBreton Flats at the other end of the tunnel. 

It is not just New Edinburgh that will be “shafted” if the proposal proceeds: Look out, Lindenlea, Manor Park and others! The only viable place for the estimated eight trucks per hour entering and exiting Stanley Park with rocks and muck from the tunnel is Beechwood/Hemlock – which is already gridlocked. 

This massive tunnelling project shouldn’t be in anyone’s backyard – ours included – when there are options available.

Victoria Walker, Ottawa

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is contemplating changes to how it deals with gifted students. Bruce Mullen, who taught for 40 years, offers his perspective:

As a teacher of high school students, I was lucky enough to have taught some remarkably gifted students. I taught students who could read in junior kindergarten, or play hockey or ski beautifully at the age of five or memorize a list of 50 or more unrelated words in order in seconds. I once “coached” Charmaine Hooper, who was voted the best women soccer player in the world, and I “coached” Larry Robinson, the great Montreal Canadian, in both football and track.

My Grade 12 mathematics club team placed second in Canada in both the Grade 12 and 13 Canadian Mathematics Championships in the same year.

As a kid, I was in the same class as our great Olympic skier, Anne Heggtveit, and as a high school coach, I took Ray Takahashi, our Olympian wrestler, to some high school tournaments.

I have known gifted kids. To be honest, none of the gifted athletes whom I coached or taught became great because of me. They did it on their own. Really gifted kids are like that.

BACKGROUND: School board delays controversial changes to special classes for gifted children

I have also taught kids in high school who were complete failures on high school tests, who, nevertheless, became very successful adults. Clearly, schools do not measure all that is important in life. Life does not have a 20-year-old finish line in which we declare who wins and who doesn’t.

We all grow physically, emotionally, spiritually and academically at different rates. Too many teachers and parents do not know this. Teachers should teach their academic lessons, certainly, but most importantly they should provide all their students with every opportunity to learn what is most important in life. They should provide all their kids in school with a “stage” in which to learn their important tools and their passions for life.

In view of the wonderful opportunities that now lie outside of school, on the internet and in the community for all of us to learn science, geography, politics, dance, music, sports and  every subject far beyond the classroom, I think the best thing we parents and teachers can do for our kids of all abilities is to teach at home and at school, to be empathetic, kind, adventuress, imaginative, honest, confident, hard-working adults.   

We should not worry about academic achievements of the gifted. The truth is that most of us do not have the skills, knowledge or ability to help the truly gifted kids very much other than to make them aware of the resources that they can find in their community, in their library and online. Most importantly, we adults should give all our kids the support, awareness and encouragement for their doing whatever they seek to learn.

For example,  there are dozens of  Canadian, American and international mathematics contests held every month for all students, gifted or otherwise, and for all ages and grades in school in which both the lessons and contests can be found on the internet. 

That said, the gifted must learn that their being gifted is no guarantee of success as an adult. Life has no guarantees.

I think the most important lessons in life are taught far better in a school that is filled with students of all gifts, of all religions, of all races, of all colours of all opinions. In view of the fact that most high schools have only one hockey goalie, one lead trumpet player, one head boy or girl, one debating champion, and so on, I think it makes no sense to place 400 or more gifted students in one school and thus reduce the opportunity for these kids to learn how to lead, how to communicate, how to inspire others and how to interact with students of all abilities.

Telling everyone you meet that you are gifted or that your child is gifted is a handicap that should not be placed on any student.

Bruce Mullen lives in Ottawa.

About 170 people braved the snow Tuesday night to make their case to the public school board to save their neighbourhood schools.

Parents and teachers at the public meeting to discuss proposed school closures in the west end of Ottawa made passionate arguments on behalf of most of the seven schools on the hit list.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is considering closing Regina, Leslie Park, Grant and Century, all small English elementary schools with declining enrolment, as well as Greenbank, J.H. Putman and D.A. Moodie middle schools. There would also be widespread program changes.

A teacher from Century PS said the school has many new immigrants whose parents don’t own cars and would find it difficult to get to the school for meetings with teachers or to take kids to appointments if their children were bused to a school out of the neighbourhood.

“I’m really disappointed that community schools are not important to you,” said one parent, her voice breaking.

Other parents were concerned that the complicated programming changes would result in siblings being forced to attend different schools.

Staff said they are taking all the comments into consideration, and considering various options.

Changes are expected to the initial proposals when staff present a final report at the end of the month. 

jmiller@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JacquieAMiller

Ottawa public school trustees have agreed to revise a report that some parents feared would lead to the loss of neighbourhood schools that offer both English and French immersion programs.

Parents at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board meeting Tuesday said they oppose consolidation of English programming into specialized schools.

The popularity of French immersion in the board has led to declining enrolment in the English program.

The board is debating a plan that will guide the organization of elementary schools. The document has alarmed some parents who said the language favoured consolidation. After a flurry of amendments by trustee Shawn Menard, trustees agreed to revise the language in the report to reflect the importance of maintaining multi-track schools whenever possible. They were sitting as a committee of the whole, and make a final decision at the next board meeting.

Several parents made impassioned pleas on behalf of neighbourhood schools that offer both French immersion and English programs.

“We teach our children inclusiveness, and single-track schools do not represent the ideals of diversity and accessible education for all, ” said Susan Dallin O’Grady, who has a daughter in French immersion and a son in the English program at Hopewell Avenue Public School.

It would be more difficult and stigmatizing for a child like her son to switch from French immersion to English if he had to leave his neighbourhood school, she said. 

The board report says it’s important that enrolment in any program is large enough to allow flexibility in arranging classrooms, and for teachers in the same program and grade to collaborate with teach other. Those goals are not possible at many dual-track schools that have small English programs.

Most elementary school principals “overwhelmingly” support consolidation of English schools, said Heather Graham, who appeared on behalf of the principals.

The grade and class configurations are a “big problem” at schools that have tiny English programs, she said. For instance, at her Kanata school, at the beginning of the year there was only one student enrolled in the English program in Grade 1, and 12 students in Grade 2, leading to a split class of 13 students.

At Rockcliffe Park Public School, 75 per cent of the students are enrolled in French immersion. But the parent council and the Rockcliffe Park Residents Association both urged trustees to maintain the school’s English program.

“Rockcliffe Park Public School has operated with a small English Program for years and parents have indicated that they would choose a smaller program size over having to send their children to a school further away,” said a brief from the parent council.

The school’s students include children of foreign diplomats who live in the neighbourhood and of parents who work in the foreign service who might be working out of the country for years at a time. Those children often aren’t eligible for French immersion, which begins either in Grade 1 or Grade 4.

The same issue cropped up among parents concerned about school closures and associated program changes.

The board is considering, for instance, closing J. H. Putnam middle school and sending some of the students to Agincourt PS, which would become a single-track school offering French immersion.

Every school should offer both French immersion and English programs, Melanie Newell told trustees.

“This would prevent segregation, keep neighbourhoods and families together, reduce commute times, save money on busing, and provide us with community schools.”

jmiller@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JacquieAMiller

Many thanks to Citizen reporter Jacquie Miller for her Jan. 14 article finally showing clearly what the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is either too duplicitous or too cowardly to say themselves: The closures of schools in the west end are about money. 

For months, parents have endured endless doublespeak and claptrap about how this is in fact about saving our children from “transitions” and how cramming more grades into fewer schools – even if it means further filling schools that are already teaching kids in those dreadful portables – is going to be so much better for our children.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has all along presented these closures under a veil of improvements for the children. They presented a long and technical literature review claiming to prove that transitions are bad, and Kindergarten-to-grade-8 or grade 7-to-12 models are better than models with an intermediate step through middle school. For this reason, they want to close J.H. Putman Public School, a middle school at 103 per cent of capacity, and move its students into Agincourt, currently a K-5 that is at 103 per cent of capacity. 

Yes, close a full school and overfill an already full school. That was the original proposal. The temporary stay of execution for J.H. Putman that the Citizen cites was only proposed after parents pointed out this obvious absurdity.

We have carefully examined the entire literature review report, and obtained and read several of the key academic studies cited. All of these reports, if read carefully, offer no support for the board’s claims. The board’s review regularly takes quotes from the literature out of context, or interprets results its own way when the original authors are much more cautious. 

Presumably, the original authors understand such subtleties as a lack of statistical significance when two measured effects differ by less than the margin of error. The original authors would also see the need to control for other variables; anyone with the vaguest awareness of the American education system surely knows that comparing an inner city American middle school to a rich suburban K-8 is probably not a meaningful test of anything. 

We have also read a Toronto School Board Report asking essentially the same questions. It cites many of the same key articles, yet comes to a different conclusion: transitions are not the issue. What is important is that we MUST adequately fund and resource enriching programs for all children, while hand-wringing about transitions is a red herring and distraction from the uncomfortable fact that we don’t. 

Here is a direct quote from the work of Brynes and Ruby at Johns Hopkins University, one of the key so-called “supporting” documents from the OCDSB’s farcical review: “A K-8 conversion policy alone does not represent a silver bullet reform for closing the achievement gap and improving student achievement, and administrators must ask themselves if such a massive reform is truly worth the resources given the likely impacts.” Brynes and Ruby, it seems, would not stand in the OCDSB’s corner on this issue.

The reality is that J.H. Putman school is a full and successful school. The fact that is it full largely of kids from poor and immigrant families only makes that success more impressive. Many of these kids probably never get any opportunity for music or arts programs outside of school, and yet J.H. Putman sees an average of seven kids per year accepted to Canterbury’s arts programs – the most from any school in the west end.  J.H. Putman school works just fine, transitions or not. This is about money, plain and simple. The OCDSB should stop wasting our time and even more of our money trying to pretend it is otherwise.

Granda Kopytko is J.H. Putman school’s parent representative for the Western Area Review Committee. Ron Miller is a concerned parent.

Since an axe was suspended over eight Ottawa public schools this fall, parents and students have mobilized to save them from closure. They’ve fired off emails, composed poems and songs, held hands at pep rallies, packed public meetings, picked apart statistics, enlisted support from community groups, and made passionate pleas to trustees at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

Board staff considered the comments, and released final reports on Friday. The conclusion? Eight schools should close. The reports recommend some changes to the complicated web of programs, boundary and grade configuration changes that will accompany school closures. For example, staff changed the initial plan to switch programs at Lakeview and Bells Corners schools, busing children out of their neighbourhoods. And while they say Century PS should still close, they agreed that children should not be split up and redirected to two different schools.

Staff listened to suggestions from parents, said Jennifer Adams, the board’s director of education. But the board has to ensure that money is spent on pupils, not empty spaces in schools, she said. 

Only one school received a brief reprieve. J.H. Putman Intermediate School should not close until an addition can be built to house some of those students at Agincourt elementary, the reports say. 

Rideau High School remains on the hit list, with staff not altering the opinion that it’s not financially viable or fair to students to keep the half-empty school open. They suggest the students be moved to Gloucester High School, which is also less than half-full.

It’s up to the politicians now. They start debating in February and make a final decision in early March. The last school closure in the board was in  2015, when the doors shut on Munster Elementary and its 58 students.

Three of the schools on the closure list — Regina Street, Century and Leslie Park — are small English-program schools where enrolment has dwindled as the popularity of French immersion soars. 

A dejected Heather Amundrud, who helped organize parents at Regina Street to save their school, says there is “still hope, but it’s fading.”

“It’s really disappointing, given all the work that parents and the community put into giving their opinions, that they just went ahead and recommended the same thing they they did in (September), pretty much.

“What a bunch of baloney.”

Also on the hit list are Grant Alternative and three middle schools, a configuration the board wants to eliminate.

Part of the plan is to expand three high schools in the west end to include grades 7 to 12. The board will spend $11.1 million to renovate them to include separate wings, yards and entrances for the younger students.

The board is trying to balance where buildings are located and space is needed. In the west end of the city, for example, there are an extra 3,837 pupil spaces spread among the 26 schools that were part of the study. 

For parents, it’s hard to put a number on the value of a neighbourhood school. 

“I learn more of my son’s life and friends in the five minutes before and after school when I collect him than I ever would collecting him from a bus when he has spent the day in a neighbourhood I do not know and neither does he,” said parent Fran Kakegamick, whose son attends Regina Street PS, in one of the many heartfelt submissions to trustees over the last five months. “We walk home in a familiar surrounding with people we know and have known since he started school.”

Here’s a rundown of the schools still on the chopping block:

Bassett Lawang (L), Brian Spencer (Red Hat) and Ferni Jimenez (R), Grade 5 students of Regina Street Public School in Ottawa, trek through Mud Lake as part of their learning curriculum.

Regina Street PS

Enrolment:  146

How full: 49 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure. Students would be redirected to D. Roy Kennedy, with the autism class going to Woodroffe Avenue PS.

Parents at this feisty little school believed they had Mother Nature on their side. The school backs onto Mud Lake Conservation Area, and teachers use it as an extra classroom. The lessons kids learn from birds, plants and wildlife at Mud Lake are incorporated into everything from art and science to music. The parent council worked with the University of Ottawa Education Faculty on an ambitious proposal to turn Regina into an outdoor education “lab school” for student teachers and board staff, and raised the possibility of generating revenue with a forest and nature preschool, summer eco-camps and offices for an NGO. 

The school has many low-income parents who would be hurt by the loss of a walkable school, said parents. There is also a day-care in the building. Staff rejected the idea of boosting enrolment by adding a middle French immersion program, saying that would not solve the problem of too many pupil spaces among schools in the area.

Century PS

Enrolment: 229

How full: 52 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure, with Century students moved to Carleton Heights PS.

Century boasts children from 50 countries of origin. More than half of the students are just learning English, including 50 Syrian refugees. 

Most immigrant parents won’t show up at the school board office on Greenbank Road in the evening to give a presentation, says parent Gemma Nicholson. She says the school board consultations, consciously or not, discriminated against parents who aren’t as able to launch lobby campaigns.

She organized an information meeting at the school earlier this week. Rukhsana Hussain attended with her son, nine-year-old Syed Hameem. They arrived in Ottawa from Pakistan last October. The teachers are kind, and Syed feels welcome at Century PS, said his mom. “I pray to guard this school.”

Staff rejected the idea of keeping the school open, but agreed that students should all be redirected to one school rather than split up as initially proposed.

Leslie Park

Enrolment: 125

How full: 43 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure, with students redirected to Briargreen PS, and the autism class to Woodroffe Avenue PS.

Some parents at the school argued that small schools are valuable, particularly in neighbourhoods that have low-income or disadvantaged children.

Leslie Park also has the advantage of a huge playground backing onto parkland.

Others were concerned about shipping the kids to Briargreen, an open-concept school that would not be a suitable learning environment for some children. Parent Jeff Elzinga says closing the school would be short-sighted, as younger families are moving into the neighbourhood and new housing developments are under way. Staff rejected the idea of adding middle French immersion to boost enrolment, saying that would simply create low enrolment elsewhere.

Grant Alternative

Enrolment: 93

How full: 38 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure, with students redirected to Churchill Alternative School

Enrolment in the board’s alternative schools has also been shrinking, and Grant has been hit hard. The school has a fiercely loyal band of parents who value the alternative ideals of parent involvement, child-centred learning, co-operation and teamwork among children of different ages.

The school already draws students from a wide area, and many take the bus. Some parents were concerned that the bus ride to Churchill Alternative would be longer for many students.

Three-year-old Tom Dulmage came out to a rally with his family to show support to keep J. H. Putman school open.

J.H. Putman

Enrolment: 321

How full: 94 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure, once an addition is built at Agincourt PS to house some of the EFI students. Some of the Putman EFI students would go to Woodroffe Avenue PS, while the English program students would go to Pinecrest PS. (As part of the package, programs offered at Severn Avenue, Woodroffe Avenue and Agincourt would all change.) 

J.H. Putman is full, but got caught up in the web of proposed changes among schools, and the board’s decision to get rid of middle schools.

The school has passionate supporters who say it provides a great launching pad for children before they head to high school. There are three bands and a dizzying array of clubs, from robotics to baking, recycling and Dungeons and Dragons. There’s a music room, a cafeteria, a gender-neutral washroom, and $10,000 worth of robotics and other technical equipment the school won in a Best Buy grant competition.

Students said they didn’t want to be sent back to Agincourt PS, an elementary school, which is already full, with portables in the yard. Staff propose building an addition at Agincourt. 

Greenbank Middle School

Enrolment: 378

How full:  69 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure. Most students would be redirected to Sir Robert Borden High School. 

Greenbank is another casualty of the move to eliminate middle schools. 

D. Aubrey Moodie Intermediate School

Enrolment: 351

How full:  70 per cent

What staff recommend: Closure, with student redirected to Bell High School 

A survey by the parent council at D. Aubrey Moodie showed 75 per cent of respondents did not want the school closed. However, there hasn’t been the same kind of high-profile lobby campaign that was launched by some of the other targeted schools. 

Some parents were worried about the students being moved to Bell High School, where they would share space with older students. The board says it will renovate Bell, but the work would probably not be done by the time students would move there in September 2017.

Rideau High School on St Laurent Boulevard narrowly escaped closure in 2009.

Rideau High School

Enrolment: 419

How full: 43 per cent

Offers:  Grades 9 to 12

Rideau High barely escaped closure in 2009, and the issues haven’t changed. The school offers a warm environment for its diverse students, boasting native studies courses, a multicultural prayer room and aboriginal lodge. But only 20 per cent of the high school students in the catchment area chose to go to there, and Rideau battles a reputation as a school that lacks academic excellence.

In a chicken-and-egg dilemma, board staff say low enrolment means they can’t offer the rich array of programs found at larger high schools, which further reduces Rideau’s appeal. Community groups say the school is a valuable centre — there are two daycares and ESL classes for adults — that would be a loss for the neighbourhood. Staff said the ESL classes and daycares will be moved to other locations.

My attachment to, and affection for, Rideau High School is enormous. So I beg your indulgence as I share some personal observations on the school’s past and future.

When the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board was formed, I was assigned to Rideau as principal. Afterwards, I served at Lisgar and Colonel By. It is said that much of a school’s reputation, good or bad, is undeserved. That was surely evident to me early in my tenure at Rideau. There were myths about the place,  and they had to be dispelled quickly.

First and foremost, the school was indeed entirely safe. An atmosphere of calm and respect for others, and for property, prevailed. I was once told by the superintendent of facilities that our school had the least amount of damage to property among high schools. I recall a drive to collect clothing for youth in Afghanistan. For weeks, expensive running shoes hung in the hallway within easy reach of all. Not one disappeared. 

I had often heard it lamented that far too many Rideau students were parents. In reality, Rideau was serving half of all the board’s students who were parents. The Ottawa Board of Education had identified the need for parenting centres and named Rideau and Woodroffe, for geographical reasons. Students would take a mandatory parenting class as part of their course load and their toddlers would get a head-start in life in the superb Child Care Centres.

I am not sure that the social stigma ever left.

Rideau was blessed with an incredible refurbishment in the 1990s, adding a beautiful dance studio, cooking classroom with professional accoutrements, superb gymnasia, a drama studio and a cooperative education centre. Not many schools in the board were so well equipped. Likely no school of this vintage is as well-preserved and serviceable as this one remains today. 

During my time, we transformed the library into the hub of the school, with students dismantling bookshelves, parents sewing, and staff re-upholstering. Together, we gathered rich resources for all curriculum areas, created a reading oasis for our toddlers, and acquired materials for the wider community. It still is a beacon library in the OCDSB.

How then, with all its strengths, does Rideau face (yet again) possible closure? While it is certainly understandable that schools should function at full or near capacity, it is less easy to understand which underpopulated school(s) should close. Things seem to be perennially stacked against Rideau despite its superior facility and its vibrant community.

If only all parents could see other children in the same light as they see their own, there might be less “siphoning off” of their children in search of a more homogeneous population. If this were the case, enrolment at this school would remain healthy and a full range of programs could be offered. The rich multicultural environment would benefit their children, to boot.

You may ask then why Rideau did not offer whatever programs it took to attract numbers. Well, other more established schools had “laid claim” to those programs, either by virtue of long tradition or by political advocacy in “more privileged” communities. Programs such as Latin, French immersion, strings music, International Baccalaureate, were the exclusive domain of certain schools and would always have to remain a dream for Rideau.

We did try. Since French immersion has always been the “great equalizer,” we knew that we had to offer that program. While it was very successful, when the overall enrolment in the school declined, we could not sustain it. The same was true for our hugely successful Cisco Networking program, unique in the board.

I worry so much for the future of public education in the United States. Are we heading in the same direction?

I think back to the sign we displayed prominently at Rideau: “Education is the gateway of opportunities and a powerful distributor of life’s chances.”  How true! Let’s not shut that gateway to Rideau students.

Patricia Irving is a former Ottawa-Carleton District School Board principal. 

Ottawa-Carleton District School Board officials believe the board did everything it could to inform parents at Leslie Park Public School about nearly $15,000 in fundraising proceeds that went missing from the school’s parent council coffers over a three-year period.

But that didn’t sit well with some parents Friday, who expressed frustration about being left in the dark over the scope of the alleged fraud, which resulted in a police probe – but no criminal charges – after the school’s newly elected treasurer discovered the council’s account was in arrears when he took over the job in 2014.

The council determined at least $14,839.41 was missing from their account after reviewing banking records.  The previous treasurer had failed to keep financial records, a violation of board policy.

OCDSB executive officer Michele Giroux said the school district had already “supported” the school council in communicating with parents about the missing money, and efforts to improve its financial management practices – even though parents on the school council complained that the school board’s efforts were heavily watered down and vague.

Giroux cited two newsletters, saying, “This information should and has been shared with the school community.”

But when asked if the board did enough to communicate the scope of the issue with parents, Trustee Anita Olsen Harper said, “The answer to that is fairly obvious.

“When parents work hard (to raise money) for a certain purpose over many months and perhaps years, and suddenly they become aware of it,” said Olsen Harper, “that is not good communication in my personal opinion.”

That seemed to be the case outside the school on Friday. Of the five parents who spoke to the Citizen – all of whom had been involved with the school for at least two years – only one had even heard of the missing money.

“Nobody knew anything about it,” said parent Christine Thomson, who was aware of the missing funds. “Reading (the newsletter), you would think maybe there just wasn’t proper documentation. There was nothing in there that would lead me to believe there was (an alleged) theft or fraud. It just sounded like it was someone who didn’t keep great records or was sloppy with the paperwork.”

In one newsletter from Spring 2016, it states that in September 2014, “we noticed discrepancies between the balance of the parent council account and the balance that was reported in the June 2014 council minutes. Our research identified transactions that could not be fully accounted for between 2011-2014.”

Related

• How $15,000 vanished from an Ottawa school council's bank account — and stayed secret

The newsletter does not mention the amount of money that went missing, but outlines several enhanced preventative measures, including, “providing year end and monthly reports, co-signing of all financial transactions, moving all council funds into the school monitored financial system, publishing meeting minutes and background checks on those who are handling money.”

The second newsletter referenced by Giroux makes no mention of the missing funds, but provides several tips for other school councils to ensure better financial management and oversight.

However, the school council had on multiple occasions pushed for the board to release more information but were rebuked. 

“The (school council’s investigation) report makes allegations about specific individuals, includes personal banking records and pricing information of different suppliers,” Giroux noted in an email Friday. “Releasing very detailed information during an investigation could adversely affect either the investigation or the accused’s right to a fair trial.”

On Friday, the principal sent a letter home to parents, following the publication of a Citizen report on the missing money, saying the school district had reimbursed the school for the full amount. It also tried to explain the lack of information about the disappearance of council funds.

“In January, the Ottawa Police Service advised the school district that they have completed their investigation. No criminal charges will be laid. The details of the investigation are not public and there are limitations to the information which the school district can legally disclose,” wrote principal Rian Bayne.

Corinne Reynolds, the parent council’s former treasurer accused of cashing some of those cheques for questionable expenses, told the Citizen she had agreed to pay back $5,000 and had written a letter of apology, though she disputed the amount of missing money was as high as council claimed. She is no longer associated with the small school of 115 students near Greenbank and Baseline roads.

Other parents took to social media to express their concerns that the missing money was being kept quiet while an accommodation review was underway – Leslie Park is one of eight local schools recommended for closure in a board report last year.

Giroux refuted those claims.

“There is absolutely no correlation between the loss of school council funds which happened between 2011 and 2014 and the school accommodation review process which has occurred between 2016 to present,” she wrote. “The timing of this story likely has more to do with the fact that the police advised the district in January 2017 that that their investigation had concluded and that no criminal charges would be laid.”

aseymour@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/andrew_seymour

Public school board trustees plan to ask their colleagues to spare three of the eight Ottawa schools targeted for closure.

It’s an indication of what’s in store as the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board begins as many as four nights of debate on a complicated package of school closures and program changes.

Staffs have recommended that three English elementary schools, one alternative school, three middle schools and Rideau High School be closed. They warn the board can’t afford to keep half-empty schools open.

Even some of the parents who have launched emotional campaigns to save their schools acknowledge theirs is an uphill struggle, given the board’s financial situation. During five months of public consultations, they have catalogued the merits of their particular schools, dissected board statistics on enrolment and population trends, and explained why neighbourhood schools are so important.

The meetings that begin Feb. 13 will be their final chance to make a case to trustees. 

Parents should realize that the staff reports are recommendations, said trustee Mark Fisher. Trustees make the final decision. “Our job is just starting. We now have to figure out  the right approach and directions, based on what we are hearing and our own knowledge.”

Some trustees have already indicated they will fight to save three of the schools. Here’s a rundown of the political landscape:

Fayza Idris, a Grade 12 student Rideau High, says the school is “very welcoming.”
Jacquie Miller photo

Rideau High School

Trustee Chris Ellis is helping organize two buses to bring supporters of Rideau High School to the school board meeting. It’s a repeat of the scene in 2009, when Ellis was a parent lobbying against a proposal to close the school, which suffered from declining enrolment even then. Today Rideau is only 43 per cent full. Staff say the school can’t offer the variety of programs students need. They recommend students be redirected to Gloucester High School, which is also less than half full.

The Vanier Community Association and city councillors Mathieu Fleury and Tobi Nussbaum have jumped into the debate, saying the school is a “community hub” that is important to the neighbourhood. Trustees will be sensitive to arguments about what’s best for some of the high-risk teenagers at the school, which has a high proportion of students who are refugees, from low-income families or of aboriginal, Inuit or Métis backgrounds. 

“I’m optimistic,” says Ellis. “Other trustees seem receptive to the arguments I’ve been making.” 

Ellis also plans to introduce amendments that would change boundaries if Rideau is closed, so students from Manor Park, Vanier and the western part of Overbrook would be redirected to Lisgar Collegiate. 

Brian Spencer, in the red hat, and Ferni Jimenez, right, enjoy a walk at Mud Lake with fellow students of Regina Street Public School.

Regina Street Public School

The trustee for the area, Theresa Kavanagh, supports keeping the school open. Boundaries could be redrawn, or Regina could be turned into an alternative school focusing on outdoor education, which is the latest proposal pitched by some parents, says Kavanagh. Either option could result in more children at the low-enrolment school. “I’m not trying to keep open half-empty schools,” says Kavanagh. She recognizes that it’s a game of dominoes, with changes at one school affecting enrolment at others. “We’ll try to work something out.”

Parents say an alternative outdoor-ed school would be a first for the city and could draw students from across the district. The Mud Lake Conservation area is in the school’s backyard, and lessons students learn there are already woven into most of the subjects taught at the school. School council chair Heather Amundrud says many of the parents at Regina would embrace the alternative school program principles, which include a non-competitive environment, mixed-grade classes and opportunities for children of different ages to work together, innovative teaching methods and lots of parental involvement.

Staff say changing programs or boundaries to draw more students to Regina would simply be robbing Peter to pay Paul by reducing enrolment at other schools.

J. H. Putman middle school

Trustee Anita Olsen Harper says she will argue in favour of keeping J.H. Putman open. It’s one of three middle schools targeted for closure as the board moves to get rid of that grade configuration. The school has strong support from students, parents and the community, offers a rich variety of programs and clubs, and does not have low enrolment, she says.

But whether J.H. Putman will get a stay of execution or just a temporary reprieve remains to be seen. Parents and kids at Putman have powered a strong lobby campaign. Their criticism of the proposal to send many of the children back to Agincourt Elementary led staff to modify their thinking. Now staff support delaying the closure of Putman until an addition can be built at Agincourt to house some of the students. That idea appears to have traction, with board chair Shirley Seward saying it’s a sensible approach.

Leslie Park Public School

Parents from Leslie Park Public School,  backed by the Leslie Park Community Association, have made passionate arguments about the value of neighbourhood schools, and warned that new housing developments in the area may eventually provide children to fill the school. Several parents privately acknowledge they don’t expect the school to remain open.

Several parents are worried about the open-concept design at Briargreen school, where students would be directed if Leslie Park closes, because it’s not ideal for some students with attention or learning disabilities.

Staff revised the original report to recommend that the two specialized autism classes now at Leslie Park be moved to Woodroffe Avenue Public School instead of Briargreen.

Trustee Olsen Harper declined to give her opinion on the future of Leslie Park, Grant Alternative or D. Aubrey Moodie, all schools in her district slated for closure. She may speak about those schools at the meetings next week, said Olsen Harper.

Century Public School

Parent council chair Gemma Nicholson says she has little hope that trustees will spare the English-program school. The debate among some parents has shifted to where students will be redirected when Century closes. The latest staff proposal is for children from Century to be sent to Carleton Heights. That’s too far out of the neighbourhood, say some parents.

Parent Don Doan warns that Carleton Heights will be full if Century students transfer there and will soon have portables in the yard. He can’t understand why Carleton Heights students aren’t instead moved to Century, which is a larger school in an area that is growing more quickly.

Nicholson suggests it would make more sense to send Century children to Sir Winston Churchill school.

Donna Blackburn, the trustee for the area, says it’s regrettable but some schools must close, but staff listened to parents who requested that Century students not be split up and redirected to different schools.

“The bottom line is that not everybody is going to get what they want,” said Blackburn. “All the schools that are closing are special schools, there is no doubt about that.” She has to make decisions that are best for the board as a whole, she said, “not play politics in my own zone.”

Grant Alternative School

Several parents at a board meeting last week told trustees they fear for the future of alternative schools in the district. Enrolment is shrinking, which is why staff recommend closing Grant and transferring  students to Churchill Alternative.

The school board has done little to advertise the value of alternative schools, said Carol Ann Hartung, chair of the Churchill Alternative School parent council. Some parents wrongly think alternative schools are for troubled kids, or specialize in special-ed, she said. More parents would choose them if it weren’t left to “word of mouth or chance” to find out what alternative schools offer, she said. 

If  Churchill takes all the students from Grant, the school would immediately be full, she said. Grant parents have also lobbied to keep their school open.

Trustee Olsen Harper declined to give her opinion on the future of Grant, Leslie Park or D. Aubrey Moodie, all schools in her district slated for closure. She may speak about those schools at the meetings next week, said Olsen Harper.

 D. Aubrey Moodie Intermediate, Greenbank Middle School

There does not appear to be as much controversy over the closure of these schools, if the lack of strong public lobby campaigns on their behalf is any indication.

Meetings on western area schools

Monday, Feb. 13: Trustees listen to public delegations and debate the Western Area Review report, which recommends seven school closures and changes to programs among 26 schools in the west end of the city.

Where: 6 p.m. at the board office, 133 Greenbank Rd. If the meeting doesn’t finish, it will continue at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

Meetings on Eastern area schools

Wednesday, Feb. 15:  Trustees listen to public delegations and debate the Eastern Secondary Review Report, which recommends closing Rideau High School.  Where: 6 p.m. at the board office, 133 Greenbank Rd. If the meeting doesn’t finish, it will continue at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16.

 jmiller@postmedia.com

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Public school trustees have recommended closing five schools in the west end of the city.

D. Aubrey Moodie and Greenbank middle schools, Century and Leslie Park English elementary schools and Grant Alternative were picked off one by one at the meeting of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

Regina Street PS was spared, with trustees recommending it be turned into an alternative school with a focus on outdoor education.

The fate of the seventh school on the hit list, J. H. Putman middle school, will probably be decided when the meeting continues Tuesday night. 

About 70 people attended Monday’s meeting to listen to parents make final plea to save their schools.

Parents have been lobbying for months, with particularly strong campaigns to save Regina Street, J.H. Putman, Leslie Park, Grant Alternative and Century public schools.

“I’m angry and utterly frustrated with everything,” said Desiree Imeish, who has two children at Century, after the vote. Earlier in the evening she made a presentation to trustees, apologizing for being emotional, but saying she was frustrated the school board did not seem receptive to the good arguments in favour of keeping the school open. “No one listens and no one cares.”

Century has a large number of immigrant and refugee children. Supporters argued those parents were less able to lobby the school board because they don’t speak English. The school is about half full. 

School board staff said the board has to face “fiscal reality.”

The board has 11,500 empty pupil spaces spread across a district of 72,000 students. At the same time it needs to add 2,500 spaces in fast-growing areas where schools are crowded. The board is trying to balance where buildings are located and where they are needed.

Trustees make the final decision in early March, but it is unlikely there will be major changes from the recommendations made Monday by all trustees sitting as a committee of the whole. The recommendations: 

Century students would be sent to Carleton Heights school.

D. Aubrey Moodie students would be transferred to Bell High School, which would expand to become a Grade 7 to 12 school. The board is trying to get rid of middle schools.

Merivale High School would add the international baccalaureate program, an academically rigorous program not now offered in the west end.

Greenbank Middle School students would be sent to Sir Robert Borden High School, which would also expand to include Grades 7 to 12. 

Leslie Park students would be redirected to Briargreen PS.

The changes would take effect in September.

Trustees agreed with a proposal from parents at Regina Street PS to turn the school into a model for environmental education. The school borders on Mud Lake and teachers already incorporate lessons learned by students there into most subjects. The University of Ottawa education faculty is interested in a partnership with the school to train teachers in outdoor ed.

Trustee Theresa Kavanagh, who proposed the motion to save the school in her ward, said it could be a “showcase” and attract students from across the city.

Parents who have been fighting to keep Regina Street open say they are confident parents will keep their children enrolled once it adopts an “alternative”   program. Alternative schools follow principles that include child-centred learning, cooperation rather than competition, innovative teaching methods and lots of parental involvement. If all the Regina students stay, and the students from Grant Alternative are transferred, the school would have 250 pupils in a building with the capacity for 300, said staff.

But several trustees were skeptical, saying Regina Street PS open doesn’t solve the larger problem of too many empty pupil spaces in the area.

Trustee Donna Blackburn said she doesn’t support the expansion of alternative schools because many regular schools already follow the same practices. “We spend a lot of money busing children around who could be in their home schools.”

At the continuation of the meeting Tuesday, trustees will tackle what do to about J.H. Putman middle school, which parents have launched a spirited campaign to save. Staff recommend closing the school but not until an addition an be built at Agincourt elementary to house intermediate students. Agincourt would then become a kindergarten to Grade 8 French immersion school. The English program students would be sent to Pinecrest PS. 

Trustee Anita Olsen Harper proposed keeping Putman open and turning it into a French immersion middle school. The English program students at Putman would be sent to Pinecrest, although the students currently at Putman would be allowed to finish their school year there.

jmiller@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/JacquieMiller

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has launched an internal investigation into how a former school council treasurer at the centre of a fraud investigation was allowed to handle money and run the hot dog program at another school.

OCDSB Supt. Shawn Lehman told the parent council at Jockvale Elementary School during a public meeting Wednesday night that the board was investigating exactly when their principal knew that the former Leslie Park Public School council treasurer and chair was under investigation by Ottawa police.

Corinne Reynolds had been the treasurer at Leslie Park Public School when at least $14,839.41 went missing from the school council bank account over a three-year period beginning in 2011.

Reynolds was never criminally charged, although she told the Citizen last week that she had agreed to pay back $5,000 and had written a letter of apology. The school board has since reimbursed Leslie Park for the full amount.

According to Jockvale school council minutes, Reynolds was appointed hot dog coordinator at the Barrhaven school during the September 2016 council meeting. But while the school board was well aware that Reynolds was under investigation by police for more than two years, no one appears to have told the Jockvale school council. The police investigation did not conclude until January, 2017, according to the school board.  

Related

• Trustee says board showed lack of communication over vanished school funds
• How $15,000 vanished from an Ottawa school council's bank account — and stayed secret

At the council meeting Wednesday night, council members questioned how Leslie Park’s former treasurer was allowed to volunteer and assume responsibility for handling fundraising dollars at their school, given what had happened at Leslie Park.

Lehman said the ongoing police investigation and lack of criminal charges prevented them from sharing details of the Leslie Park investigation. But Jockvale’s council members suggested there were other ways they could have been informed, without revealing detailed personal information.

“If our principal was made aware, it was very easy to say this volunteer isn’t available any more,” said Jockvale school council acting chair Rotem Brajtman.

Jockvale’s current principal, Connie Daymond, was also the principal at Leslie Park Public School up until 2012-13 – the same time that Reynolds was writing cheques to herself and her ex-husband to cover questionable expenses, a financial investigation by the Leslie Park council revealed.

Members of the Leslie Park Public School Council, who also attended the Jockvale school council meeting, said they asked the principal who replaced Daymond at their school to contact her at Jockvale in October 2014 after discovering the missing funds.

It isn’t known if that happened. Daymond, who was present at Wednesday night’s council meeting, didn’t respond to the discussion of when she may have learned that Reynolds was under investigation.

However, the parents from the Leslie Park school council said she was definitely aware in early January 2017, when they emailed her directly to notify her about what had happened. The Leslie Park council members said they wanted to notify the Jockvale council themselves years earlier, but were cautioned against it by the board.

Reynolds was only removed from her role as a volunteer at Jockvale after a story ran in the Citizen last week about the missing funds at Leslie Park.

There is absolutely no evidence that any money is missing from the hot dog program at Jockvale, Lehman said after the meeting. Reynolds and another volunteer together collected and counted the money in the presence of one another, he said.

Lehman said the board is now investigating the “chain” of exactly what happened as well as the timing of when Reynolds was removed from her role as hot dog coordinator.

The results of the investigation will likely never be known, however. Lehman cautioned if there were any “implications” for the staff or parents involved, the board would be bound by confidentiality rules.

Lehman acknowledged that the board could have done a much better job both with communication and the process around how they handled the situation.

aseymour@postmedia.com

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Rideau High School should close, trustees at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board recommended Thursday after two emotional evenings of debate.

In a narrow vote, they decided that transferring the Rideau students to Gloucester High School was the best way to help some of the most vulnerable teenagers in the city.

Rideau students deserve more courses and extracurricular activities than are now available at the school, which has shrunk to just over 400 students, said trustee Sandra Schwartz.

“We all have difficulty with this decision,” said Schwartz, apologizing for breaking into tears at the end of the meeting. “Sorry, it’s been a long few months.”

Wednesday, trustees listened to parents, students and neighbours, most of them pleading to keep the school open.

Rideau faced closure eight years ago because of declining enrolment. The situation has not improved, said Schwartz. Gloucester High School in her ward is also less than half full, and Schwartz said she feared the board hadn’t served either school well by allowing both to stay open. There are 1,362 empty pupil spaces at the two schools.

Board chair Shirley Seward said keeping Rideau open would be failing the board’s most vulnerable students by denying them the same choices and opportunities that children in larger schools and in more affluent areas take for granted.

Reg Lavergne, representing principals and vice-principals, said it’s heartbreaking to close a school, but more heartbreaking to deny students rich programming. “They deserve better than that.”

He added: “The magic that exists at Rideau will not cease,” but become part of a larger community at Gloucester.

But some parents and community members told trustees on Wednesday that vulnerable kids would suffer if Rideau closes because the school provides a welcoming and safe environment for low-income, refugee and immigrant, aboriginal, Inuit and Métis students.

“There will be drop outs,” warned trustee Shawn Menard, who said the school deserves another chance. He proposed adding a French immersion program, transferring an alternative program for urban aboriginals to Rideau, and changing school boundaries. Those changes would draw an extra 285 students to the school by 2025, he calculated.

There is no academic evidence that increasing the number of courses at a school leads to higher achievement, but there is evidence that disadvantaged students thrive in smaller schools, he said. “We could keep this school open and it could be thriving.”

Trustee Erica Braunovan said she was torn, because while staff were not targeting Rideau because it’s in a low socio-economic neighbourhood, that’s the perception in the community. “This time, don’t make it this community that loses their school.”

Sheila Perry, who had been campaigning to save the school, said it was short-sighted to close it. These large schools aren’t always the answer,” she said in an interview after the vote.

Another Rideau supporter at Thursday’s meeting, Marilyn Read, said she was disappointed. “I just think these (vulnerable) students don’t need breadth of programming, they need the home they found at Rideau.”

At the suggestion of Seward, trustees recommended the board pay for bus passes for students from the Rideau catchment area so they can participate in extracurricular activities at Gloucester.

Many of the Rideau students come from families without cars and can’t afford bus passes, said trustee Christine Boothby, who urged her colleagues to “put our money where our mouth is.”

“We need to make sure these kids can partake of all these great things we are building for them (at Gloucester).”

Staff were also asked to continue discussions with parents, students and the community about creating a special room at Gloucester that is similar to the Aboriginal lodge at Rideau.

Most of the Rideau teachers will be transferred to Gloucester. Extra staff should be added to Gloucester for two years to help with the transition, trustees recommended.

 The closure must be approved by the board in early March, but no change is expected since all trustees sit on the committee that made the recommendation Thursday.

The board is under financial pressure to get rid of empty pupil spaces, and is embarking on five years of “accommodation studies” to close and consolidate schools.

Earlier this week, trustees recommended closing six schools in the west end of the city.

jmiller@postmedia.com
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