SOS ( Save Our Schools ) — similar effort in Pineway and beyond

February 28, 2007 at 5:19 pm (Be Seen and Be Heard)

Arlene from Pineway school area added a great comment to “Be seen and be heard” post. I copied and pasted here because it definitely deserves a better visibility in this site :-)

Hi

I am so happy to see this blog page from Arbor Glen School. I am a concerned citizen from the Pineway School area. We have formed a group which we are calling SOS (Save our Schools) Our original goal was to work on Pineway School, but we quickly realized that this is a Willowdale issue, and as a pilot project could then easily become a city wide issue. We are working to stop Option Z of the TDSB revitalization plan. We have had 2 organizing meetings and have support from a number of other organzations and people who are involved with saving our public school system. We are planning a large meeting of Willowdale parents and ratepayers. This meeting will be held towards the end of March. We are in the process of booking an auditorium in one of the larger schools in Willowdale. We are working on a program with speakers, as well as an action plan suggestion for those attending. We hope to have press at this meeting as well. We are hoping for a huge turnout of at least 650 people. The message to the TDSB and the provincial government must be loud and clear.Is there anyone in your organization who would be willing to work with us? We would value your imput and help. The message needs to be distributed in the community.

Our next meeting will be on Tues. Mar. 7.

Please e-mail me at arleneleonoff@rogers.com if you can help.

Thanks in advance

Arlene Leonoff

Leave a Comment

Get involved – BE SEEN AND BE HEARD

February 27, 2007 at 4:03 am (Be Seen and Be Heard, General)

Candy’s note on Feb 19 to the concerned parents and community members:

 

First of all thank you so much for your tremendous support during these past weeks. The signatures and comments we received proved that you care very much about our community and it is your wish to keep Arbor Glen.

As indicated in our earlier note to Mari Rutka, the information binders which contain our petition (about 200 signatures!) were presented to Mari Rutka last Thursday, and David Zimmer, MPP last Friday. While we are still awaiting feedback from Mari (who no doubt is being bombarded with notes from concerned parents), David is very impressed and indicated that this is a very successful lobbying! Thanks again everybody for doing such an excellent job within a very short time span.

In order to keep the momentum going, we would need your help, to continue to fight to keep the school open by:

1. Attending the school council meetings and putting yourselves on the agenda in advance so that you might speak at the school council meetings.

These meetings are usuallly conducted at a convenient time for the parents to attend. The reason to put yourselves on the agenda in advance is that it is sometimes quite a busy schedule and they may not allow anyone to add to the agenda if you have not told them in advance.

I spoke with Ms. Bauer this morning, she said a flyer will be going out shortly regarding the school council meeting in March at which time Mari will come. According to Ms. Bauer, usually the agenda is very loose, so we need your input to collect ideas about what to put on the agenda in the next few weeks. We need the agenda to be ready a week before the meeting. We will send out the notice regarding the meeting once the date is known. Please do come to the meeting to show your support. There is child care support on site. Even if you don’t prepare to speak, please just show up to demonstrate that we care!

According to the Revitalization Program schedule, recommendation to the school board will be made in April. Therefore this meeting is the last chance we have to voice our concerns before any recommendation is put forward. As published in North York Mirror on Jan 31, 2007, at another ward meeting regarding Drewry Secondary School, Mari “assured concerned parents the program would not relocate without their support” . We want to make sure that we are given the same assurance in this meeting. (We’ll take this as the first item on the agenda).

David Zimmer mentioned that it is at these school council meetings where decisions are made, therefore we need representations there going forward. According to Ms. Bauer, the executive positions were all taken up currently. The next election will be in September. We will nominate the parent representatives, probably from our core group, to run for the positions in September so that our voice can be channeled through to the school board and ensure that we have a say in the decision being carried. Do come out and vote for them. Details will go out at a later date.

2. Lobbying the trustee by sending e-mails once or twice a week by different persons

Wonder if you’ve heard the name of a game called “ROUND ROBIN”, i.e. each team member takes turn in playing in the match.

Each week one or two from our group will be selected to be our presenter of the week. A note will be sent by the core group to the presenter to let them know the date/week they are required to send out a note, it will be from your email address with your own signature. If you have ideas of what to present, great! Send it to our core group for our comments, and perhaps refinement if so required. If you don’t have an idea, the core group is here to help. We can feed you with ideas and even the email content – just let us know what your preference is.

Send your note directly to Mari Rutka, copy David Zimmer MPP and David Shiner, the councilor (we are getting clearance from his office if he agrees to be copied in, though he said his hands are tied, I’m hoping he may be able to influence somebody in the decision making as I heard that he is very keen on local issues), bcc the core group.

You will forward response from Mari to the core group for distribution among the group, anybody can chime in with their response to Mari. The core group can also help to feed your response.

We have quite a no. of people on our list currently. So it may take probably each person once or twice a year to be the presenter.

This way everyone is given a chance to speak for themselves, with the help from the core group for ideas, comments, editing, etc. Everyone can be involved and be able to contribute while being fully supported. (If you have a concern about using your email address/not comfortable sending out notes in your own name, you are welcome to nominate a neighbour. However we do encourage you to send this in your own name as this is a good learning experience for all of us to know how to get involved.)

We have to keep in mind that this is just the beginning. This will help us not to forget the cause, while ensuring that we are not forgotten by Mari. Taking turn will give each of us a chance to take the lead without getting exhausted.

The more notes Mari Rutka receives the more she will take notice. It carries more weight if it comes from individuals. It can have similar ideas but coming from different voices count. Do copy David Zimmer and David Shiner (once we get the clearance) in your notes.

3. Rolling out a blog site so your ideas can be collected effectively

One of our core member is kind enough to offer his expertise to set up a blog site so that ideas and comments can be published, with the core group’s co-ordination. This is a very effective way of expressing ideas without being bogged down from strands of emails and cross communication which can be confusing at times.

Once we have more information on this, the core group will notify everyone when and how it can be utilized.

As Mari indicated, it may take years for this to evolve. We need to get involved so that we can influence how it is going to evolve.

Again, you are such a wonderful group to work with, I am so proud to be part of it. Let’s bring out the best from our group and make sure our voice is heard.

Best regards,

1 Comment

Trustee’s reply to Pat

February 24, 2007 at 5:47 am (Communication with Trustee)

Hi Pat,

Sorry I haven’t gotten back to you before this. It has been a really busy week.

It is possible that we could add onto the current Highland structure or rebuild the school entirely in order to make it comfortable and appropriate and give it enough room for a JK to 8 school with childcare. It is also possible that we won’t do that and find another arrangement with Arbor Glen and Cliffwood. Any building or rebuilding at any site would require capital financing. At this time, we do not receive any money from the government for rebuilding or building because, as a school board, we have a lot of buildings that are not being used fully (this is true across the city). One way we could get capital funding is to sell some of our property. We need to discuss if that is something that we could do and, if we did, how much would make sense to do. We need to discuss convenience and greenspace and communities and neighbourhoods. What we need to do is have extensive discussions with the neighbourhood to figure out what would be best to do. This is just the beginning of that. I’ll do my best to keep people posted.

Thanks again for writing,

Mari

The TDSB does have research on the statistics regarding early adolescents. While it is true that Willowdale schools are highly successful in producing graduates, there are still kids who struggle and still kids for whom things might be less of a struggle with fewer transitions. The staff team will be assembling a package of research to put on the website for people to read. They will also be compiling a list of questions and answers for different kinds of information that have arisen. That will continue to be updated as this process goes forward over the next many months.

Mari

Leave a Comment

Trustee’s reply to Li

February 23, 2007 at 12:58 am (Communication with Trustee)

Hi Li,

Thank you for writing. There will be many opportunities to help figure out what we need to do with Willowdale’s schools going into the future. I will continue to have, as I always have had, ward meetings. There will also be opportunities to discuss this through school councils and we are trying right now to figure out what other means and methods we will need to talk this over with all Willowdale communities. Just the consultation alone is going to take months if not years before we reach any conclusions or make any decisions. We will all need to be patient as we work this through. We have at least two decades of patchwork solutions to examine and weave into a better whole.

I do know what a great school Arbor Glen is. I think the students and staff are wonderful. I would only want to keep things wonderful for them. I’m sure, if we all work on this together, we’ll figure out a way to do that. I’d be very happy if you could keep involved through your council and pleased if you’d consider coming to ward meetings. Let me know too if you’d like to sign up for the Willowdale School News e-news updates. I send them out every few weeks to let people know what’s happening in education around the ward.

Yours,
Mari

1 Comment

Community feedback and revitation program

February 22, 2007 at 4:30 am (Communication with Trustee)

Li sent a note to Mari on Feb 21:

Hi Mari,

I attended Ward 12 meeting on Feb 15. I really appreciated your effort to explain the revitalization program at that night. However I am still very concerned about how TDSB will incorporate the community feedback into decision make. As you said, revitalization program will consult community and parents opinion. This was also echoed in the Toronto Star’s report:

“We have not made any decision. We’re talking about possibilities and nothing will happen at Drewry without the full support of that parents,” said the board’s executive superintendent Sheila Penny yesterday. (http://www.thestar.com/article/175160)

I, as many parents and community members in Arbor Glen community, strongly against the closure of Arbor Glen listed in option Z. The reason is simple. Arbor Glen is an excellent school and the building is in good shape too. This comes from my personal experience because my son is in Arbor Glen. I am sure you as trustee also knows how good Arbor Glen is. I understand the board has funding challenge. However the more important goal as any ideal school is to provide high quality of education which Arbor Glen has proven track record.

My question is: How will the community feedback be considered in the process? For example, is it possible to have meetings which summarize the feedback so far and base on that to discuss the other alternatives? There are several large group meeting before last ward meeting and I am sure many parents brought up the concerns. But there is nothing about the concerns mentioned in program slides.

As for Arbor Glen, I will really appreciate if you can spend time to discuss the program in the coming Arbor Glen school council meeting. Many parents here do not even know there is such a program. I am sure the more people get involved, the more ideas will be generated.


Regards,

Leave a Comment

MPP’s reply to Pat’s note

February 22, 2007 at 2:25 am (Communication with MPP)

Dear Pat,

 Thank you for your email regarding school closures.  I sincerely appreciate the time you have taken to share your views with me.

 Once again, thank you for visiting my office and keeping me in touch with issues of my riding. 

 Regards,

 David Zimmer M.P.P

Willowdale  

Leave a Comment

Pat’s note to MPP David

February 21, 2007 at 5:05 pm (Communication with MPP)

Dear Mr. Zimmer,

May we take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to meet with our group last Friday. We really appreciated your obvious interest with our concerns about the possible closing of Arbor Glen Public School as well as other schools in the area.

The five members of our core committee were very impressed that you both listened to our views as a group as well as questioned each of us individually about our personal thoughts about this important issue.

Although we understand that you are not able to intervene with the decisions made by the Trustees, we did appreciate your sound advice that we should become involved with the Arbor Glen School Council and we have already taken steps to ensure that some of our group will attend the next School Council meeting . We will also continue to voice our concerns to Mari Rutka, our school Trustee.

As you are aware, we understand that the School Trustees need to balance the budget. We are also not against change. However, we do not agree that consolidation of schools in the area is the answer. The students of Arbor Glen have consistently shown excellent academic achievement which we believe is due to the dedicated staff, parents and community members. This school, which is only thirty years old, was designed specifically for elementary students so that they may have a comfortable and safe learning environment specifically built for their age group. We strongly feel that this will be lost if the proposed plan which shows that the elementary students from Arbor Glen and Cliffwood, as well as the two day care centres are “consolidated” into the Highland Junior High building.

Thank-you once again.

Sincerely,
Member of the Arbor Glen Community & Concerned Parents

Leave a Comment

Trustee’s reply on Feb 20

February 21, 2007 at 4:48 am (Communication with Trustee)

Dear Candy and Viren,

Thank you both for your participation in this process. I just want to assure you that the only thing I am convinced of is that we must do something other than what we are currently doing if we are to continue to keep our schools the excellent institutions that people love. I am not at all possessed of a plan at this point to make that happen. It seemed, for just the reason Candy sites of finding common ground, that it would be best to involve as many as possible in coming up with solutions. I hope you will both stay engaged in the process of doing so and, Viren, if you would like to receive the Willowdale School News for updates on what is being discussed, please let me know.

Yours,

Mari Rutka

TDSB Trustee, Ward 12, Willowdale


Leave a Comment

Note to trustee after Ward 12 meeting on Feb 15

February 20, 2007 at 3:32 am (Communication with Trustee)

Candy, I and some other parents from Arbor Glen community attended the Ward 12 meeting on Feb 15. In total, there were about 250 people attended the meeting.

North York Mirror newspaper has a report about the meeting, see the previous post.

Mari and other TDSB officials went through the revitalization presentation and parents were very upset.

People lined up to ask the questions and most time had been taken by trustee to answer the questions. Unfortunately, the answers were quite dispointing.

On Feb16, some parents met with David, the MPP in Willowdale to express our concern about the program. It was a very successful meeting. He agreed that we had valid points.

The following is the note Candy sent to Mari ( the trustee ). We have not got response yet:

Hi Mari

It’s been a pleasure to be able to present to you our views on Arbor Glen and the information binder regarding Arbor Glen at the ward meeting this last Thursday.

However I was extremely disappointed and dumbfounded when you responded to my brief presentation by saying “We are not closing your school. We are just moving you into another school and call it another name – Highland”. I sincerely hope that you were not serious when you said this. It’s like telling people from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and the like that we have another more modern school for you, we just don’t call them the same name. Being in the education system for years, I believe you can well appreciate that schools are not built in one day. It takes years of hard work and nurturing to evolve into a successful school. The school grows with the community, who identify with the success that is collectively contributed by the dedicated staff of the school and various generations of residents in the community. Arbor Glen is very unique to us in the community. It grows with us for the past thirty years. It proves it’s values to us in providing our kids with excellent academic achievements and very good core values which they will cherish all their lives. It is part of our family.

In addition, the opinions from our group who attended the meeting agreed that it could be organized better. At the Q&A session, we appreciate your team’s effort in trying to answer the questions put forward from concerned parents and residents from different school by repeatedly referring to the Revitalization Program. However this took up lots of time that could have allowed more questions to be presented. What we would like to suggest is that in future meetings, have someone log the questions and put the answer on the website so that everybody can see what the response is, other than those who attend the meeting. Also as indicated by the majority of the people, there is only one option presented in the Revitalization Program. I think we should be given more than one option. This suggestion have been reiterated by different groups throughout the evening.

Yesterday we met with Mr. David Zimmer, MPP to voice our concerns and to present the information binder (same as the one provided to you the previous night). David was very impressed with the information we pulled together, especially within such a time span. He agreed that we have very valid points for our arguments. He also shares our belief that “if it ain’t broken, why fix it?” He took time to ask each of us what we thought about the issue which we really appreciate, considering he has such an incredibly busy schedule. David also indicated that we have to continue to reflect to you about our views, and copy him in so that he can be in the loop. Thanks David!

For the benefit of our group who has not had the opportunity to review the information binder. Please refer to the attached file for a brief summary of its content.

Regarding Section 8 of the binder “Going Forward“: As indicated above, David agreed to be in the loop for our communication with yourself. Also he suggested we should get involved in the school council. This is where most decisions are made, be part of it.

Mari, as indicated in the Section 8 of the binder, I’m awaiting to hear from you what you think we should do going forward in order to help you present our views to the school board. Could you please enlighten us? Appreciate it.

Regards,

Arbor Glen Community & Concerned Parents

Leave a Comment

Arbor Glen delivered core value

February 20, 2007 at 3:32 am (Communication with Trustee, General)

The following is a note sent to Trustee on Feb 8. It explained why Arbor Glen should be kept:

Dear Mari,

Thanks for providing the web linkage. I clicked onto the web and read about the seven core value statements for the Revitalization Program. I discussed with some parents and residents within our community. Summarized below are some facts and comments collected from our research and discussion.

With response to the “The vision-driven process for the Revitalization Program, brings together parents, schools, students, staff and community leaders to consider core values about education and what these mean for their community. During initial meetings in October and November 2006, communities of Areas 1 and 8 had the opportunity to examine seven core value statements with a view to generating what those statements should look like in their local community/schools”:

• Schools and programs that make the best use of our available resources and are sustainable into the future.

• Arbor Glen makes the best use of resources – it is adjacent to a large playground, socceer field, baseball field and tennis court – without having to cross any roads (Highland is separated from all these facilitates by a street, so making it dangerous for younger kids to cross the road to access these wonderfully maintained facilities). Arbor Glen also has a lot of funding activities such as book sale, very successful after-school programs, both are beneficial to the students while making resources available for the school. Recent improvement includes implementing numerous computer stations that help the kids to focus on learning various knowledge available from the web based information. In addition, there has also been extensive improvement to the library, more shelves were set up to display new books which make it more accessible to the students. Our kids love the book bags which bring home exciting and interesting books from the library every week. One of the proposal under the new plan is to lease out the school property which is well maintained and in good condition – this is another good example of waste of resources which is contradictory to this core value statement.

• Schools that have qualified teachers in areas that require specialized knowledge to prepare students for a spectrum of future career options and meet their special interests.

• Arbor Glen is very renowned in bringing in special programs that broaden the students’ knowledge base, which in turn also make them aware of the world around them, and what they can contribute to their environment. You can see this everywhere in the school with display of work from the students. In addition, it is also blessed with a very dedicated team of teachers:

• who cut short their lunch break to provide excellent lunch activities for the kids e.g. choir, dancing, recorder club;

• who organize fabulous after school program such as chess, multi-sports, mad science, pottery for the kids, promoting learning, co-ordination, problem-solving and teamwork through playing;

• who spend their evening sending out emails to parents updating them about the activities of their children during the day.

• Schools that offer a full range of programs to help students succeed.

• Arbor Glen excels both academically and in behavoural education.

• Academic achievement includes excellent results in public testing (EQAO testing) and was ranked No 1 by Simon Fraser Institute for the past five years’ results.

• Arbor Glen have just been short-listed for Garfield Weston Awards for Excellence in Education recently. These awards acknowledge school teams whose skill, hard work, perseverance and enthusiasm have contributed significantly to their students’ academic performance. Schools that are invited to participate in these awards represent the top 1% of Ontario’s schools.

• Very focused in behavoural education, adopting Second Step program. This will definitely be treasured by students through their lives.

• Elementary schools that offer a number of grades in one location so the number of transitions from school to school is reduced.

• Arbor Glen offers JK to Grade 6 education. It is running at about 80% capacity, the required level for funding, and expected to increase in the projection put forward by the School Board. Cliffwood is running at about 65% to 70% capacity and is expected to drop further in the projection. If Cliffwood’s regular English students accounts for about say 40% of this 60%, 24% can join Arbor Glen to make up to a 100% capacity.

• As for Highland (currently Grade 7 to 9), it is proposed to expand into JK to Grade 8, is located at a very busy intersection that is also well known for frequent traffic accidents, is definitely not a safe location for young kids. In addition, the 3 long sets of stairs that provide accessibility to higher levels could also post potential danger for younger kids. Other than this, the lockers are human size lockers, which are also potentially dangerous for kids. According to information from graduating students, the Design and Technology room is filled with carpenter machineries, it has a variety of drills, saws, buffers for materials of wood, plastic and metal. The Family Studies room has sewing machines, cusinary knives and ovens. The music rooms contain some heavy musical instruments like Basses and Tubas; plus, scientific chemicals from the science rooms, these are all dangerous to younger children. In addition, the back doors of these rooms are often opened for fresh air, children can easily enter the room during recess even with the locked front doors.

• Therefore instead of spending money to “retrofit” Highland to accommodate the younger kids, a better solution is either to keep it at the current level – according to the latest information from the School Board, it is already at almost 100% capacity!; If this is expected to drop in the projection, another option is to expand its home district boundary to accept more students from the nearby neighborhood to relieve the crowded situation – some nearby schools are using portables.

• Schools that are clean, well equipped, and modern.

• Thanks to our wonderful caretakers at Arbor Glen, the building is well maintained, clean and well equipped with all modern facilities that are required to foster good learning environment for the students. In fact the floor has been just refurbished.

• Schools that are safe, caring, equitable, and inclusive.

• Arbor Glen is very focused on keeping kids safe. This is evident from the daily morning announcements reminding kids to treat others as they like to be treated, also it’s open concept of classrooms discourages bullying or undesirable behaviour by eliminating hidden corners.

• School is barrier free with all on one floor and with wheel chair accessibility. Each class room has an exit to the outside in case of emergency.

• Students are from various ethnic backgrounds, the school makes it a point to impart knowledge on different ethnic history, background and special festivals to the students. We can see this in their variety shows and from the homework. It is a very closely knitted community where everybody knows everybody.

• Schools that are close to home and/or easily accessible.

• Arbor Glen is within 5 to 15 minutes walking distance for all residents in the area. Even if we include regular students from Cliffwood, the school is still within easily accessible distance from the area.

With all these excellent values that echo your seven core values in the Revitalization program, Arbor Glen definitely does not fall into the category of schools that are old and need lots of repair, nor is it so under capacity that it becomes a waste of resources. On the contrary it is clean, well maintained and in very good condition. In addition, the capacity is reasonably well at about 80% which could improve if Cliffwoord’s English regular is “consolidated” into Arbor Glen instead of Highland. Therefore we strongly urge you to reconsider and give Arbor Glen, its beloved students and the community a chance to preserve this wonderful school in our community.

Thank you very much for your kind attention to this matter.

Leave a Comment

« Older entries