Halifax Politics dot ca

I gave this presentation last night to HRSB Board Howard Windsor.

My name is Waye Mason. I am the chair of a School Advisory Council on the peninsula and I am the publisher of the parents resource Citadelschools.ca, and my children are in elementary and junior high school.

It will be difficult to summarize my concerns with the staff report in just five minutes, so let me get straight to the point.

The process of consultation run by CS&P was inadequate and has failed to meet its goals

The conclusions were reached without significant or meaningful public input into the process, and therefore, the staff report in response to the consultation does not contain a complete and fair summary of the issues facing our community.

I will come back to this, but first, how did we get here?

HRSB had a capital plan which called for just four elementary schools on the peninsula. From October 2006 onward, Peninsula parents fought to have this process be halted until there had been meaningful public consultation over our options.

In January of 2007, The Minister of Education agreed, and stated no schools will be closed without meaningful public consultation.

In February of 2007 the Minister announced the intention to implement the School Closure Review Report recommendations, changing how school closures occur. Subsequently, these changes to the Education Act were made, with the support of all parties.

In June of 2007, the Department of Education requested a ten year facilities plan from HRSB to replace the older discredited version.

Also in June in a public meeting in St Pats auditorium, Superintendent Olsen presented a proposal for consultation and facility planning, the would be modeled on previsions school closure reviews, and would be largely composed of members of School Advisory Council representatives from the affected family of schools.

This was in line with the letter and the spirit of the Minister’s changes to the school closure process, which called for reviews would “encourage school staff and administration and require school advisory councils to participate”.

Unfortunately for all of us, when time came to meet the consultative team in November of 2007, the proposed committee that had been promised by the Superintendent had been shelved, and the SAC members had been relegated to a “Community Focus Group” with no actual input or agenda.

The Toronto based consultants wrote this report, and no parents or citizens were directly involved in it’s completion.

There were two meetings between the consultants and SACs, there was not a single formal polling, questioning or systematic gathering of our opinions.

Instead, following lengthy ninety minute lectures, the SAC reps and staff from five school families, around 100 people, would have 30-45 minutes split between them to answer, on the spot, what they thought, at the open microphone, with little or no time to reflect on what had been presented. This is about 45 seconds per person.

At the first meeting, we had about 20 minutes to individually fill out a questionnaire, and then another 20 to review the questionnaire with the rest of our table and complete a “consensus document” for our table.

The questionnaire had 44 questions, and was 10 pages long. This works out to 45 seconds per question.

Subsiquent meetings were ninety minute lectures unveiling new, previously unseen proposals followed by less than an hour to understand and then ask questions and raise concerns.

In my opinion, the only reason people kept going to these meetings is that until the very end, they were waiting for the serious consultation to start. It never did.

The community has been promised meaningful consultation. This promise was coupled with a belief that school review needs to be considered in the greater fabric of the needs of the community. I still hope this can happen, but Mr Windsor, it has not yet happened.

Now we have a staff report itself the draws into question validity of the consultants work. Others have said it best. HRSB Facilities manager Charles Clattenburg said in the March 8 edition of the Metro News “I guess we have some more in-depth knowledge that wasn’t picked up during the consultation that we’ve considered.” as the justification for the staff reports divergence from the consultations fundings.

Well, in this, I agree with Mr Clattenburg. There was a lot that was not picked up during the consultations that needs to be considered, not the least of which is a full and fair consultation with the people in the affected communities that know their own communities best.

I urge you, Mr Windsor, please do not accept this staff report.

Do not accept a report that will close successful community schools in the north, south and west ends.

Do not accept a report that proposes to close schools that are full, and for which demand is currently there, and will only increase.

Do not accept a staff report that does not unequivocally support the small school sizes that the community wants.

Do not accept a facilities plan until HRSB has completed the process of school review that was promised by the Superintendent in June of last year.

Thank you for your time today.

From Citadelschools.ca:

REVIEW OF IMAGINE OUR SCHOOLS DRAFT PROPOSAL

The draft school use proposal that was presented by the consultants at the Imagine Our Schools meeting at Citadel High on January 19, 2007.

It has taken some time to reflect, gather information and work through the ramifications of the proposal.

I am sorry that this post is even longer than usual, but I urge you all to read the whole thing, there is lots going on to think about and be worried about.

The article is here:  http://www.citadelschools.ca/2008/02/21/review-of-imagine-our-schools-draft-proposal/

Reprinted from Citadelschools.ca 

There are serious problems with the current Imagine Our Schools Process. Why we think so is summarized here.

We are encouraging everyone, parents and citizens, to write the Imagine Our Schools people about their concerns, but that they should also :CC Howard Windsor (HRSB Administrator), the area MLAs, the area HRM Councilors, and the Minister of Education. Emails provided below.

We may be able to have the process reformed, changed, or at least the final decision altered but we need to act today.

We must act now, we need to make sure our concerns are heard. This helps keep us from being sandbagged at the end of this by school board and Department of Education saying “you had your chance for input and you missed it.”

It is really very important that all members of this list, and all parents and citizens we can reach, write now, to try and get this process back on the rails, and to make sure that the decision makers know we are unhappy and why.

Consultants:
imagine@hrsb.ns.ca
Maureen@csparch.com

Carbon Copy (CC):
hwindsor@hrsb.ns.ca
karencasey@ns.aliantzinc.ca
mmacdonald@navnet.net
preyra@eastlink.ca
howard@howardepstein.ca
utecks@halifax.ca
sloaned@halifax.ca
murphyp@halifax.ca
fougers@halifax.ca
kellyp@halifax.ca

This article is reprinted from the Citadelschools.ca site. 

“We are here hoping to find direction from you.” said Maureen O’Shaughnessy, lead consultant and chief spokesperson for the Imagine Our Schools process.

It is unlikely she did. In a meeting that stretched to over three hours long, there was not a lot clear and unequivocal direction to be found. Held at Citadel High, about 150 parents and administrators took in a slide show presenting four options, based on “community input.”

Here is what we saw:

The projections showing building use are based on the Department of Education’s calculations, which counts classrooms as empty that are being used for internal or external uses for which they were not originally intended. What that means is our schools are not as empty as the projections say they are, which means the whole basis for the planning is incorrect.

The proposals tracks projected per school populations and projected schools size in the same way, treating them as the same thing. Either the proposal is to build schools that in 2018 would be full, used between100-120%, or alternately, the proposal is really to build schools that are 20% bigger than what the community is supposed to have asked for, either way, there is a lack of honesty in the way the issues were presented (see the next article, another proposal for the peninsula).

The consultants did not give us a choice for smaller junior highs. Ms. O’Shaughnessy said several times “The community felt that 500 capacity junior highs are preferred.” The 500 student option was the smallest option available on the questionnaire. The survey results cannot be called a clear call for change, and in no way indicate a desire for schools that size.

The sudden appearance of new material in the public presentation that was left out of the School Advisory Council presentation further marginalizes the school communities. At this late stage to suddenly have the consultants introduce the idea that early French Immersion should be abandoned is nonsense. Clearly that direction came from politicians or the Department of Education, as there was no opportunity for the public to propose this change.

Having beautiful new buildings does not mean we will have more money for programming. Program enhancements and new spaces for learning is meaningless when there is no money for more teachers and support staff. ESL, Afri-centric programming, student support, enrichment, special needs, guidance, and most of all, class size cannot be changed without a massive infusion of new operational money.

There is no consultation in this process. Four times SAC reps, sometimes with citzens and parents have been called into a room to be talked at. There is no group work, no systematic polling of views, no table work, no meaningful dialog between parents and the consultants.

Once we had under an hour to complete an eleven page questionnaire full of loaded questions and with no chance to review it in advance. At no point were the SACs actually polled, or any idea voted on. In the last meeting we sat there in stunned silence, unable to decide where to begin.

This is not what we were promised. In June Carol Olsen promised that each family of schools SACs would meet and that parents, municipal councilors, community reps with staff and consultant support would create the proposal that would go to Mr. Windsor. Now, we have little to no voice at all in a process that will see consultants submit a plan that has little to no support in the community. This is not what the Minister ordered the school board to do, and it is not what the changes to the Act require.

Toward the end of the second hour of the meeting last night, the consultants were asked “How do you tell what direction we want?” Ms. O’Shaughnessy said “if a bunch of people clap” that they know they have support. This is simply not good enough.

Howard Windsor refused a request to meet with the SACs in the fall to discuss concerns about this process.

Now the process has broken and the only choice left to parents to to appeal to the Minister and Cabinet to create clear, step by step guidelines as to exactly how school capital plan process must be conducted by all school boards.

New updates on education & capital planning over on Citadelschools.ca.