The recommended option is as follows:
- Close Briar Hill JPS
- Fairbank Middle becomes a JK-8 school
- West Prep JPS remains a JK-6 school
Thanks to all Briar Hill parents, teachers and community members who came out and voiced your disapproval of the option presented. The report is now posted on the TDSB website with an attached minority report submitted by your council representatives Paul Dover and Julie McFayden.
The report now goes to the Board, then to the Trustees for a vote in June.
Many of you have been disillusioned by the process and saddened by the possibility of losing our wonderful school. There may also be others who feel that this is a good thing.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and concerns here. Any comments on the ARC process including your opinons on the recommendation are welcome.
2 comments:
How can anyone feel that closing the school would be a good thing if you have a child in the school. The apathetic approach of the Parents has disgusted me through the years. A case of a few doing for too many.I would like to know the how the vote of the ARC committee went, who voted how. Maybe its a good thing for it to be closed and then the people who have chosen not to do anything can deal with re-location of their child and learn how good they had it all along.
The final recommendation of this areas's ARC included closing our school, which, understandably, is devastating to both the school staff and all of us parents. Unfortunately (judging from most mparents' reaction to this), I think a good majority of the parents don't really understand the real facts behind the whole ARC process, why it was created, and the reasoning for the decision. In a nutshell, over the past 10 years or so, poor financial decisions by the TDSB (and also by the City of Toronto), combined with a number of situational occurences in our area (such as declining enrolment at Briar Hill)caused a serious deficit in the education budget, and the Board and the City are now scrambling to effect solutions to correct this. Is this fair to our school staff, the students and their parents?? Absolutely not!!
Unfortunately, what's done is done, and we have to follow through with recommended solutions. What's really disappointing is our parents' involvement in this - let's look at some figures :
Information was made public through the media (local television, newspapers, etc.), by flyers brought home to all parents of Briar Hill by the students, and in flyers handed out by a concerned parent, about the potential closure of our school, and the formation of various ARC committees in the surrounding areas. Invitations to attend 3 public ARC meetings (at which TDSB representatives, our school Trustee, our Superintendent of Education, and other important individuals vitally important to the decision on the future of our school were all present)were also presented {throught the media and again from flyers sent home to all parents by the students}. At these meetings, parents, school staff, and the students were invited to voices their concerns, let themselves be heard. Updates throughout the entire ARC process were made known at our school Council meetings (held every month), where all our parents were again invited. In addition, one of our concerned parents set up 3 different private meetings for parents to discuss the closure of our school, and how they could formulate a strong voice, to let the School Board and politicians know their fierce opposition to this closure. Again, our parent handed out flyer invitations to these, had called a good number of the parents, and included this appeal in flyers sent home to all parents by the students.
Over this time (the past 4 months)how many concerned parents actually came out? Maybe 2 or 3 to the Council meetings. Between 8 - 11 at the private meetings. And a few more at the public ARC meetings, but only marginally.
What is this all about??? We've got roughtly 175 students at Briar Hill. Even dividing that down to, say, 2 or 3 children per family, that still gives us potentially somewhere around 80 parents - and look how many show up. Do the majority just think those few that get involved are going to do everything?? I'd say this attendance is abysmal, a big show of apathy. Even if language was an issue, there were interpreters at the public ARC meetings.
However, all is not lost, yet. There is another meeting for parents of Briar Hill School currently in the planning stage, with a potential game plan for our school. Our school Trustee, Howard Goodman,one of the key persons that will be recommending any plans to save Briar Hill to the TDSB (the body finalizing the decision), will be making the presentation of this plan for Briar Hill. Updates and details on this will be available soon. Please plan to attend this, and give Trustee Goodman your support (and any input to possibly improve his recommendation) to this plan - you won't get another chance.
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