New Briar Hill Proposal

The following letter was sent by Trustee, Howard Goodman to Chris Spence, Director of Education today. It outlines an alternate proposal that would keep Briar Hill open. Please review for your information. The proposal is also provided below.

Dear Chris

Rather than close Briar Hill PS, it seems possible to rebuild a new Briar Hill K-3 school within the budget proposed for renovations to other schools to accommodate the Briar Hill students.

In addition to keeping a valued neighbourhood school open, it also appears that this option would allow us to:

- dramatically reduce safety concerns caused by closing Briar Hill and raised by the ARC,

- preserve specialty program spaces at Fairbank, and

- retain the possibility of having West Prep go to K-8 sometime in the future.

I have attached to this email detailed comments arising out of the recently completed Dufferin-Eglinton ARC. The options that I raise in my comments are fully aligned with the findings of the ARC and address some problems created by the necessary division of the area into several ARCs, but they are at odds with the recommendations of the Dufferin-Eglinton ARC.

I ask that all the issues that I raise in my comments be explored in depth as part of the staff reports that will be coming to Board in June.

Best of all it would preserve a TDSB presence in an underserved area of the city.

I recognize that these options need further investigation in order to see if there are any hidden problems with them that I have not identified. It is this detailed analysis that I am requesting, so that we have all the needed information in front of us when we make our decision in June.

In the service of schools and students,

Howard

PS. Could you please have the attached comments distributed to all the members of the ARC and posted on the Dufferin-Eglinton web-page. Many thanks.

PROPOSAL:

April 19, 2010

To: Dr. Chris Spence, Director of Education, Toronto District School Board
CC: Members of the Dufferin-Eglinton ARC & TDSB Trustees
FROM: Howard Goodman, TDSB Trustee, Eglinton-Lawrence

RE: COMMENTS ON THE DUFFERIN-EGLINTON ARC

Dear Director Spence

Under TDSB’s Accommodation Review policy, once the Director has received the report from an ARC, Trustees may provide comments on the ARC’s recommendations to the Director. I am taking an opportunity to provide you and my colleagues with my comments on the Dufferin-Eglinton ARC report that you received last week concerning Briar Hill, West Prep, and Fairbank Middle.

As you know, we will be making decisions that will have long-lasting significant effects on students, families, and whole communities for decades to come. I believe that we must take every reasonable effort to find the best possible balance between all the factors that confront us.

The ARC recommended closing Briar Hill, and turning Fairbank Middle into a K-8 school. A minority report was filed by ARC members objecting to these recommendations.

ALTERNATIVE SET OF OPTIONS TO BE EVALUATED

I write to ask that, in your report to the Board on the Dufferin-Eglinton ARC, you include a detailed evaluation of the following option:

1. that Briar Hill become a K – 3 school incorporated into a redevelopment of the Briar Hill site with residential or commercial space above the school,

2. that Fairbank Middle become a K – 8 school (see item A below),

3. that West Prep continues as a K – 6 school for the time being, and that staff examine the feasibility of West Prep becoming a K-8 school.

I believe that this action more closely meets the goals set out by the ARC, and would contribute more funds to TDSB’s capital account than the option recommended by the ARC. The minority report submitted by the Briar Hill ARC members requests that the K-3 option for Briar Hill be considered more fully, as it “was not given fair consideration” during the ARC process.

Further, I ask that you include in your report an analysis and recommendation concerning each of the following:

1. Restoring the old DB Hood catchment area to the newly restructured Fairbank Middle K-8 school (K-5 and K-6 students in this area are now being served by Fairbank Memo and JR Wilcox), in keeping with a suggestion from the ARC that was beyond their mandate to make as a recommendation
2. Turning Fairbank Middle into a grade 4 to 8 school (this would mean that the catchment area changes described in A above would not be needed, and no significant changes would be needed to the building)
3. The wisdom of offering senior elementary grades (7 and 8) in both JR Wilcox and Fairbank Middle, given how close the two schools are to each other
4. Initiating, at the earliest possible date, an ARC to address the future of Fairbank Memorial school, which will have an impact on both Fairbank Middle and the schools in the Keele-Eglinton ARC to the west of Fairbank Memo.
5. Reviewing the recommendations from all the ARCs now under consideration in order to ensure that the actions that you will be recommending make sense across the boundaries of adjacent ARCs and with neighbouring schools outside the ARCs
6. What space will be needed in the schools currently under review to accommodate increased enrolment due to the marketing and retention efforts that you plan, and how this might affect the ARC recommendations
7. The likely effect on Briar Hill enrolment of the introduction of extended day services to students as part of the Province’s Early Learning Program policy.

GENERAL COMMENTS ON THE Dufferin-Eglinton ARC

In keeping with our policy, I was a non-voting member of the Dufferin-Eglinton ARC. Throughout the process I listened carefully to the comments from the community and the deliberations of the other ARC members.

I greatly respect and appreciate the work done by community members and our staff on the ARC. They did their work as well as possible under the limitations that we placed on them. It was a pleasure to have spent time with them during the past six months.

No comments or recommendations that I make here should be taken to imply any level of criticism of the ARC members. Quite the contrary. The ARC members and the community at large provided much valuable insight into local conditions, and our staff members listened to this insight attentively and worked hard to provide all the information requested of them.

My interpretation of our policy and the Ministry regulations is that Trustees are not to influence the ARC’s recommendations. In particularly, Trustees are not to advocate for their preferred options. While I was active in providing background information, clarifying our policies, and helping to ensure that the full implication of options were clear, I took great care to avoid arguing for or against any of the options being considered.

Finally, throughout the ARC process I and members of our staff made it clear to all those participating that the:

- most important part of the ARC report was the insight into local conditions

- recommendations developed by the ARC were recommendations and not binding

- Staff report might differ from the ARC report, and

- Board would be making the final decisions regarding the future of these schools, and that these decisions might be different from both the ARC and Staff recommendations.

MAJOR ARC FINDINGS

Among the major local issues that I heard time and again from both community members and ARC members were:

- concerns about the safety and practicality of young children traveling from the current Briar Hill area south to Fairbank Middle (hazardous left turn into Fairbank, crossing Dufferin, narrow sidewalk along Dufferin, distance)

- the desire to maintain access to the specialized spaces and programs currently available in Fairbank Middle

- that space remain available in West Prep to allow potential private school students to return to West Prep and to possibly allow West Prep’s expansion to a K-8 school

- the value of the small school experience to young children school in their early school years

- that the major reason for Briar Hill’s decline in enrolment in the last few years has been the absence of effective day care serving Briar Hill.

All of these were expressed clearly in both the ARC recommendations and the minority report.

Despite the ARC articulating these priorities, they have recommended an option that makes it unlikely that any of these would be realized. The flaws in our process are reflected in the disconnect between the priorities that they stated and the option they recommended.

Again, I believe that the recommendations that I am making would meet most of the goals set out by the ARC, and would generate at least as much new money to our capital account as the ARC option.

RATIONALE FOR EXAMINING A NEW K-3 BRIAR HILL WITHIN A REDEVELOPED SITE

1/ The Briar Hill site, which fronts on Dufferin, is ideal for a multi-story residential or commercial building incorporating a school, daycare, and early learning services into the first floor or two of the building. It may even be that having a school in the building would increase the value of any residential development above the school, and attract a new stable TDSB school population to the area.

2/ Staff estimate that it would cost $3.6M to add classrooms to West Prep and Fairbank Middle to accommodate the Briar Hill students. It is likely that the cost will be higher than $3.6M, as the current estimate includes neither changes to the traffic flow at Fairbank Middle (to deal with some of the serious safety issues) nor the preservation of the lunch room at West Prep, both of which were raised by the ARC. It is therefore possible that the cost of a new school would be less than the costs to close Briar Hill.

3/ Making Briar Hill a K-3 school in a new development would preserve a much needed social space in the heart of an area that is already under-served, and provide an opportunity for a full-service school to be built, including space for the Early Year Program currently housed in a commercial plaza directly across the street from Briar Hill.

4/ Building a new K-3 school at Briar Hill will eliminate many of the safety problems created by sending children as young as four years old across Dufferin to the Fairbank site.

5/ Much of the enrolment decline at Briar Hill has resulted directly from the loss of day-care at the school, and a subsequent loss of service to Briar Hill provided by an off-site day-care. Many of these students have gone to other TDSB schools, but some of them have gone to non-TDSB schools. With the imminent introduction of all-day kindergarten and extended day services throughout TDSB schools, the lack of childcare would no longer be an issue for families in the Briar Hill area. It is possible that many would choose to stay in their home school rather than to attend other TDSB or non-TDSB schools. It is important to take a second look at the enrolment projections through this particular lens.

While it will be worthwhile to consider a K-5 configuration for the new school, there are several likely advantages to restricting the school to K-3:

- primary students require smaller playing fields and fewer specialized classrooms than junior and senior students (this allows us to maximize funds flowing to our capital account)

- junior grade students are better able to safely travel longer distances and cross major roads, and are less likely to be driven to the Fairbank Middle

- our educational goals for our primary students are significantly different than those we have for older students

- it would give students five years to adjust to Fairbank Middle before starting high school, while still giving them access to the all-so-important experiential learning that comes from industrial arts, family studies, and other courses

- it eliminates most or all of the cost that would be needed to both Fairbank Middle and West Prep to accommodate Briar Hill’s K – 3 students, but still maintains the population needed to ensure both schools are viable

I look forward to seeing a complete analysis of this option and its variations as part of your report on the ARC to Board in June. If you or others have further questions about my proposal, and I’ll be pleased to provide any detail that you require.

In the service of schools and students,

Howard Goodman
TDSB Trustee, Eglinton-Lawrence