HDSB trustees voting to remove FDK
To: [email protected]
Dear Sir,
We are sending you this letter because of your involvement with and vision for Full Day Kindergarten, coupled with your article on trustees in yesterday's Toronto Star, "We ignore school board election at our peril".
Two statements from yesterday's article particularly resonated with us because of what is going on in our board:
"But these candidates only have a hope if voters pay attention to what is a too-often overlooked race. We ignore the school board election at our peril."
and
"In my view, given the role education plays in supporting healthy human development during the formative years, the election of school board trustees should trump all other elections. Yet too many trustees have treated the role as a station on the way to what they view as a better office."
As you know, the Ministry of Education did an about face and amended their policy in late June of this year to allow single track French Immersion (FI) schools to 'opt out' of offering Full Day Kindergarten. This was an egregious move on their part, in our opinion. We're pretty sure that having the option to walk to school removed for little 3 and 4 year olds was not part of your vision for FDK. With single track FI schools not offering FDK, children seeking public education are forced into being bused away from their closest school during their formative years!
One of the final schools to receive FDK in our board of Halton is Pineland Public School. This dual track school implemented FDK just 3 weeks ago. However, our board is recommending and is scheduled to vote on the removal of English track AND FDK from this school on October 1st for a decision that would be put into effect one year from now. At the June 18, 2014 board meeting this original recommendation was defeated and instead they voted to reconvene for a decision in March 2015. At the July 2nd meeting, into the swing of summer they decided to alter that Motion and moved the decision date up to October 1st!
We have been instrumental in the long and sordid fight to keep this school open to all the children living in the area and now even more so that FDK is part of the school.
We believe Halton District School Board should not be meeting, let alone voting after the date of September 12th in recognition that the election campaign is in full swing so we have started a petition to stop the vote: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/508/177/955/stop-the-vote-on-pineland-public-school-before-the-election/
A Burlington trustee candidate agrees with us and signed the petition:
"As a candidate for Public School Trustee, I agree that having a vote at this time is not in the best interest of voters, parents and students. This vote needs to be postponed until the newly elected board of trustees is sworn in. We are fighting an uphill battle to get taxpayers/parents to listen to us and understand just how important trustees are. We hope you can help us get the word out."
Our neighbourhood schools and Full Day Kindergarten are at risk of very damaging change because these trustees want to rush through this decision before the election.
Sincerely,
Halton Families for Inclusive Neighbourhood Schools
2 Comments
Families for Kindergarten
9/20/2014 11:29:41 pm
This is unacceptable and a tactic that is manipulative to say the least.
Reply
Jenn Poirier
10/6/2014 06:25:03 am
Reply
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