The story about Pineland Public School that no one really knew about because people have been busy with the start of a new school year [and councils aren't formed yet - see previous blog post], just got bigger. The vote is scheduled to happen at tonight's board meeting at 7:00 pm and up until last night, there was not much talk about it outside of HFFINS and some Pineland parents (who knew about it). All that changed with the publishing of this article below by Kristin Rushowy, Education Reporter with the Toronto Star...
Burlington parents upset with boundary change and loss of full-day kindergarten
Halton board's move to French Immersion-only school would mean loss of kindergarten and “walk-to” school.
Some of the highlights of the article:
"The community has been fighting for a decade to keep English,” said mother Corinne Moore,...
“You talk to parents in the neighbourhood with older kids, and they say, ‘We fought every year.’ They went to every board meeting to fight for this. They are just done.
Yes, several folks have delegated to the board over the years referencing the dangerous numbers at some of HDSB's dual track schools, Pineland being one of them. This table from a 2009 delegation has often been used as an example of the dangers of not enforcing balance in dual track schools when pleading for policy that would protect the English track. Those pleas always fell, and continue to fall, on deaf ears.
The Halton District School Board already has five French Immersion-only elementary schools out of a total of 84 — all of them in Oakville. By comparison, the Toronto District School Board, the country’s largest, has four French-only schools out of 461.
This is egregious and perfectly displays how personal agendas from trustees have driven policy. We have had a steady stream of trustees pushing their vision of single track French Immersion to the detriment of everything else. Pushing agendas has created for Halton costly boundary reviews, financial and emotional, and the marginalization of what this English board is mandated to provide.
Demand for French Immersion is driving programming, though parents say boundaries for the current French program at Pineland are much larger than the English catchment area, which has led to the imbalance.
The yellow, green and purple all make up the boundary for French Immersion at Pineland Public School. Again, the board likes to say that what is driving the demand for French Immersion is parents but many things have led us to where we are now -- and very little of it has to do with parents [see our previous blog post]. This board is largely responsible for the mismanagement of this optional program, from the Directors to certain trustees.
“This is tearing up our neighbourhood,” she said. “We want the kids in the neighbourhood to go to the same school. If you go down our street, there are so many people who have opted for the Catholic school to avoid these issues. Others have opted for private school.
“People are broken up and going to all these schools. It is not great for our community.”
This is what the Director and certain trustees don't get -- when you aren't Catholic or don't have the funds for private school you can't avoid these issues because you have no other options. This adds to the further marginalization of our English track children and families and does zero to quell the elite status of French Immersion. This is our two-tier education system in Halton.