Good evening, Kitchissippi. I want to acknowledge the growing number of notes I’m receiving about the elementary program review (EPR) underway at the OCDSB and the requests I’ve received to weigh in on changes that are in the offing. I recognize that for some residents there are serious and legitimate concerns about what this means for their children’s schooling, with significant potential disruption. The EPR is undoubtedly a complex exercise with multiple competing interests and goals – I do not have the benefit of understanding the work that went into that or the compromises that Board staff have chosen to put before trustees. I don’t know, in other words, what I don’t know.
Schooling is a provincial issue with local control vested in the Board, and I know trustees have a difficult decision ahead. I know our OCDSB trustee Suzanne Nash to be a thoughtful person who is in the best position to weigh all the considerations at play in the EPR, including what’s best for parents and their children. In the coming days I will be reaching out to Suzanne to relay the concerns I’ve been hearing without advocating for any specific outcome. I hope kids in the same family and on the street can be kept together insofar as that is possible within the new framework, and am sure there are likely factors I don’t understand that will pose challenges to that. I leave it to the Board, working with their professional staff, to make a final decision on school boundaries, and wish trustees luck with a very difficult decision.