By Samantha Battersby
This letter is to address the District School Board of Niagara decision on January 25, 2011 to open the DSBN Academy. I am a young mother of two from a low income family, according to Stats Canada income levels. I am strongly against the idea of segregating children based on their social-economical status.
Samantha with her husband and two young children.
Where does one begin? After reading the article in January 26th edition of the St. Catharines Standard, I am completely baffled at the board’s decision. The plan is to have no more than 75 kids per grade starting at Grade 6.
Didn’t the board just close Niagara District (the only secondary school in Niagara-on-the-Lake) because of low enrollment? Graduating from Niagara District, my grade was one of the first “low enrollment years.” We had about 70 students in Grade 9 (and) the board used these low numbers to justify closing Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Community High School, saying it wasn’t practical to run a high school with such low enrollment numbers.
Now the board has decided that small grades would be beneficial to the student body, and (it is using) our tax payer’s dollars to open a new school. The board is now planning a “new” program based on criteria used to justify closure of another program.
Another requirement of this proposed school is that both parents have not attended post secondary education. In 2006, I was a student at Niagara College, studying Early Childhood Education. In December of 2006, I found out I was expecting a child. I completed my first year of ECE. However I have not returned to school to complete my second year since I had my daughter. Could she still go if we wanted her to? My husband also has attended the Ontario Truck Driving and Heavy Equipment Training school through the second career program. Does this count as post secondary? What criteria will be used to define post-secondary?
A third requirement is the student must be motivated to attend college or university and be at or just below their grade level expectations. If the student is motivated, and at or just below their grade level expectations, why do they require all this extra help? If they are meeting, or approaching the ministry set learning requirements in our current public schools, certainly we can implement resources in our existing classrooms to help these children excel and reach their goal of attending post secondary education. What about the student who is well below their grade expectations? Does the board consider that student a lost cause? What program will the board offer to this student?
Another issue surrounding this new school is transportation. How is the board able to increase their transportation budget by $431,000 in order to accommodate bussing for DSBN Academy, but our existing schools are in need of many things? The $431,000 is only for bussing. That does not include the cost of operations and renewal. The board has yet to inform us of these numbers.
I commented some of my thoughts on the DSBN Facebook home page (last) Thursday afternoon (and) within five minutes I had a mother who lives in Welland comment on my post. Her son attends Ross school in Welland, and she also is very worried about this new school. Her son’ school is in need of upgraded computers, new gym equipment and new books. Her school will go without basic teaching and learning tools while the board tries to justify funding a controversial educational experiment.
I strongly feel the board has not thought this program through very well. What happens if a child’s family is poor enough to enroll them in Grade 6 and by the time the student is in Grade 9 or 10, mom or dad has a new job making more money? Will this student be forced to leave the “poor” school and return to the “normal” school? The stigma attached to this school has the potential to be very negative and an obstacle itself for the students to overcome.
The idea of labeling children as “poor” and segregating them within our school system is wrong. Many children come from middle class families whose parents do not have post secondary education. Does the board not think these children deserve the extra push to get to post secondary as well? It doesn’t seem like the board is putting much thought into how their boardroom decisions will affect the child in the classroom.
Poverty is a huge obstacle for many children living in the Niagara Region today. The Ministry of Education has offered many different programs to assist school boards in lessening the effects of poverty in the classroom. The “Pathways in Education” strategy that many school boards are implementing is getting positive results. There are grants available for tutoring programs, nutrition programs for either snack or breakfast programs. These programs have been implemented at some DSBN sites, but it seems that the DSBN has not embraced the strategy of delivering resources to all schools.
By allowing high schools to become specialized, the divisive attitudes have become much more prevalent in the community. DSBN needs to return to a philosophy that neighbourhood schools are the best place to educate students. These school communities need to be planned with reasonable boundaries that ensure schools will have significant populations to generate funding that permits a variety of programming for all students who attend the school.
The board should be able to identify where these additional resources for impoverished students are needed. A strong board plan for implementation should be developed so that all impoverished students have the same chance for success, not just a fraction that through the luck of a lottery system will get a chance at an educational experience that should be available to every publicly funded pupil space. One of the fundamental founding principles of public education was to educate the poor children in society. This principle needs to be a key focus in every neighbourhood school, not just an experiment that serves a fraction of the poor children entrusted to the DSBN for a public education.
Samantha Battersby is a mother of two children living In St. Catharines, Ontario.
(Visit Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of Interest and concern to residents In our greater Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Well said Samantha!
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My husband and I live in Virgil, we own a local buisness and neither of us attended either college or university. This was our choice, we both chose to get into the workforce instead, and even though we have not had post-secondary education we’ve done very well for ourselves! The DSBN Academy, now that they have dropped the low-income requirement, my daughter would be qualified to go to this school in a couple of years! My daughter does alright in school, she’s not the highest and not the lowest, but is an average student. We have taken it upon ourselves to work with the teachers and the principal, making sure that they are aware that sometimes our daughter has a difficult time, and doesn’t always enjoy school as much as we would like her to! So for children like my daughter, how does the DSBN think that sending her on a bus for possibly an hour, maybe longer, to the DSBN Academy school in Welland, where the school hours are longer, and then bringing her back on the bus for another hour home would help to improve her schooling. To me that is setting up a whole other set of problems. You are going to have tired, miserable kids who don’t have much time to anything else other than attend school! And also if the low-income restriction has been taken off of this school, then what is the purpose, what is the point to all of this?? I think there is a hidden agenda for the reason of this school! Possibly something to do with test scores, and the fact that the DSBN has on average, lower test scores. Is this an attempt to raise their test score.. to “look” better?? Or maybe this is a “legacy” project for the director and the senior trustees who only have another couple of years left in their terms. I think that it would be better to work with our local community schools and their resources and to improve what they have to help all of our children and not just a select few! What if the DSBN came up with work shops for parents to attend and learn how we can help our children to achieve their goals more efficiently! I think they have the right idea, but wrong approach!
This needs to be re-evaluated and they need to include the public to come to an agreement on what is right for all of our children. After all it is a PUBLIC system! Stop telling us what we want and listen/ask what we NEED!
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