\u201cMy real concern is for our small secondary schools,\u201d said John McAllister, chairman of the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) during a May 30 phone interview. \u201cWe are talking about the viability of small secondary schools.\u201d <\/p>\n
A recent announcement from Education Minister Stephen Lecce declared that all Ontario school boards must offer virtual learning as an option for students at the start of the 2021-2022 school year. Distance learning has been the primary means of education for almost all students, both elementary and secondary since March 2020 when the provincial state of emergency for health took effect because of the pandemic. Attempts to reopen classrooms during the current school year have been sporadic because of renewals of provincial lockdown orders. <\/p>\n
School board worries <\/p>\n
Last month the UCDSB sent a brief to the ministry outlining its concerns about plans to make distance learning a permanent option for the provincial education program. McAllister noted that distance learning programs have worked well to ensure students continue their education during the pandemic. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not against remote learning,\u201d he said. \u201cBut a pandemic response is not a permanent option.\u201d <\/p>\n
McAllister\u2019s concern is that the ministry is trying to apply a one-size-fits-all idea to all school boards in the province without considering the student number differences between large urban schools and small rural schools. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am standing up for small schools,\u201d he said. \u201cThis may work well in Toronto, Hamilton, and other places. But it doesn\u2019t work in Eastern Ontario where every student (registeredthe ) counts.\u201d <\/p>\n
McAllister observed that class size and staffing for small rural schools are often different compared to large urban schools. He gave as an example a Grade 12 physics class that might have 15 students at a rural school. If five students decided to do their physics studies through virtual learning then the school could end up dropping Grade 12 physics from its curriculum because there are not enough students to justify the expense of assigning a classroom and a teacher for the course. <\/p>\n
He also noted that the ministry\u2019s demand could also affect the budget revenue situation for many small rural school boards. The ministry could offer full-time online learning for high school students in either English or French through TVO\/TFO. <\/p>\n
The worry is that school boards would end up losing some of the provincial Grants for Student Needs funding (GSN) they get as part of their annual operation budgets. Students that enrolled in full-time virtual learning through the ministry would no longer be considered as part of the total student enrolment for the school board region where they lived so there would be less GSN money from the ministry for that school board. During its own budget plan the school board would either have to find other revenue sources to make up for the GSN funding lost or consider cutting back on other expenses or eliminating some programs. <\/p>\n
Lobby action <\/p>\n
The UCDSB has asked the provincial government to form a royal commission on the future of education before making any \u201csignificant changes\u201d to Ontario\u2019s education setup. That includes making online learning a permanent option for students. <\/p>\n
McAllister noted that almost two dozen other school boards have expressed concern about the ministry\u2019s demand. The Ontario Public School Association and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario have also urged the provincial government to reconsider its plans. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile McAllister has begun lobbying for support of the UCDSB\u2019s position from local governments and other groups. He has made presentations to the United Counties of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry council and the regional councils for Grenville and Lanark counties. He is waiting for a response from the United Counties of Prescott-Russell (UCPR) to his request to make a presentation to UCPR council. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The provincial government wants to make online learning a permanent option for Ontario students and that worries the chair of the Upper Canada school district. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"acf":[],"featured_media_global":[],"yoast_head":"\n