Latest news with #LynnScott
CBC
30-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
School boards question 'wasteful spending' rationale behind new education bill
Education Minister Paul Calandra cited "wasteful spending" as a reason for a new bill to strengthen accountability and transparency across Ontario's education system, but several school board chairs and an opposition MPP say this is not the root of funding shortfalls. Calandra announced broad legislation on Thursday that he said would give the minister wide powers to investigate and place school boards under supervision, which would "ensure that every dollar invested is preparing students with practical skills for good-paying, stable careers." During a news conference to introduce the bill, Calandra referenced school board trustees from the Brantford, Ont., area who were forced to repay $50,000 they spent during an art-buying trip in Italy last July. But Lynn Scott, chair of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), said this was not a widespread phenomenon. "I don't think that wasteful spending is the root cause of the funding shortfalls and the deficit budgets that many boards have had to contend with over the last few years," she told CBC. OCDSB singled out The OCDSB is one of five school boards Calandra singled out for financial mismanagement last month. The province is investigating the board as it seeks $20 million in savings in order to avoid a fifth consecutive deficit ahead of finalizing its budget next month. The investigator's report, due on May 30, will recommend whether the OCDSB should hand over control of its finances to the Ministry of Education. The ministry has not yet released the full text of the Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025, leaving questions over much of its content. "If the bill is truly taking aim at good governance, I am absolutely in support of that," Scott said. "But right now, I think the big question for me is what is actually in the legislation? Is it going to be clear enough? Is it going to be fair? And is it going to itself be focused on what is going to help us improve student achievement and well-being for all of the kids in our schools across the province?" Blaming school boards for wasteful spending appeared to be a diversion from a government that has cut funding for education, said Chandra Pasma, MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean and shadow education minister for the New Democratic Party. "While this government's been in power, they have cut spending to the point where $6.35 billion have come out of the education system over the past seven years," she said, referring to recent research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "The school boards aren't able to fix that," she added. Questions about oversight Some school board trustees are also concerned that the legislation could allocate wide powers to the minister, and have questions about oversight. Bob Schreader, the chair of the Renfrew County Catholic School Board, questioned why Calandra had announced the legislation would give the minister the power to name schools. "We've always named our schools after saints," he said, saying it was a priority for school boards to retain ability to name schools, as opposed to the minister. Schreader lauded the bill's aim to improve financial transparency but said most boards were not spending extravagantly. "I would say 99.9 per cent of the boards spend their money appropriately, frugally, and try to ensure that the money that they're given is put into the classrooms to ensure student success," he said.
CTV News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
OCDSB votes to approve contentious elementary school program review
Ottawa's largest school board has approved a controversial overhaul of elementary schools Tuesday night, which includes a slate of changes to programs, grade structures, and boundaries. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board Elementary Program Review will consolidate elementary school programming into Enhanced English and French Immersion, eliminate Middle French Immersion and close Alternative Schools. Approximately 1,500 more students than normal will be required to change schools in September 2026 due to the changes. 'This recommendation is the culmination on the enormous amount of work from our staff and the enormous amount of input and feedback of the entire OCDSB community across the city of Ottawa,' Trustee Lynn Scott said at the conclusion of Tuesday's special board meeting. The review passed nine votes to three, with trustees Amanda Presley, Nili Kaplan-Myrth and Lyra Evans voting against. The board launched the program review last spring, saying the goal was to offer programming in English and French at each school and to have 'community-based education' for students. The proposal had been met with months of debate after parents and trustees took issue with changes to school boundaries, cuts to specialized programs and the closing of alternative schools. Ultimately, OCDSB staff reversed some of the changes, including modifications to grade structures at some of its schools. Trustees also voted last week to maintain special education programs after 26 programs in the primary gifted program, the language learning disabilities program (primary and junior), and the learning disabilities semi-integrated program (junior and intermediate) were to be phased-out. Presley moved a motion Tuesday evening that would require staff to determine the viability of modifying the phase-out of alternative schools in a report to be presented to the board by the fall of 2027, but trustees voted it down after Director of Education Pino Buffone expressed concerns it would make the review unworkable for staff. Parents had protested the move to close alternative schools in recent weeks, with many saying the closure of alternative schools would negatively impact learning of special needs students if required to attend classes in a mainstream school. 'We know that students are not being met where they need to be in our mainstream classrooms,' Presley said. Kaplan-Myrth argued the review does not properly address disparities in the district, especially for students with special needs, racialized children, and those from low socio-economic backgrounds. 'We have not found the best option for all students,' she said. 'I want on the record that we have let down these students.' The review will see changes to the grade structures at 18 schools and alterations to the boundaries at dozens of schools. Under the plan, the last cohort will enter Middle French Immersion in September 2026 and finish Grade 8 in 2021. Alternative schools will be phased out in 2035. The last cohort of Middle French Immersion students will enter Grade 4 in September 2026 and complete Grade 8 by the end of the 2030-31 school year. Students in Middle French Immersion will, in most cases, remain at their current school. The last cohort of Junior Kindergarten students starting in September 2025 will complete Grade 6 at the end of the 2032-33 school year, and Grade 8 in 2034-35. Staff say the four K-Grade 6 Alternative schools and one Grade 7-8 school will begin to transition to community schools in September 2026. With files from CTV News Ottawa's Josh Pringle
CBC
13-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
What you need to know ahead of the OCDSB's final vote on its elementary review
Social Sharing Trustees on the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) will take a final vote Tuesday evening on a controversial overhaul of elementary programs that has been years in the making. Leading into that meeting, the plan remains to phase out alternative schools and middle French immersion, while aiming to dual-track more schools — though not all — to provide both English and French immersion. Many aspects of the plan have shifted significantly in the months since details were made public. That's in large part due to the more than 12,000 people who have weighed in since the beginning of the year. Here's a guide to help you get up to speed. Why is the OCDSB doing this revamp? Director of education Pino Buffone says an overhaul of elementary programs was a priority on his desk in 2010 when he became a superintendent. Board chair Lynn Scott, who has been a trustee for 30 years, said past boards have made attempts, and she hopes this time it will finally get done. The issues date back to the late 1990s when the Ottawa and Carleton boards merged and the OCDSB inherited schools with a variety of grade configurations and offerings. The big goal, Buffone says, is to now give all students access to the same programs in their community school. In essence, that means aiming to dual-track schools to offer both French immersion and English, while phasing out middle French immersion and alternative schools. Specifically, the board wanted to bring French immersion to 15 single-track English schools to correct socio-economic inequities. The board's data shows its English program teaches a disproportionate number of children from low-income households whose first language isn't English, or who have special education needs. In addition to resolving inequities, the director of education has also said the restructuring at the elementary level will allow the board to operate more efficiently. "We have plenty of data ... that we are stagnating as an organization, that we are spreading ourselves too thin, that we need to streamline our programs to two offerings, enhanced English and French immersion," Buffone told trustees at a meeting May 6. "This organization is entirely distracted from what we need to do for our students." How are school boundaries changing? In the end, changes to boundaries and grade configurations for individual schools will not be nearly as significant as originally laid out on Feb. 28. In order to put French immersion and English in each school, while maintaining enough students to have workable classrooms, staff originally laid out some situations that confounded and upset many parents. Some schools remained significantly over- or under-capacity. Some schools would have seen cohorts go to one school for junior kindergarten to Grade 3, and then move to another school for grades 4-8. When the maps were released in late February, parents pointed to siblings who would be separated, children who would have to travel to a school farther away, disruption of after-school child care, the breakup of school communities and more. Some schools with toilets for small children would be converted to middle schools with lockers. By April 3, board staff had gone back to the drawing board and removed those proposed J.K.-3 and grades 4-8 schools. In doing so, five English-only schools remained: Arch Street, Dunlop, Convent Glen, Hawthorne and North Gower/Marlborough. That frustrated trustees Nili Kaplan-Myrth and Lyra Evans, especially. They argued those able to protest and organize saw changes, yet the OCDSB was willing to leave systemic barriers in low-income areas. Evans tabled a motion May 6 to bring French immersion to English-only schools, but it failed in a 9-3 vote. Staff said doing so would mean reintroducing the contentious J.K-3 and 4-8 configurations. Not all was resolved for some parents who gave delegations on April 22, either. They worry some schools won't be able to sustain all grades of English or French immersion with the new school catchments. How does this affect special education? All specialized classes for children with complex needs will remain, despite a plan presented in January to phase out 39 of them. The OCDSB has 142 classes to meet the needs of children who have autism, need behavioural intervention, are hard of hearing, have developmental delays, are gifted and more. Board staff point out that the OCDSB offers classes other districts do not, and they do cost more. Moreover, staff point to a philosophy of including children in mainstream classes wherever possible, and meeting their needs there. Unions and parents were unconvinced children in community schools would get the educational assistants and support they need at a time of cost cutting. By early April, staff said they had listened to feedback and would keep 13 classes. Trustees vote May 6 to spare the rest. What is the future for alternative schools? Going into the final May 13 vote, the OCDSB still intends to phase out its decades-old alternative program — students who enrol this September in J.K. will be the final alternative Grade 8 graduates in the 2034-2035 school year. That's despite intense protest and lobbying to preserve those five schools for future students. At protests and delegation nights, parents described how their children enjoy going to alternative schools because of their child-centred approach in the alternative stream. They pushed back against arguments that students must be transported farther from home or don't do well on standardized tests, and instead urged the board to do a fulsome study and consultation. "This program is not a boutique option, it's a front-line equity intervention," agreed Trustee Amanda Pressley, who has personal experience in the program and a child currently enrolled. She has signalled she will seek to pause the elementary program review until further research is done on the alternative program. How is this review related to the OCDSB's deficits? Buffone says finances are not driving this reorganization, but he also says everything in some way links back to the annual budget. Indeed, in Scott's letter to the education minister at the outset of this elementary review more than a year ago, she indicated changes "would not resolve the board's funding challenges ... but they would go some way towards making more effective use of the funding we do receive." The OCDSB's finances are under provincial scrutiny. After using up reserves in the pandemic, in part by subsidizing special education when provincial grants didn't cover all costs, the district must now avoid a fifth deficit. The education minister has launched an investigation into these deficits, which could lead to a recommendation that the government temporarily take control. Buffone told trustees last week that the ministry has for years spoken to the OCDSB about its structural issues and the "impossible reality" of running four programs at the elementary level. Most other districts under the provincial funding formulas offer only English with a few French immersion schools, he noted. When will students move? Once approved, the changes are to take effect in September 2026. The board anticipates about 1,500 more students will move than in a typical school year. The board is also setting out a policy whereby parents and caregivers can apply to exempt their child so they can stay at their current school. According to a motion approved May 6, there has to be space and the grades have to remain viable at both the sending and receiving school. In the year to come, fewer renovations will be required now that the board has walked back some grade configurations, but there will still be many staff on the move and changes to transportation that must be worked out. Even after the changes take effect, the board will have to eye enrolment. If it's low in some schools, the board might need to make further changes. Finally, the elementary review is just the first of four stages. The OCDSB plans to review early years and child care, grades 9-12, and adult and continuing education in the years to come.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Yahoo
National Child Advocacy Center highlights ongoing fight against child abuse after 40 years
HUNSTVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Blue pinwheels, the symbol of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, have been placed in communities across North Alabama in April, representing the joy a child should be able to feel while growing up. On Monday, Madison County leaders emphasized their ongoing support for an organization that provides resources for children who have experienced abuse. Northrop Grumman opens new state-of-the-art integration center in Madison For 40 years, the National Child Advocacy Center has provided forensic interviews and counseling for children experiencing child abuse in Madison County. The goal is for these children and their families to find justice and healing. 'We really are making an impact,' Lynn Scott, the State Executive Director of the Alabama Network of Children's Advocacy Centers, said. 'We're the prevention to things that we see later on if children do not resolve some of the issues and the trauma that they experienced.' The center was born out of a desire to better assist children who had been abused. 'Many times, those resources that we were trying to target to help our children within each department were limited,' Madison County Commission Chair Mac McCutcheon said. McCutcheon is a former law enforcement officer who said he remembers Madison County leaders working with Congressman Bud Cramer to create the center.'We began to talk about it would be nice if we had one stop location where we could combine those resources,' McCutcheon said. 'It would be beneficial. It would be for the children and, of course, the parents of the children and making cases for the court.' In 1985, the National Children's Advocacy Center was formed in Huntsville. As the first of its kind, the center reformed how child abuse cases are investigated, prosecuted and treated. Over time, thousands of centers were established following this model, with 36 going up in Alabama, nearly a thousand in the U.S. and more across the world. 'You look at the results we have here,' McCutcheon said. 'This is the model of how things could be done and should be done.' McCutcheon, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and Madison Mayor Paul Finley signed a proclamation and stated their intent to support the goals of the National Children's Advocacy Center. In its 40 years of operation, every child who has been helped at the center has received those services for free. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
