By Keith Kalawsky
Despite loud opposition from angry parents, students and teachers — and squabbling among school trustees — the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has taken one more step towards radically changing special education in the region.
Parents from McNabb Park Public School in Centretown are pestering trustees with letters and phone calls asking them to reject a plan to cut spaces in gifted programs from 625 to 400 to save money. Some children would attend gifted classes only part-time but others would be cut from the program entirely and put back into regular classrooms. Nine teachers would be axed from gifted classes.
However, by a vote of six to three, board members approved “in principle” the unpopular staff report on special education — paving the way for a final vote in March.
“What we hoped the trustees would do is represent their constituents,” said Ruth Cooper, mother of two sons in the gifted program at McNabb. “And the constituents at every single presentation up there said, ‘No, this is not going to work. I care about my children, this does not work, so don’t do this to them.’ Obviously some of the trustees have chosen not to listen to it. That’s really very poor representation.”
Albert Chambers, chair of the school board and Ottawa Central/Near West trustee, shares Cooper’s skepticism and voted against plan.
“I want to see a lot more detail before I certainly would support these kinds of changes,” Chambers said. “There’s a real difference in my mind between putting a group of young elementary gifted students with their peers, where they’re working and being challenged every minute of the day, as opposed to having an opportunity once or twice a week of taking a little time out and maybe taking on a project as extra work.”
But a majority of board members, including Nepean North/Central trustee Alex Getty, say the school board’s funding shortfall — caused by provincial cutbacks to education — won’t go away. He says changes to special education must be made sooner or later.
“It’s a crying shame we’re thinking about deferring this decision,” Getty said as the board decided whether to accept the recommendations. “We can’t continue with the status quo.”
Some board members say there’s still some room for changes before the plan is adopted — leaving parents and gifted students at McNabb Park Public School and Lisgar Collegiate just a glimmer of hope.
“As usual they’re stalling, which is good because it gives us time to try and convince them to take another look at this and see exactly what they’re doing,’” says Annie Deutsch, chair of McNabb’s school council. “This is going to affect generations of children and it’s hard to change something once it’s implemented.”
More details about the plan are expected at a meeting on Feb. 10, but the education committee has already begun making plans to implement its proposals.
“We have no idea what they’re planning to do with children who don’t fit into the program,” Deutsch says. “None of this has been put down on paper for us so we know where these kids will be going.”
Lisgar students Jeremy Taylor and Shane Gero asked the board to delay its decision until all parents and students are consulted. More than 600 of Lisgar’s 1,200 students signed a petition urging trustees to maintain the school’s gifted program — and prevent more than half of Lisgar’s gifted students from being transferred to other schools.
“Our major concern is the unspecific nature of this proposal. Students in all grades have been asking questions that with information provided in this proposal are unanswerable,” Gero said.
“No one wants to leave a school they’ve grown attached to.”