Four months of emotional public debate to find a solution to fix overcapacity at Elgin Street Public School has left the community divided.
Trustees at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board voted unanimously on April 5 to move the English program at Elgin Street Public School to nearby Centennial Public School effective September 2016. Only Grade 6 students will remain for this coming fall.
“I wanted to keep the dual track at Elgin,” says Anna Feininger whose child was enrolled in the English program at Elgin Street.
“As a former French immersion teacher I know not everybody can do it,” she says.
The English program has more students from immigrant, refugee and disadvantaged homes and some parents argued that they simply couldn’t afford for their children to move to another school.
Donald Champ, a Grade 5 student at Elgin Street school has been advocating throughout the controversy on behalf of students who will remain at Elgin.
He says he feels the decision is not fair and students were not consulted about how the move might affect them.
“This will affect my friends, our sports team, everything,” says Champ. “With them gone it’s just not going to be the same,” he said in an interview.
The decision came after the board learned its previous decision to move Elgin’s kindergarten classes to Centennial violated the provincial Education Act, which requires every elementary school to have a full-day kindergarten.
Malaka Hendela, a parent whose son will remain at Elgin Street in senior kindergarten says she is in favour of the board’s final decision.
“It’s the better of the two options,” she says. “Moving the kindergarteners wouldn’t have solved the overcrowding problems,”
Some parents say they’re left unsatisfied with how the board handled the issue.
Amir Attaran is a legal professor at the University of Ottawa who wrote a letter to trustees questioning the legality of their original decision to move Elgin’s Kindergarten classes.
He says he’s shocked the board hadn’t done its research and it took his letter to flag the legal violation.
“It shouldn’t be me, I don’t work for the school board,” he says. “Why didn’t they know and what will they do to prevent this happening again?”
Attaran says the school board’s behaviour is impacting his decision on where to send his daughter to kindergarten this fall.
“There are 70,000 children being cared for on a daily basis by this school board that does not have even one lawyer on its staff to make sure laws are being followed,” he says.
“That’s incompetent and inexcusable.”
Somerset-Kitchisippi trustee Erica Braunovan insists moving kindergarteners is not illegal because it’s a tool the board has used in the past to address overcrowding. Braunovan says because the regulation is still new the ministry couldn’t tell how long it would take to process and grant an exemption.
Braunovan says she remains concerned about the divided community of families and their opinion of the school board.
“I understand that this has shaken some people’s confidence (of the board). We need to look at ways that can heal this community and help move it forward.”
Braunovan says she is looking forward to hearing the school board’s anticipated timelines for studies across the city, known as an accommodation review. This study will help find long-term solutions to fix chronic overcrowding at schools in downtown Ottawa.
As for the students in the English program moving to Centennial Braunovan says the board will put several measures in place to prepare them for their move to Centennial, such as visits to the school and meetings with the principal.
Barrhaven-Knoxdale trustee Donna Blackburn submitted the motion for the board to reconsider its original decision to move kindergarten students from Elgin Street to Centennial.
She says she thinks moving the English students is the “right decision” in the end and hopes that in time the community will see this too.
“Hopefully people will make an effort to come together in the best interest of their kids,” she says.