By Toby Bartlett
Six months into the school year, Ottawa’s $700,000 program for expelled students has its first enrolment and is now up and running — with one student.
The program, a two-year pilot project, is a joint effort between the Ottawa public and Catholic school boards.
The Ontario Ministry of Education gave them a grant of $700,000 for the program last fall. But only about one-tenth of the money has been spent so far, says Mars Bottiglia, chair of the steering committee in charge of the project and a Catholic board superintendent.
While $700,000 is a lot of money for one student, Bottiglia says program co-ordinators plan to accommodate other troubled students as well as just those who have been fully expelled.
Although planners knew the numbers of expelled students would be low, as shown this year, Bottiglia says the ministry felt the numbers would increase with the introduction of the news program.
“Progress has been relatively slow,” says Bottiglia. “So far we’ve hired a program manager and one teacher.”
The teacher was hired just two weeks ago, in response to the program’s first enrolment.
“We waited until we had someone in the classroom,” he says. “Why hire teachers if we have no kids?”
The program is based at the old St. Elizabeth School on Admiral Avenue, which it shares with an adult education program. There is no set time for a student to attend, says Bottiglia. The duration of the stay depends on the progress of the student.
Funding came as a result of an application put in to the ministry after the Ontario government created the Safe Schools Act in 2000.
Similar programs have been established in other cities, with similarly small numbers. In Brampton, there are currently only five students enrolled.
John Shannon, program manager for the Ottawa project, says each student will have a curriculum tailored to his or her needs, consisting of about 60 per cent academic work and 40 per cent counselling. Much of the counselling will be contracted out to the Youth Services Bureau.
“We started with the strengths of the student academically,” says Shannon, referring to his first student.
“We’ll build in some physical exercise and also some life skills, to help him prepare for getting a job.”
The school re-entry program is a departure from past scenarios for expelled students.
“Historically, students who were expelled were basically on their own,” says Bottiglia. “They had to wait a year before they could apply to go back.”
Bottiglia says this program will help those students by addressing their problems and working with them toward a successful return to mainstream schools, rather than leaving them to help themselves.
He says full expulsions are rare in Ottawa, but limited expulsions ranging from 21 days to one year are more common.
Students under these limited expulsions are not currently eligible for the program according to the plan laid out by the ministry, but Bottiglia says if they were it would boost enrolment and might put it at its capacity of about 20 students.
But with so few expulsions, the program is an afterthought for some schools.
“We’re aware it exists, but we don’t have any details,” says Angela Spence, principal of Lisgar Collegiate.“It’s not a consideration for us right now, because we don’t have a student in that situation.”