The Ministry of Education in Ontario has allowed segregation for years to happen in Oakville but it is only the recent decision to allow such practices to continue by separating the poorest from others that has finally caught some media attention.
For years the Ministry has allowed Oakville’s SEGREGATED FI model (STFI) to occur but now the world knows that the same Ministry will allow segregation to occur but this time it is about wealth or the lack of that is causing the public outcry.
Now that segregation is based on wealth not language, people are crying foul. Maybe public outrage will finally force the Ministry of Education to enact policy that ensures segregation is not allowed regardless of wealth, language, colour, sexual orientation or whatever. We are all supposed to be equal and provided for fairly.
Seems the decision to allow The District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) Academy to open in September to 150 grades 6 and 7 students whose parents have not attended college or university and currently live under the poverty line is causing many to question the sanity of how we deliver education in Ontario or the very Ministry that allows such disgusting practices to continue.
Halton has segregated for years based on language. The Ministry of Education’s unwillingness or inability to manage FI delivery and the lack of policy to ensure balanced enrollment has allowed the HDSB to build community schools and then give them away to an optional program because their preferred method of delivering FI is Single Track French Immersion (STFI) – i.e. SEGREGATION.
What is STFI – method of delivering French Immersion whereby only the children enrolled in the FI optional program are allowed to attend that school. This is segregation ….pure and simple. The public education system is supposed to accommodate all children in a variety of programs with varying educational abilities and skills.
So why after the last STFI opened under the nose of the Ministry and the HDSB opened the next school Palermo as a ‘dual’ school but made sure no rules existed to ensure an FI enrollment takeover would not occur does the same Ministry not come to our defense?
So many in Halton are asking why so many are outraged by the latest SEGREGATION attempt when their demands for policy to restrict the very same behaviour have gone unanswered.
Is the outrage because the vulnerable are more obvious? It is not the special need children or the English mandated child but rather the poor?
Are our children not worthy of the same type of outrage as those in other areas?
The poverty segregation being proposed now has media reporting that critics include many and even MPPs are weighing in on the debate. MPP Peter Kormos and others state that it appears the poor children are being kept with their own kind, that it undermines the fundamentals of public education and that it ghettoize schools.
The public outcry to this latest segregation attempt (this one based on income and wealth) has caused the Ontario Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky to state that the Ministry is “watching this very closely.”
Well isn’t that nice that the Minister has responded. It is much more than she has done for many in Oakville who have asked for a direct response on how she will eliminate segregation in our community. Oakville residents often don’t even get an email back. Halton residents wonder how it is this latest segregation debate gets the Minister to respond when our most vulnerable children have been left in the dust with segregation policies.
Now we are not suggesting that programming should not be offered for high risk children or that FI not be part of optional programming but that any of these types of programming should happen in an environment where inclusion is encouraged.
By co-existing, you allow those less fortunate or academic/less academic or different (based on language, colour, nationality, etc.) to mingle and support each other, you allow children to mentor each other and you teach them the reality of co-existing with each other.
SEGREGATION is never the answer.
SEGREGATION is ugly. It is suggesting that someone is either not worthy to be included or others are above others so they should be separated. Either way, the word conjures up ugly references and so it should.
So how many are asking does one SEGREGATION model get a reaction from the Ministry where the other is left unchecked. Gee the two do sound similar don’t they….just our SEGREGATION doesn’t seem to get the attention of the Ministry of Education because we have not become embarrassing enough.
