Parents rally to save community schools from budget axe.
James S. Bell Community School is one of six centres in Etobicoke, and 12 across the city, whose programs are currently threatened by city budget cuts. Services at stake include after-hours classes, summer programs, and March break camps.
Staff photo/MARY GAUDET
Etobicoke parents caught off guard by a city budget proposal to cut community school programming are rallying this week to save the services they call an "essential part of the development and growth of our youth."
"When we voted Mayor Rob Ford in, there was talk about 'stopping the gravy train'. When he said that, I thought he meant trimming excess fat - looking at cash flow, cutting inefficiencies, trimming some of the luxury items," said Brenda Bennett-Learmonth, a parent from the John G. Althouse school community. "I don't really see a community school as a luxury item...instead of trimming excess fat, I think he's cutting pretty close to the bone."
John G. Althouse is one of six Etobicoke community schools slated for elimination in Ford's proposed 2012 operating budget, the details of which were released late last Thursday, Dec. 1.
In total, the proposed budget lists 12 shared-use facilities at Toronto District School Board (TDSB) properties be closed across the city- including Bloordale, James S. Bell, John English, The Elms and John G. Althouse community schools, as well as the Thistletown community centre in Etobicoke - for a total cost savings of $3.7 million.
Impacted by the potential closures will be the hundreds of Etobicoke students, parents, and community members who access the city's Parks and Recreation-run programs out of those facilities after school hours.
Currently, those programs include everything from summer and March Break camps; fitness and sports programs (ball hockey, basketball, volleyball, soccer, racquet sports, yoga and pilates); ballet, jazz and hip hop dance lessons; fine arts and drama; and guitar and piano lessons.
Etobicoke-Lakeshore Trustee Pamela Gough, whose ward includes James S. Bell and John English community schools, said while she respects that the city has to handle its budget, its proposals came with some concerns.
"To be frank, it's women and children first in the worst possible way. It's the zoos, it's the nutrition programs, it's the community programs in the schools that make the schools community hubs," she said. "That's what schools should be - they should be the heart of the community, they should be where parents and children go for not only school programs but for recreational and arts programs and all those things that keep children engaged and off the streets and healthy."
In her latest e-update to ward parents, Gough urged concerned parents to get in contact with their local councillor, Mark Grimes (whose office did not return a request for comment by Guardian deadline), or make a delegation to the city's budget committee last night, Wednesday Dec. 7.
One of the parents who heeded that advice is Laurie Green, a family physician who lives and raised her four children - now aged 23, 21, 17 and 15 - in Etobicoke Lakeshore.
Now chair of the TDSB's Ward 3 Parent Involvement Advisory Committee, she's outspoken about the benefits of community schools, having enrolled her kids in the programs offered at Parklawn Community School (which is not slated for closure) from pre-school right up to their teenage years, when they took leadership programs at the site.
The city's shared-use, community centre service model in partnership with the TDSB, she said, has always been a point of pride.
"I think Etobicoke always got it right - that we did this better than the rest of the city because we're the guys that didn't have all stand-alone community centres," she said. "We're not for paying extra heat, for extra floor space, for extra cleaning space. We're using a school that's already used during the day, so it totally makes sense."
What doesn't make sense, she said, is closing down those very same programs that keep kids active, that employ at-risk youth from the neighbourhood, that change lives for the better, and that do all of those things in a very cost-effective and affordable way.
It's a concern Green said she planned to take to the budget committee Wednesday night, lest all the city's programming and services be cut one day.
"I think we all need to stand together. Next year it could be Parklawn, and then Norseman, and then Islington, and then there won't be any left at all - they'll all be private. How will people afford it then?" she asked. "The city had it right before. They had a welcome policy for parks and rec - for people who really couldn't afford it, their kids still got to be able to participate. I thought that's what this nation was about, and this city was about. But now it seems that it's not, and I think that's sad."