Education input being sought Nov. 15, 21
Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative government has rolled out consultations of “unprecedented scope” to gather input on the province’s education system.
Parents, students, educators and interested individuals and organizations are encouraged to provide feedback via open submissions, an online survey, or telephone town halls scheduled for nine regions.
“Our goal is to prepare Ontario students for success, improve their academic achievement and equip them with the tools needed to enter the working world,” the Ministry of Education states online at www.ontario.ca/page/ for-the-parents.
Open submissions can be made via a form at www.ontario.ca/ form/open-submissionseducation-ontario or by emailing fortheparents@ontario.ca with your name, “provincial consultations” as the subject and a submission attached as a PDF or Word document.
Feedback can also be submitted through an online survey at https://registration.forthe parents.ca/ where participants must register to get a link delivered to them by email.
Telephone town hall sessions for the Central Ontario region, including Peterborough, will take place Nov. 15 from noon to 1:30 p.m. and Nov. 21 from 8:30 to 10 p.m. Visit https://www.ontario.ca/form/ register-telephonetown-halls-about-educationontario to register.
Registrants must provide their telephone number and will be contacted just prior to the town hall, officials stated. They must also provide an email address to get a reminder the day before the event or be notified if the session is cancelled.
Consultations close Dec. 15. The feedback will shape decisions in seven areas, the ministry stated, including:
• Improving student performance in science, technology, engineering and math.
• Preparing students with needed job skills, such as skilled trades and coding.
• Improving provincial standardized testing; ensuring students graduate with important life skills, including financial literacy.
• Managing the use of technology in classrooms, such as cellphones.
• Building a new age-appropriate health and physical education curriculum that includes sub jects like me ntal health, sexual health education and the legalization of cannabis.
• Developing the first-ever parents’ bill of rights.
Meanwhile, NDP education critic Marit Stiles says the consultations are off to a rocky start — pointing out that people in northwestern Ontario were given less than 24 hours of notice of their telephone town hall and about five hours to register.
“To make matters worse, for those very few who did manage to get on the northwest regional town hall, less than 15 minutes were dedicated to input on the health and physical education curriculum, which is the supposed reason for the entire consultation taking place,” she stated in a press release.