Report reaction still dominates discussions
Ontario education consultant Avis Glaze, had not met with some groups in the African Nova Scotian community to discuss how recommendations in the report may impact African Nova Scotian learners.
There was also concern still expressed over school advisory councils (SACs), which will take on an “enhanced” role to make decisions for their school communities, given that some SACs in rural areas still struggle with membership and forming quorums at meetings.
The education minister, meanwhile, says the sessions he is holding with stakeholders will take place over the next two weeks. Churchill is meeting with school board superintendents and senior staff, SACs, teachers and principals. He kicked off these meetings Feb. 12 in Yarmouth.
The government has indicated recommendations in the Glaze report that it has already accepted and says it agrees with the spirit of the others. There have been some individuals and groups who have asked why there isn’t more widespread public consultation happening now that the recommendations have been made public. Churchill says the report and its recommendations are aimed at fixing an education administrative structure that hasn’t been working.
“The intent of Avis Glaze’s recommendations are to unify our system operationally so we can have a clear strategic focus on student success and achievement, so they can empower our frontline staff by giving them more authority in their classrooms and their schools,” he says. “These recommendations are meant to empower commun- ities so that they have a greater say in what happens at the local levels.”
Churchill says the recommendations in the Glaze report echo a lot of what has been said in previous reports and it is time to move forward.
“The people that are suggesting that consultation needs to happen are defending the status quo,” he said.
Churchill freely admits the Glaze report is not aimed at fixing all that isn’t working in the education system, nor does it address all of the concerns that were brought forward by teachers a year ago when they made presentations at the law amendments committee in the days leading up to the provincial government imposing a contract on them.
“The Glaze report is only about the administrative structure of the education system and how we better order that to better serve our kids. This is about how we manage the system. How we organize it,” he said, saying other work carried out by the Council to Improve Classroom Conditions and the Commission on Inclusive Education will address other concerns that teachers and the public have raised.