O•S•C•A•R© Fida's Pizza Changes Hands - Old Ottawa South

MAY 2010
OCDSB TRUSTEE REPORT
The OSCAR - OUR 37 th YEAR Page 31
Unexpected Concerns About Secondary School Gifted Sites
By Rob Campbell
Last column, amongst other
key news, I briefly noted that
a report on the location of
congregated secondary gifted centres
was coming forward. Its general
argument is that there are too many
English and French immersion gifted
sites at secondary schools and that
these should be consolidated into
fewer stronger program locations.
The advantages to this are greater
gifted course selections at each site
and also a stronger per cohort while
preserving some equity of access, all
of which surely should be supported
in concept.
The report recommends reducing
to three centres: Lisgar, Bell and
Merivale. Lisgar would have
Eextended French Gifted and English
Gifted while the other two would have
Ottawa Regional Youth Choir
Saturday, May 8th - The Ottawa Regional Youth Choir,
directed by Kevin Reeves will perform at 7:30 p.m. with
Kingston ’s Cantabile Youth Choir directed by Dr. Mark
Sirett at Knox Presbyterian Church, Elgin Street and Laurier
Avenue
Tickets: Adults-$20; Seniors-$15 Students-$10
French Immersion options in addition
to English. The report recommends
redirecting students from Glebe
Collegiate Institute’s gifted French
immersion program. The numbers at
Glebe had been weak (this year 60
students across four grades). On the
basis of these numbers I had been
reluctantly willing to go along with
the basic recommendation.
Since then, the question has
become more complicated. One, we
now also know that Glebe registration
numbers for next year’s Grade 9
gifted have shot up to 26 students.
Given low attrition grade-to-grade for
Glebe gifted, as this might be a result
of a structural shift towards Glebe
registrations given recent transfer
policy changes, as the staff suggest
that 70 students is minimum school
program threshold, then whether the
Glebe phase out of gifted French
still makes sense now is in question.
Changes to the transfer policy means
that we may be making decisions to
secondary gifted education looking in
the rearview mirror, and we need to
get this right.
Also, an oil has been poured on the
fire. It started with a very unfortunate
side-bar in the report suggesting staff
want to phase out the entire gifted
secondary program in the OCDSB in
time. This, along with questions about
the specific school recommendations,
has understandably raised concern
as to a link between the two. Then a
Trustee proposed that the Gifted be
moved from Lisgar out to Gloucester!
As a result, larger concerns going
well beyond the limited scope of the
formal recommendations in the report
has been sparked.
Gifted students are recognized
as having certain special education
Sunday, May 2 2010 | 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Location: Old Ottawa South Neighbourhood
The 8th Annual Hike for Hospice in support
of The Hospice at May Court at 114
Cameron Avenue. A national fundraising and
awareness event for palliative care; event in-
Hike for Hospice
needs by the Ministry and the OCDSB
and have a right to have those needs
addressed.
We’ll see if satisfactory answers
are forthcoming as to whether the
named schools really are the best ones
to host a reduced number of stronger
gifted sites. Also, we may need to
debate what minimum numbers at
each should be. Down the road, there
may be a District-wide review of
all secondary school programming.
Choices made today about gifted
program sites may impact on the
circumstances and options we discuss
in a larger review in the years to come.
If you have a suggestion or a
concern then please contact me via
rob@ocdsbzone9.ca or at 323-7803.
Meeting and document info available
at www.ocdsb.ca
cludes a 5km wallk, picnic, Little Ray’s Reptiles,
entertainment, prizes and more. Say
hello to the walkers and they wind their way
through the streets of Old Ottawa South. To
walk in memory or in honour of someone
special contact www.hikeforhospice.com.