SDG Rural Education Committee Chair discusses next steps

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While the SDG rural education committee has been silent in public, productive steps are being taken in the background, committee chairman Jeff Manley said during an SDG board meeting on Tuesday.

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On the heels of the local top tier hosting 2022 The Symposium on Equity in Education for Rural Students – which leaned heavily on a 2021 SDG-commissioned report entitled Improving Rural Education in Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry – the committee was formally resurrected at the start of this council term.

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Manley, the Kenyon Ward councilor for North Glengarry, spoke about the committee’s two main goals for this council term: building relationships with local school boards and collecting accurate and up-to-date data.

Letters have been sent to the four school boards operating in Cornwall and the SDG to discuss common goals and strengthening partnerships, Manley said, which has received a response from every board except the local French public, Conseil des écoles publiques de l’ East of Ontario. The committee encouraged each responding council to extend invitations to its relevant events.

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Discussions with Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario (CDSBEO) president Sue Wilson proved productive, Manley said. Wilson plans to address the Ontario Association of Catholic School Administrators soon to encourage dialogue about reducing teacher certification to a one-year program instead of two, given the current teacher shortage. Wilson also discussed the ongoing review of CDSBEO and the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) to change their school start times/bells.

Things were not as welcoming or fruitful with UCDSB.

“With Upper Canada, I didn’t quite get the response I was hoping for. Upper Canada board president Jamie Schoular didn’t want to meet with me unless I had all four board presidents present,” Manley said. “So I got in touch with John Danaher, who’s the administrator, and he said they’re extremely disappointed with the rural education report that was produced by SDG; felt it did nothing to make councils and municipalities work more closely together.

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“And I said, well, the past is the past, let’s move on.”

cone Mark St. Pierre said he was surprised to hear that the UCDSB didn’t think there was enough collaboration. Manley said he believes things will improve in the future.

Conseil scolaire de district catholique de l’Est ontarien board president Jean Lemay spoke with Manley about implementing child care in all of its facilities, which ultimately improved enrollment.

St. Pierre asked about the data collection that is taking place, which CAO Maureen Adams said the committee looks at enrollment and growth projections as well as how space is being used in schools.

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“What the committee would like to do is better understand how that space, or shared space in schools, can be better used by residents in the community and whether or not there is a role that municipalities can play along with working with school boards. So we know the assets are there to try and find ways to remove any obstacles that prevent us from being able to make that space more available to communities,” Adams said.

Manley also noted that data is useful for the idea of concomitant board sharing. During Rural Municipalities Association of Ontario (ROMA) meeting earlier this year, Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce stressed that accurate local school information should be accessible to stakeholders

Looking ahead, Manley said the committee has submitted a request for delegates to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) annual conference in August and members plan to attend the Ministry of Education’s community planning and partnership event to advance the education narrative. rural and possibilities.

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