Boycott
BOYCOTT Or Excuse Yourself From All ARC’s In Your Community!
There are many examples that show the flaws in the ARC (Accommodation Review Committee) process.
If the Minister doesn’t declare a moratorium on ARC’s, then boycott it!
Refuse to participate.
Show your municipality and business community why they should not participate in this flawed process.
Withdraw – even if the ARC process has already started.
Write a letter to the school board, your MPP, Minister of Education and the Premier, explaining that you believe the ARC process is flawed, that it is a biased process and that you believe the Minister should call a moratorium on ARC’s until the ministry develops a standard ARC process for all school boards; one that is transparent and includes mechanisms to appeal the final decision to a third party with the power to overturn a school board’s decision.
Why Accommodation Review Committees do not work … and how to fix them
The ministry issued Pupil Accommodation Review Guidelines for school boards to consider. These guidelines did not include collaboration between the school boards and their municipalities. Each school board used the guidelines as the basis for their own Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) policy. Because the ministry guidelines are not standardized policy, schools across Ontario are being closed based on similar, but different criteria.
For example: The guidelines say school boards should consider the importance of the only school in the community. However, the only school in several communities has been closed.
Unfortunately, many communities that have experienced the ARC process believe the school board simply went through the motions and that the decision to close the school had been made earlier.
Adding to their disappointment, municipalities and parent-student communities have been surprised to discover there is no mechanism to appeal the school boards decision. They can appeal the process the board took to reach their decision, but they can not appeal the decision.
Read the conclusions of some of these appeal reports completed by the adjudicators (former ministry staff).
This is what we’re hearing from communities across Ontario:
- School board staff recommends a school be closed.
- Trustees strike an ARC and assemble board staff, parent, business and municipal representatives.
- Many hours of volunteer time and sincere participation are given to the ARC.
- The ARC recommends the school remain open, provides sound reasoning and many creative and viable options.
- School board staff thank the participants for their efforts.
- Staff recommends closure of the school. See also http://www.saveontarioschools.org/
- Trustees approve the closure.
- The public and municipality make numerous public appeals to the school board to keep the school open, municipal council passes a Resolution that the school remain open, maybe even limit the school property to institutional zoning, the Mayor writes an impassioned plea to the Minister of Education to help keep the school open.
- The Minister responds that they are unable to interfere with local school board decisions and that school closings are decisions that must be made locally. NOTE: the Minister does not have the power to change the decision.
- A civic minded resident files an appeal of the process with the ministry.
- The adjudicator (a former Ministry of Education employee) concludes that the school board process was acceptable.
- The school is closed, students are bussed long distances to other schools or to a newly constructed school outside their home community.
- The community comes to believe the ARC process was flawed and that there was never any possibility of the school remaining open.
FIX THE ARC PROCESS
- Ministry to issue a standard policy for use by all school boards
- Collaboration with municipalities is required.
- A mechanism to appeal the school board’s decision to a third party.
- Call a moratorium on all disputed school closings decided under the old method.
- All disputed school closings to be re-evaluated using the ministry’s new standard policy.
Reform Education 2011 
Basically agree with all the Fix the ARC Process points, however I thought the ministry has a standard policy, but that not all boards have updated to be in synch. I think it would be interesting to give schools the choice to become charter schools (similar to Alberta) should they be chosen to be closed. I suspect many schools will find ways to operate successfully when not being forced to close by boards which may be bureaucratic micro manager unable or unwilling to find other solutions. And some schools may find themselves unable to stay open even if given a charter, but these school would at least have had the opportunity to remain open.
Two points: school boards do not have a standard policy. They were given guidelines upon which to base their policies. One board left out the ministry’s suggested pillar known as ‘Value to the Community’. Consequently, schools across Ontario are being closed for similar, but different, reasons.
Niagara District Secondary School [NDSS] in Niagara-on-the-Lake, applied to become an International Baccalaureate School. It would have been the only one within the District School Board of Niagara and likely attracted students from across the region. The Virgil Business Association and Friends of NDSS paid the costs of the application, the training of the teachers, the website, the seminar for school board Trustees and NDSS teachers [not all of them bothered to attend]. The IB people worked hard to help us. It cost the school board nothing and would have been self-sustaining financially.
The community became involved with promoting NDSS to international students and recruiting homestays for students.
Donald Ziraldo of Inniskillin developed a special course in conjunction with The Vineland Research Station [fruit and agriculture in Niagara], University of Guelph [Agriculture], Brock University [Oenology] and Niagara College [Oenology] to teach students the skills necessary to work in wineries and vineyards. They presented this program to the school board and said it would only be available to NDSS.
All of these efforts and opportunities were rejected by the board and closed the only high school in the small rural community of Niagara-on-the-Lake.
However, this same school board ramped up its recruiting of international students and they are in partnership with at least one school in China. The students of Niagara lost out on a tremendous new program/study opportunity in both the IB and agriculture. Then, after closing the school, the school board found the funds to renovate a 50-year old building that had been allowed to decline and use it for the board’s Resource Centre.
If any school board uses a school building for five-years as something other than school, they can then go to the municipality and request a change in zoning to industrial, commercial, residential development … If the municipality refuses to change the zoning, the school board can file an appeal with the OMB which the municipality would surely lose. [Remember: The Shafias, found guilty of murdering four people have the right to an appeal, but there’s no appeal of a school closing].
Think about the schools being closed in your area; location, size of lot, potential future uses. NDSS is sitting on approx 26 acres of prime residential development potential; a corner lot on the main road into Niagara-on-the-Lake and a major secondary road. I can’t imagine what that’d be worth to a developer – all the money going into the school board’s coffers. Of course, houses bring in people and people have children and children go to high school. Today, there is no high school in NOTL because it was closed and became the school board’s Resource Centre!
That was 2009/2010. I still feel that we’re in a situation of ‘where there’s a whip, there’s a way’. The school board’s are legislated that ‘whip’ through the Education Act.