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Colin Carmichael and Greg Durocher

One women I spoke to expressed her extreme disappointment that there is no longer a trustee specifically from North Dumfries. She was even more disappointed when I informed here that there wasn’t even a candidate from North Dumfries. Her response was “Well, what’s the point in voting, then?”

I’d like to think that as a small-town boy myself I can adequately serve the residents of Ayr, Clyde, Branchton, Brown, Roseville and all of the other little hamlets that dot the township. I found myself, however, in total agreement that North Dumfries has been left out in the cold with respect to representation at the Board.

If elected, I would encourage the Waterloo Region District School Board and the Province of Ontario to create an additional trustee position to represent North Dumfries.

I had the opportunity to speak to several other residents of North Dumfries and several issues were raised.  As I chatted, it became apparent to me that it is simply unacceptable (and necessary) to transport so many children out of their community and into Cambridge for school. With only two elementary schools – both located in Ayr – the township risks losing part of its cohesiveness as no child attends high school in their own municipality!

A Small Schools initiative would allow for more schools – including a high school – in North Dumfries. An elementary school serving Clyde and Branchton, for example, would still require most to be bussed but they would at least retain their North Dumfries identity.

On October 25th you have the opportunity to have a say in the future of your school board. I ask for your support. To make sure you are on the voter’s list and to find out where to vote, please visit this page: http://cambridgepublicschools.ca/on-the-list/

How else can you explain the actions of the Board’s Agenda committee last night? I was disgusted to read in the Record this morning that the public and the media were barred from the meeting where the “transportation issue” was discussed.

Public school board trustees kept the public out of a meeting Monday in which they agreed to hear a motion to restore school busing to hundreds of students.

Trustees on the agenda development committee of the Waterloo Region District School Board decided the proposal from Cambridge trustee Cindy Watson would get a hearing Nov. 8.

…

But they had that closed-door discussion in apparent contradiction of the Education Act, denying The Record the right to be in the committee room while they discussed the matter.

When asked the reason for closing the meeting to the public, education director Linda Fabi said this particular committee has traditionally not been open to the public.

You can read the full Record article here: http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/786354

I am firm believer in absolute transparency for public institutions. Not only should all Board meetings be open to the public (with the noted exceptions) but there is no reason that Board meetings couldn’t be broadcast live via the Board website. The technology exists and it would cost virtually nothing to implement. This small measure of transparency would allow parents and teachers – the two greatest stakeholder groups – to better understand and evaluate the actions of their own Board.

I commit, therefore, to push for live webcasting of all meetings of the Waterloo Region District School Board and its committees.

Update: The chair of the Board, Mike Ramsay, apologized to the Record for barring a reporter from what should have been an open meeting. I believe that this incident is an indication of a culture of secrecy at the Board – it should not require a public embarrassment to convince the trustees to open the door to their decision-making.

On October 25th you have the opportunity to have a say in the future of your school board. I ask for your support. To make sure you are on the voter’s list and to find out where to vote, please visit this page: http://cambridgepublicschools.ca/on-the-list/

photo credit: photoenergy

I believe now, as I did in 2007, that every school in the Region should be home to at least one renewable energy source. Wind, solar, and geo-thermal energy projects are viable at almost any school location due to the large (and usually flat) roofs and large properties.

While the Board may save some money in the long-term with these projects, there are even greater benefits.

• Learning Opportunities: the students could be involved in the energy projects – monitoring how much energy is saved, for example.
• Leading by Example: we cannot justify teaching our children about living sustainably if we are not willing to do so ourselves.
• Community Partnerships: we are lucky to have renewable energy businesses right here in the Region that could be engaged in the schools’ renewable energy programs.
• Reducing Local Energy Demand: by generating some of their own electricity, schools will help keep the power consumption levels lower – especially during the peak summer months when schools use even less energy.

There are, of course, smaller-scale efforts that can be made to make our schools greener than they already are. The Board should be drawing on the creativity of its students (and staff) to find green solutions in their schools. One way to do that would be to encourage participation in grant programs like the WWF Canada’s Green CommUnity School Grants program. Beyond encouragement, the Board should be offering matching funds to any successful applicant.

On October 25th you have the opportunity to have a say in the future of your school board. I ask for your support. To make sure you are on the voter’s list and to find out where to vote, please visit this page: http://cambridgepublicschools.ca/on-the-list/

Update: I’ve just been reminded of the great EcoSchools program at WRDSB. Congrats to all the students and staff involved at those schools!

Schools are not much different; smaller schools are inherently safer than larger ones for the very same reasons that smaller towns are safer than larger cities.

Small schools are well-known across North America to foster stronger and safer communities of learning. The Chicago Public Schools system, for example, says the following:

Small schools offer students a personalized learning environment, where they are known well by a group of teachers. Students in large schools sometimes fall through the cracks because it is easier for them to go unnoticed. In a small school, a student is usually only one in 300 to 400 students, rather than maybe one in two thousand, and is known by all the members of the small school community. Teachers talk about how students are doing, and compare information across classes and over the years. All of the students know each other. If a student is having trouble, all the student’s teachers can meet with the student and/or parents to talk about the problem and create a plan to help.

Small schools are significantly safer than large schools. Incidents of violence and drug abuse are far less common in small schools. For example, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), only 7.9% of urban small schools reported a incident of serious violent crime (physical attack or fight with a weapon) while 26.5% of urban schools with an enrollment of 1,000 students or more reported such a crime to police (NCES, “Principal/ School Disciplinarian Survey on School Violence, 1997).

Simply copy the code to the right of each image and paste it into your website:

Service provided by the City of Cambridge

This should prove to be a interesting evening because all candidates for city council, mayor and regional council have been invited to attend the meeting. That means that up to thirty candidates could be on stage trying to make their case to voters!

You will note that a class of candidates have not been included; candidates for school board trustee have not been invited. The theme for the debate is poverty and the organizers may have felt that this issue fell outside the purview of school board trustees. I disagree – I think the school board has an important role to play not only in eradicating poverty in the long term but mitigating its effects in the short term.

Update (Aug 3, 2010): The Cambridge Times now reports that the same groups are hosting a similar debate for North Dumfries on October 5th. School Board Trustee candidates are similarly absent from the invite list.

However, given the mayhem that is likely to ensue at this (almost) all-candidates debate, it is probably just as well that I will be in the audience rather than on stage.

Having said that, I would like to take advantage of as many opportunities as possible to make my case to the citizens of Cambridge and I need your help to do it!

What you can do:

• Organize a Debate: invite trustee candidates (from both boards) to make their case to members your community group (Rotary, Kin, Optimist, BIA, Chamber, etc)
• Volunteer to be a “Neighbourhood Ambassador”: Take me for a stroll around your neighbourhood to meet and greet your neighbours
• Write a Letter: see something on the blog you agree with? Send in a note to the Times saying so!
• Buy a Button (or ten): visit the merchandise page and pick up some items for yourself and your friends and family!
• Make a Donation: $25 or $250 or anything in between. Every little bit helps to ensure that I can be as visible as possible in the fall

To get in touch with me about any of these ways you can help, head over to the Contact page and drop me a line!

Ours is a society that has, in recent history, valued quantity over quality. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, “bigger is better” has been the mantra guiding our social and civic development. Our schools have not been immune to this mentality of progress through growth and it is not difficult to find schools in Ontario with student populations extending into the thousands. In the Waterloo Region District School Board, all of our high schools have student populations over 1000 – the largest being Cameron Heights with 1800 students.

It’s time we started reversing that trend and moving towards smaller, stronger schools.

I was educated in relatively small schools – about 100 students per grade level from kindergarten through grade 12. Looking back, I was very fortunate to grow up in schools where every teacher knew who I was – even if I wasn’t taught by them.

I’ve always had the notion that smaller schools are inherently better schools. It just made sense to me that the smaller the population of both students and teachers, the stronger the relationships within. It stands to reason that the stronger the relationships, the better the education. Until recently, this was just gut feeling on my part.

It seems that some recent research out of the United States and reported in the New York Times offers some evidence that my gut feeling was in the right direction.

from the NYT article:

The study validates the small school policies of the Bloomberg administration, which has shut down 20 large, failing high schools and replaced them with more than 200 small schools, about half of which were the focus of this study.

Some of the large, factory-style high schools that were closed had enrollments of 3,000 or more and graduation rates under 40 percent. The new small schools, overwhelmingly in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, typically serve a little more than 400 students each. These schools have several other things in common. They have a rigorous curriculum. They offer a personalized approach to education, with teachers responsible for keeping close tabs on the performance of their students.

[The research] found that the average graduation rate for students in the small schools was nearly 69 percent, nearly 7 percentage points higher than the rate for students in the traditional schools.

While there are aspects of this “small school” system that would not apply here in Cambridge, I feel somewhat vindicated by the results of this study.

I was so intrigued by the research that I posted the link to my personal Facebook profile. I got quite a few responses from friends and family – many of them teachers. I’d like to share just a few of their comments here:

Michael: The reason so many boards use tribes-based teaching. http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/glenh/tribes.htm

Neal: I went to a grade 1-7 school with 250 students and a High School with 500. I’ve always thought that was a good start in life.

Candy: a few critical points in there: ‘specialized high schools’; ‘centred around a theme’; and ‘community support’. Add in ‘rigorous curriculum’; ‘teachers following the progress of small groups of students’ and you have a recipe for success… In all areas, I have yet to be convinced that bigger is better.

However, it is difficult for smaller schools, high schools in particular to offer a diverse spectrum of courses. Again this is a money issue. Courses with especially low enrollment are not offered.

Sandra: There must be some sort of creative way (if there’s the will) for small schools to collaborate on the more specialised courses. After all, if they are smaller it means they are also closer together. Somebody needs to come up with a brilliant plan. Meanwhile I cannot help but think of the famous remark attributed to President James Garfield, that “The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.”

Emily: not only are small schools less intimidating but the kids become the kids of the whole school and not just the teacher who had them last year or the current year. It becomes a team building effort where everyone knows that one student who needs support on the playyard as well as the classroom or the students who you can ask to help for and everyone can provide them the support they need wherever they happen to be in the school. Teachers share what worked for the students in previous years. SUCH a good idea.

Amie: small = very limited course selections in high school and fewer clubs/teams to be involved in… just throwing my two cents in… there are a million more pros and cons but these are the first things that popped into my mind as a guidance counselor!

As a result of this conversation (and many others I’ve had offline) I’ve decided to make smaller schools a central part of my campaign for Trustee. In particular, I think that our secondary schools are far too large and far too few. I know that the Board would like to see Cambridge reduced to four secondary schools, but I am proposing just the opposite. I propose that the Board double the number of secondary schools in Cambridge and cut in half (at least) the number of students in those schools.

Let me break that down a bit to be clear. Each of Cambridge’s five secondary schools (3 in Galt, 1 each in Preston & Hespeler) have about a thousand students for a total secondary student population of 5150 students. My proposal would see a total of ten secondary schools with just over 500 students each. Yes, you read that correctly – ten high schools in Cambridge.

There is no question that this is a bold proposal and I expect that it would take several years, if not a decade, to implement. Bold ideas take time and I believe that Cambridge deserves the strongest schools possible – even if it means dramatic changes that challenge conventional wisdom.

As always, your input is valued and encouraged: Do you think Cambridge would be better off with ten smaller schools or five larger schools?

photo credit: Mindful One

One of the realities of politics, however, is that elections are expensive. Even a low-key and fiscally prudent campaign such as mine will cost several hundred dollars. So here I am with my hand out.

I humbly ask you to please consider making a monetary contribution to support my campaign. I hope to raise just a few hundred dollars to fund some advertising in the fall and to purchase some campaign materials that my supporters can distribute to spread the word.

If you feel that you can afford to support the campaign, please use the contact form located HERE to get in touch with me.