Housing Students in Slum Schools Which Resembles Shantytowns/Refugee Camps
RECESS: Thorncliffe Park elementary has two separate recesses both morning and afternoon around portables. Thorncliffe Park elementary is more shantytown than school.
Dilapidated portables crowd most of its playground to accommodate almost 1,400 students in an area designed for just 570. These are students whose families are new to Canada, living in a string of highrises nearby. The 33 portables - with six more coming this fall - have eaten up their baseball diamonds, soccer fields and play equipment. The quality of their education is at risk, and for three years the Toronto District School Board has known about the situation and failed to find a solution. The cash-strapped board does not have the money to fix it, and doesn't qualify for provincial funding for new buildings or additions. Instead, it has relied on a short-term solution parents say cannot continue. ``We feel our kids are unjustly done by, having so many portables,'' said principal Mario Manserra. ``They spend so much time going in and out of the building - they lose 30 to 45 minutes a day coming and going.'' How Thorncliffe Park school gets by day-to-day, accommodating all those students from junior kindergarten to Grade 5, is a feat of organization involving:Two separate recesses in both the morning and afternoon; the yard is divided into nine zones with up to three teachers patrolling each.Using every nook and cranny. Small English language classes or assessments by social workers or speech pathologists conducted in storage rooms. One vice-principal's office doubles as a conference room.Doubling up kindergarten classes or holding them in smaller, regular classrooms. Of 20 half-day kindergarten classes, four are in a proper kindergarten room, with washrooms and a separate entrance.Scheduling gym classes so children receive about half an hour every other day instead of every day. Teachers are encouraged to take students outside whenever they can, or do stretches in class.Scheduling computer/Internet time for classes once every 12 days. Also, the parents worry about security since all doors are left open so children can get into the main building to use washrooms or attend classes. ``Anybody could be walking through those doors,'' said grandparent Judy Bright, co-chair of the school council. ``They can't monitor each door. At other schools, those doors are locked.'' The portables - 17 free-standing and 16 in a ``port-a-pac'' joined by a common hallway - don't solve the area's long-term needs, added Bright. ``This is not a fair and equitable solution,'' school council co-chair Mansur Khan told newly elected trustees at a board meeting last week. ``More than half of our students are expected to study and learn in a portable,'' Bright added. ``This would be unacceptable in other areas of the (board) and is most unacceptable at our school.'' The school, on Thorncliffe Park Dr., near Don Mills Rd., had about 600 students in 1995. Today, it has 1,355. The school attracts more newcomers than any other in the city, with 80 per cent of students taking English-as-a-second-language. The phenomenal growth in the area came on suddenly in the past few years, said Trustee Gerri Gershon. ``No one's sure exactly why . . . but now there's a mosque in the area, and maybe people are feeling comfortable in the community and wanting to stay there.'' Thorncliffe Park is not the only elementary school in the city bursting at the seams, but it is the only one with a problem of this magnitude.
`We're expecting children to put up with too much'
Almost all students live in apartments and don't have backyards, so the schoolyard is precious, said Bright, whose grandson is in Grade 3. ``I think we're expecting children to put up with too much,'' she added. ``It's total expansion without thinking ahead. We're losing parkland . . . children are very limited in what they can do.'' The board had looked at busing children in Grades 4 or 5 to another school, pushing it over capacity. Parents didn't approve. Moving Grade 5 students down the street to Valley Park Middle School was also ruled out because it, too, has almost 20 portables, and would require students to walk a fair distance, and cross a bridge. There's no Roman Catholic school in the immediate area; those students are bused outside the neighbourhood. ``We are an island,'' said vice-principal Lenna Kozovski. ``There's nowhere to go.'' Just five years ago, there were only 10 or 12 portables, said Manserra. As the port-a-pac was constructed, around 1996, the school outgrew it even before it was completed, said vice-principal David Gilfillan. The school tries to keep younger children in the main building, though that may soon prove impossible - 450 students are in kindergarten alone this year, the ideal size for an entire elementary school. Parents worry about air quality and their children's health, especially those with asthma or allergies. Board administrators repeatedly have told Thorncliffe it's at the top of the priority list, yet parents wonder why nothing's been done. The board's difficulty is that over-all, the province considers Toronto to be under-enrolled given the total square footage of all its schools, so it does not receive any money for new construction. The board has an excess of some 2 million square feet, and would have to give away 50 to 100 buildings to qualify, because those sold or leased are not taken off the books. ``Since amalgamation, we've not received any money for capital projects,'' said Gershon, who only just took over responsibility for the area because of new electoral boundaries. ``We've done nothing in that time.'' However, the board is devising a capital plan to go before a committee at the end of this month and possibly the board, too. Gershon said she's been told that Thorncliffe is considered the neediest when it comes to new pupil places. As for actual construction, she can't say with any certainty, although ``in the best-case scenario, we potentially could begin some construction, maybe even before year is out.'' Money used from closing schools could be used, she added.
`Parents see 1,400 kids who aren't getting it'
However, Manserra estimates an addition, complete with a proper library, could run as high as $12 million, much more than projected savings. The board already leases out 53 schools and they only earn $5 million a year. It's also grappling with a funding shortfall of $127 million by 2003. Manserra suggested that money from the sale of old administrative buildings be used. But after three years of lobbying superintendents, administrators and trustees, parents just want some action. They tired of feasibility studies and empty pledges that construction will start soon. They're holding an information meeting Feb. 22, and hope to decide their next step, Bright said. The board's mission statement, added Manserra, is about equity and strong programming and ``parents see 1,400 kids who aren't getting it.'' While children perform well on standardized tests, ``they could be doing better,'' he said. Education ministry spokesperson Rob Savage said that in the past, boards applied for one-time funding for construction, which was granted or turned down. But the new system ``guarantees when there's growth in enrolment automatic grants for additions and new construction.'' Bright does not wish her school's needs to be pitted against those of under-enrolled schools fighting to stay open. ``We're all fighting for a different end,'' she said, ``but we really want the same thing: we all want our schools.''
Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
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![[Slum School Syndrome?]](shanty.jpg)
