Hello, my name is Meggan King and I am the Devonshire School Council Co-chair; with me, is Nicholas
Olmstead, the Devonshire School Council Treasurer. We are here to represent the views of the
Devonshire families. The school council would like to thank staff and members of the working group for
all the time and effort they put into this project. It’s been a challenging exercise but the final
recommendation is widely supported by the Devonshire community. The results truly reflect the input
of the community and we are pleased to support the final recommendations and strongly support their
adoption by the Board.
I would like to thank the Devonshire working group reps for their hard work during this difficult process.
Lil and Christopher have put in many hours over the past year and through meetings, emails, online
surveys, posts, and school yard feedback, they have read and listened to Devonshire families.
Our school is a small school. The staff, the children and their families form a close-knit group. We are a
single-stream French Immersion school and the students have a strong exposure to French in all aspects
of their school day. All of the staff at Devonshire are French speaking, and the students have the
opportunity – and are encouraged - to use French beyond the classroom.
Connaught and Devonshire both have strong links together, to the community, and in fact have shared
student populations for a number of years now with Devonshire students attending daycare at
Connaught during the half-day JK and SK program, and most recently Connaught accommodating
Devonshire JK students as part of the interim solution. Our school councils have shared resources for
various events and keep in touch with one another.
The final recommendation to add an EFI stream to Connaught is supported by the majority of families in
the Devonshire community. We would like to see the strength and success of the Devonshire program
expanded to Connaught and we want to ensure that students in EFI at Connaught have access to the
same high levels of French resources, French teachers and French immersion throughout their
schooling.
Nicholas is going to share a few implementation issues we’d like to see addressed.
The Devonshire community moving to Connaught is encouraged to be moving to such a great facility and
we look forward to working with the Connaught parents, students, staff, and school council to make this
a smooth transition for everyone involved.
Whatever option is chosen when starting up the new program, JK-3, JK-4, or JK-6, we want to ensure the
program is a viable one from the beginning. Unless all the grades are moved as a block there will be
families split up who of course want to have their kids together. This may lead to an excess demand for
transfers or exemptions which would erode the viability of the EFI program at Connaught. We are
uncertain how to best deal with this issue but we do expect the new EFI program to be a healthy and
robust one. A balance will have to be found between moving grades for seeding the program, transfers
keeping siblings together, and minimizing split classes.
Devonshire School Council is also concerned about the resources available to the new program for startup. If the program is phased in, there needs to be supporting funds available for age and grade
appropriate resources as years are added to the program. Simply funding a JK-3 seed program and not
funding the subsequent grades with some type of legacy funding as they progress is unfair to the older
grades. There needs to be adequate high quality library, technology, and classroom resources available
to ensure continued viability of the program for the full JK-6 compliment so that resources are not
redirected from elsewhere in Connaught in subsequent years of a phase in.
The issue of phasing in the program has created much discussion around the Council table and there
does not seem to be consensus. A phase in was mentioned earlier in the working group discussions in
terms of a Fisher Park solution, providing staff the required time for fit-up, but phase in at Connaught
was only discussed during the very late stages of the review and has not been agreed upon by parents at
Devonshire. There are some who agree that there should be a phased in approach to reduce transitions,
and just as many who support the move to Connaught with the idea that the program would be JK-6
from year one thus keeping siblings together. Whatever option is chosen by Trustees, we do not believe
there will be consensus either way as each family is impacted differently.
During the Committee of the Whole meeting on December 10, 2013 some Trustees voiced concerns
with school capacity numbers in the report and asked questions about longevity of the solution given
growth potential for the Near West catchment. Devonshire School Council shares this concern and is
uncertain why the movement of the grade 6 students to Fisher Park was excluded from the report.
Generally we support this idea as a relief valve provided all of the grade 6 students from all surrounding
schools are included to create a large enough grade 6 cohort at Fisher Park and a healthy grade 6-8
population. This relief valve requires minimal capital investment and would help alleviate some of the
numbers pressures in the coming years for schools involved in the Near West Review should the
currently proposed solution prove unworkable. There will however be need for a new elementary school
in the area in the coming years and we encourage the Board to pursue the acquisition of a new site in
this rapidly growing neighbourhood. This new site will help keep Fisher Park open as a middle school for
future use. The former technical high school at 440 Albert is too far to the east and we do not believe it
is appropriate for consideration in this type of discussion about elementary sites.
Finally, these issues might be best addressed during transition, but boundaries and busing are also a
concern for us. The Connaught EFI boundary should include both sides of Fairmont and not be split
down the middle. The experience with Hamilton Street to the West indicates that boundaries down the
middle of residential streets, as opposed to arterial roadways, are unnecessarily divisive. Also, we realize
there is a walkable route via Fairmont, but nevertheless we do encourage some sort of busing be
provided for students to help avoid the Parkdale and Queensway intersections. Even though this
intersection will be identified as a hazard, we need to address students getting across there safely and
the obvious way would be by bus. Busing students through this hazardous corridor will also help
minimize the ‘kiss and ride’ confusion around the school in the mornings should parents drive their
children to school.
Once again, Devonshire School Council is glad to support the final recommendations and we look
forward to working with Connaught parents, staff, and students, as well as the transition team, to create
a welcoming school for everyone.