science

Rich school, poor school – Ottawa Citizen


At Charles H. Hulse PS, the school council’s budget was $1,500 last year, collected from provincial government grants. That helped pay for a multicultural potluck supper, a family night so parents could see how their children learned math, and a hot-dog day. Many of the children at the school on Alta Vista Drive are newcomers — council meetings are translated into Arabic, Somali and Nepali — whose parents cannot afford to contribute money to the council.

Across town at Broadview Public School in McKellar Park, the school council raised $127,043 in 2017-18, the latest year data is available. A dance-a-thon, silent auction, book sale and other fundraising events ensured the council could purchase everything from Chromebooks to yoga lessons for kindergarteners.

Parents have always peddled pizza lunches and staged bake sales to raise a few dollars for their children’s school. But the amount of cash collected by elementary school councils at Ottawa’s largest public school board is substantial. Councils at elementary schools reported revenue totalling $3.94 million in 2017-18.

The privately-raised money is poured into “extras” like field trips and art workshops. But it also pays for what some might consider basics, from library books to science equipment and play structures.

In neighbourhoods where parents can contribute and have the skills and contacts to more easily raise money, students reap the benefits. The fundraising slows to a trickle at schools in low-income neighbourhoods.

The discrepancy between schools is huge, an analysis by the Citizen shows.

The lowest revenue reported was at Arch Street Public School in southeast Ottawa, which took in $500.

Eight school councils reported $2,500 or less a year in revenue. Half of those schools, including Arch Street, don’t even have councils, but the schools received government grants that would normally be given to councils to foster parent participation and small projects.

On the other end of the spectrum, five school councils in Ottawa raised more than $100,000.


Akhile takes a look at many of the comic books available for sale at the 53rd annual Rockcliffe Park Book Fair. The popular event raised $50,000 for the school council last year.

Michael Robinson /

(Michael Robinson / Ottawa Citiz

A Citizen analysis of four years of statistics going back to 2013-14 shows similar trends, with annual revenue from school councils ranging from as little as $6.20 to as high as $154,522.

In order to examine how private money affects the public education landscape in Ottawa, the Citizen spent months collecting data on 113 elementary schools for the 2017-18 academic year, using statistics supplied by the school board, supplemented by interviews with school council members and minutes of council meetings. Because schools with higher enrollment can be expected to raise more, we also calculated the amount raised by each council per student. Broadview, for example, may have raised the most money, but it’s also the largest school in the board with just over 1,000 students. Rockcliffe Park Public School raised the most per student, at $290.62, while the lowest was again Arch Street, which reported revenue of $3.01 per student.

It’s a snapshot of one year, and there are some anomalies in the data. Some councils reported unusually high revenue that year, for instance, because they received grants for a major project such as a new play structure or because of lunch programs that bring in a lot of revenue but have a much lower net profit.

But the data give a broad indication of the disparity in fundraising — and reveal what critics describe as a tiered public education system, one which further reinforces the disparity that exists between children whose parents have varying levels of income and education.

And the gap in fundraising, critics say, also lets the province off the hook for funding education and forces principals and teachers at schools in less affluent neighbourhoods to spend time applying for government and private grants so their students can have a playground or take field trips.

“There’s an inequity that happens when schools in more affluent communities are able to fundraise, while schools in less affluent areas never could,” says Erica Braunovan, a trustee at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board who co-hosted a 2017 meeting on the topic with former-trustee-turned-Capital-ward-Coun. Shawn Menard.

“It creates an inequity in the educational experience of students,” she says. “The educational experience should be the same across the province. We shouldn’t have some schools that have one Chromebook for every four students and one school that has Chromebooks for every second student.”


Principal Irene Cameron at the kindergarten playground at Carson Grove.

Tony Caldwell /

Postmedia

The situation in Ottawa reflects a wider trend at schools across the province.

The 2019 report by the public-education advocacy group People for Education found that the top 10 per cent of fundraising elementary schools raised 33 times the amount raised by the bottom 10 per cent; the previous year it was 37 times as much. The group has been tracking fundraising at schools through an annual survey for two decades, and the amounts continue to climb at elementary schools. (The survey includes all types of fundraising, but in elementary schools most of the money is raised by school councils.)

The issue is key at a time when the provincial Conservative government is making spending cuts, including reducing the grants allotted to educate each pupil.

However, exactly how deep funding cuts will be in future budgets is unknown — and educators can only guess at how funding gaps created by private fundraising will grow in the coming years.

And this leads to a variety of pertinent questions around an issue that is both complicated and controversial.

What is the value of school council fundraising? Can or should it fill any gaps in government funding? And what can be done about the fundraising disparity between schools in rich and poor neighbourhoods?

Parents can’t be faulted for helping their children by volunteering for the school council, says Annie Kidder, the executive director for People for Education.

“It’s a great, amazing job that parents do on school councils, to make the school the best it can be and a big part of that appears to be fundraising,” she says.

“The thing about fundraising is that it is a very easy to understand way to be involved in your child’s school. It can be fun. Things like the spring fair, or whatever, are great community events.”

However, Kidder says it becomes problematic when there is such a variance between schools that can raise virtually nothing and those that can raise $100,000 or in some cases as much as $200,000 a year.

“That is when we start to worry about the basic principle of public education, which is that every child is supposed to have a fairly equitable chance to succeed, and equitable access to a similar quality of education.”

At the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the top 10 per cent of fundraising school councils raised 38 times as much as the bottom ten per cent in 2017-18, our analysis found.

At Rockcliffe Park Public School, in Ottawa’s toniest neighbourhood, the school council reported $120,026 in revenue in 2017-18. That is $290.62 for each student.

The money ensured all students at Rockcliffe Park enjoyed a trip to the Ottawa Children’s Festival; paid for $5,449 worth of books and reading resources for the library and classrooms; and provided a subsidy of nearly $10,000 for the graduation ceremony and trip to Montreal for Grade 6 students, among other things.

Rockcliffe Park’s council also spends money to help needier schools, including six $1,000 grants to schools for literacy programs.

The council’s largest fundraiser is a book fair that attracts people from across the city. The fair raised $50,000 that year.

Queen Elizabeth Public School is only four kilometres away on St. Laurent Boulevard, but it’s in another universe when it comes to fundraising.

Queen Elizabeth’s council reported $1,875 in revenue in 2017-18. That is $5.99 per student. The council revenue included $1,500 in provincial government grants, according to minutes of council meetings that give a glimpse into activities that year. Parents sold baked goods at a movie night and raised $165. Council spent $226.04 to buy pizza for Meet the Teacher Night and lunch snacks for students. A charitable foundation subsidized a “Scientists in the School” event one evening.

At one meeting, the Queen Elizabeth council decided to spend $15 a month for three months to buy fruit for the school’s breakfast club, then “evaluate the success of this approach.”

Some parents from schools in wealthier areas who attended the 2017 meeting trustee Braunovan co-sponsored to discuss disparity in school council fundraising were surprised at the wide gap between schools, she says. The goal was to raise awareness of the issue among members of the public and candidates for school board trustee, Braunovan says.

Participant Larry Shamash says it worked.

“It opened my eyes to the inequities,” says Shamash, the current co-chair of the council at Elmdale Public School in the Hampton Park neighbourhood.

Elmdale council, which reported $104,169 in revenue in 2017-18, has a strong tradition of parental involvement, he says. “We have a lot of great parents who put so much time into the school.”

Some of the fundraising disparity is due to momentum, with some schools having a strong history of fundraising, Shamash says.

However, the “unfortunate truth” is that in richer neighbourhoods parents have more money and time to devote to school council, he says.

At the meeting he met council members from schools where “parents were struggling just to make the budget for paper, for photocopying … they were working two jobs, some of them had a day shift, they had a night shift, they were just unable to put the time in.”

The fundraising disparity is not healthy or fair, says Shamash. It raises wider issues.

“Surely the question is: why should school councils really be needed to raise money? Councils are there to help direct some of the education and the issues around the school, but suddenly they raise a little bit of cash and for whatever reason, funding from the ministry is not there, and all of a sudden it becomes a necessary part of the school. And I wonder whether that is really something that should be happening.”

Melissa Jennings, the current chair of the school council at York Street Public School, says the meeting made her realize “how far behind we were.”

“We are just trying to get a few people to a meeting and they have these big organizations with very engaged parents. They were planning a lot of extras, when we are just trying to get the minimum.”

At York Street, that means ensuring that students have food and warm clothes and “stay at some level near their peers in math,” she says.

It’s difficult to raise money because many of the parents at the school have so little, she says. In 2017-18 the council reported $4,719 in revenue, most from a fundraiser hosted by a Boston Pizza franchise in Barrhaven that wanted to help. The money subsidized a trip to Montreal for graduating students.

“This year we didn’t want to do fundraisers,” says Jennings. “We weren’t in the position to do it, and we didn’t have a treasurer.”

The council decided instead to work on convincing parents it was important to have “a voice at the table” on education issues, such as the board’s plan to collect identity-data about students and funding cuts by the provincial government, she says.

At Vincent Massey Public School on Smyth Road fundraising is difficult, says Kate Connolly, co-chair of the council. It’s a mixed income community, and many parents can’t afford to contribute much cash, she says.

A council movie night might bring in $150, says Connolly. The biggest earner is the “do nothing fundraiser.” “Basically we tell parents we will not make them sell cookies, or ice cream, if they just give us money. We usually raise around $2,000 a year on that.”

Vincent Massey council raised $4,600 in 2017-18. Connolly gasps when told some school councils take in more than $100,000.

“I have a real problem with it … I mean, what do they need that money for? It seems an unfair distribution of wealth in a public school system, for sure.”

Her council’s priority is to improve the school library, says Connolly. “There is no technology in it, there are no computers. It’s an old school with a 1980s library. And the books in it are also from the 1980s.

“Oh my, it’s so funny, my son, who is in Grade 6, what he brings home to read. He brings home original Nancy Drew books! He said they are the most interesting things to him. That’s crazy!”

Not that she has anything against Nancy Drew, Connolly laughs. “I mean, there is just not a huge stock of new books.”

Council would also like to install a maker space that might include robotics, electrical circuits and other things for the students to create. It would “help fill in the gaps for kids who don’t have that stuff at home,” she says. But a maker space might cost as much as $60,000, a lot of money to fundraise for a “not super affluent” school.

“We have a thousand plans. If we raise a lot of money we are going to put in a maker space, cool things like that. If we don’t raise very much money at all we are going to buy a bunch of books and comfortable chairs to sit on.”

The school councils that raise the least tend to be in the poorest areas of town, the Citizen found.

Vincent Massey is one of 21 elementary schools designated by the board to receive extra funding and support to compensate for the disadvantages faced by their students. The RAISE (resource allocation index based on socio-economics) index considers such factors as poverty, the number of single parents, students learning English as a second language, absenteeism and “readiness to learn” among students.

Our analysis found that school councils that raised the least money were predominantly RAISE schools. Ten of the 13 schools that raised the lowest amount, in both total revenue and revenue per students, have RAISE designations.

At Carson Grove Elementary School in Gloucester, where half of the students are Syrian refugees, it’s not realistic to raise money from parents, says principal Irene Cameron.

“It’s through no fault of their own. New Canadians come, they are adjusting to the new country. New families here are struggling. Sometimes they are working at jobs at night, and they are looking after their families and they don’t have cars, so it’s hard to get to the school.”

There is no school council, but Cameron and her staff fundraise, applying for grants and soliciting funds from the province, charities, businesses and local mosques to pay for playgrounds, field trips and musical instruments. In 2017-18 the school reported income of $2,500, made up of $1,500 in government grants and a $1,000 donation.

Cameron proudly shows off a $100,000 kindergarten playground built a few years ago with grants from the school board, city and charities.

Field trips are another priority.

Many parents at the school can’t take their kids to museums, the NAC or Experimental Farm, she says. “They have four or five kids, so even if they had a car they couldn’t do that.

“We try to give these kids the kind of experiences every kid should have, but they can’t afford it.”

She likes to take graduating Grade 5 children on a day of downhill skiing, a middle-class Canadian activity they would not otherwise experience.

“It’s kind of sad, because they say, ‘Oh miss, can we come one more time? One more time? Go down the big hill?’

“But at least they have the experience once.”

At Charles H. Hulse, council chair David Monch says most parents are new immigrants. (According to data from EQAO, the provincial testing agency, 73 per cent of the Grade 3 students at the school in 2017-18 were learning English as a second language.) Parents may not be able to contribute financially, but they are keenly interested in the school, Monch says.

As many as 70 parents have shown up at meetings, which are translated into three languages. Parents have lots of questions, from the school routines to how to prepare their children for provincial testing, he says.


Kate Connolly, a parent on the Vincent Massey Public School council, with her son, Ethan Wigston, who just finished Grade 6.

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School staff and other officials also provide advice about life in Canada, from the requirement to wear a bicycle helmet to the importance of warm clothing in winter, he says.

The Charles H. Hulse council does no fundraising. However, a $15,000 upgrade to the school library this year, including a maker space with a Lego Wall and robotics equipment, was paid for with private funds. Principal Laurie Kavanagh, with help from a retired couple, applied for grants from private and charitable organizations.

Kavanagh is proud the school offers field trips, sports teams, clubs and other experiences. “Our students are learning and smiling while they do it.”

What can school councils raise money for?

Provincial guidelines say school fundraising should complement, not replace, public funding for schools.

School councils are not supposed to fundraise for items already provided through provincial grants, “such as classroom learning materials, textbooks and repairs or for capital projects that significantly increase operating costs,” say the guidelines.

Critics say the guidance is vague.

School councils in Ottawa raise money for technology such as Chromebooks and iPads, as well as for library and classroom books and online learning tools.

Not to mention a wide variety of science-related equipment, from Grow Towers that teach kids about hydroponic gardening to pulleys, sports equipment of all types and classroom supplies.

What, exactly, are “learning materials?” wonders Kate Wigston, co-chair of the school council at Viscount Alexander.

Chromebooks, for instance, a popular item for council fundraising, are an important tool for children with learning disabilities, she says. Some of the other things the Viscount Alexander council has purchased over the last couple of years: stationary bikes, volleyballs, a hockey net, basketballs, baseball gloves, hula hoops, skipping ropes, pylons, bean bags, bocce balls, gymnastic dance ribbons, recorders, a set of drums, a glockenspiel and gears and pulleys for science classes.

“I would argue that all of this is learning material,” says Wigston. “Gears and pulleys are learning material. And how am I going to learn volleyball without a volleyball?”

Whatever is essential, she suggests, should be provided by the school. That view is echoed by trustee Braunovan, who says the solution to inequitable fundraising is for the province to provide more money.

“If we fully funded schools we wouldn’t have any need for fundraising.”

Braunovan says field trips should be part of the educational experience for everyone, for example.

Currently, in less affluent communities students may have fewer and less expensive trips, and are forced to rely on funding from grants and “fairy godparents,” she says.

“It’s kind of at the whim of the goodwill of others, and that is not right.”


Children play on the new play structure at Viscount Alexander Public School. School council raised money and got grants to have it built after the last one was torn down after being deemed unsafe.

David Kawai /

Ottawa Citizen

Of course, that opens up the question of what is essential in the province’s schools. Are field trips an essential part of learning? How about play structures?

Kidder’s organization has recommended that, for starters, the provincial government update its guidelines to “clearly and concretely articulate what should be present in all schools, at no cost to parents.”

Arts enrichment, extracurricular activities like field trips and sports and technology all help students “develop the competencies they need for long-term success,” says People for Education. In a public school system, that means all children — not just those whose parents can afford it — should have access to such “foundational learning opportunities and supports,” the group recommends.

The debate also raises questions about the role of school councils.

While parent-teacher organizations have existed for decades, the provincial government decreed back in 1995 that all schools should have councils that would include not only parents but members of the community as well as a student (for high schools), the principal, a teacher and another staff member.

It was a response to recommendations in a Royal Commission on Learning report that said councils would help increase accountability and link schools with the community.

Councils, for instance, advise principals and school boards on issues such as curriculum, school budget priorities, assessment, selection of principals, school codes of behaviour and the school calendar; help develop a sense of community with parents; and report back to the community about what is going on at school.

But events that also raise money can also help build a sense of community, too.

Greg Rallo, chair of the council at Vimy Ridge Public School, says he’s met many parents at school council-sponsored events like barbecues and movie nights, which bring people together.

The Vimy Ridge council also hosted a day-long “spring fling” in May where parents and neighbours could buy plants, enjoy muffins and coffee and chat. “It goes well beyond enriching the lives of students. We are enriching the lives of the community here.”

The Vimy Ridge council reported $48,000 in revenue in 2017-18. The council has spent money on dance lessons, an online reading platform and a maker space with a Lego Wall and marble run, among other things, as well as putting money aside for a play structure.

But Rallo says he’s most proud of a council-funded speaker series that brought First Nations, Inuit and Metis speakers into every classroom to talk about their culture, traditions, and for older students, the legacy of residential schools.

His youngest daughter, in kindergarten, came home excitedly telling him about “Grandma Irene’s” stories of hunting and gathering and setting rabbit snares, he says.

“It’s something I feel is a gaping hole in our curriculum. It’s a gap in our nation’s history that isn’t spoken about enough.”

Rallo says the issue of disparity in fundraising hasn’t been raised yet at his council, but he would strongly support any initiative that would encourage more affluent councils to contribute to needier schools.

That already happens at many of the top-fundraising schools, including Broadview, Rockcliffe Park, A. Lorne Cassidy and Elmdale, which all contribute money or goods to needier schools.

Perhaps school councils could contribute to a central fund managed by the school board that could  redistribute the money to needy schools, suggests Rallo.

“That would be spectacular.”

Cathy Abraham, the president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, says her home board of Kawartha-Pine Ridge based in Peterborough has just such a fund.

Disparity in fundraising is “huge issue,” says Abraham. However, she says revised provincial guidelines are not needed.

“I believe that school boards should be allowed to make the decisions that are necessary for their local needs. Local school boards are in the best place to understand the needs of the local community.”

And she maintains that fundraising disparities do not erode the quality of public education. “Absolutely not.”

“Because we have a very, very good public education system in Ontario. School council fundraising does not have an impact on whether a school board can deliver quality education. Every student in Ontario is still receiving a quality education, whether or not they are receiving pizza days every Saturday, it doesn’t mean they aren’t getting a good education.”

Kidder says there is another dynamic at work that fuels the school fundraising machine, especially in more affluent neighbourhoods.

It’s emotion, and perhaps social pressure on parents. “If I’m a good parent I will fundraise for my child’s school.”

There is also an assumption that fundraising is required, she says.

“It’s hard to know if there is a reality here. Funding for education over the last several years has increased overall. Is it a reality that schools need to fundraise? They definitely rely on it.

“There are a lot of grey areas in this. Which comes first – a kind of drive among parents of a certain socio-economic status to say ‘I want to have the best of everything for my child?’ Or the pressure on schools to try to provide things that are outside of the core? It may be a mix of all those things.”


Charlene Matthias and Greg Rallo with their children (from left) Katie, Abbie and Ellie at Vimy Ridge Public School

Jean Levac /

Postmedia News

 

Consider:

$3,942,499.22: The total collected by councils at 113 schools

$34,889.37: The average total revenue collected by schools

$102,976: The average total revenue collected by the top ten per cent of fundraising schools

$2,006: The average total revenue collected by the bottom ten per cent of fundraising schools

$83.04: The average revenue collected per student at schools

$172.00: The average revenue collected per student at the top ten per cent of fundraising schools

$8.73: The average revenue collected per student at the bottom ten per cent of fundraising schools

The top ten per cent of fundraising schools: total revenue

$127,043: Broadview Public School

$123,800: A. Lorne Cassidy Elementary School

$120,026: Rockcliffe Park Public School

$104,169: Elmdale Public School

$101,914: Huntley Centennial Public School

$96,469: John Young Elementary School

$94,242: Stonecrest Elementary School

$89,130: Berrigan Elementary School

87,309: Glen Ogilvie Public School

$85,658: Castor Valley Elementary

$79,410: Chapman Mills Public School

$78,929: Robert Bondar Public School

$75,638: Westwind Public School

The bottom ten per cent of fundraising schools: total revenue

$500: Arch Street Public School (no active school council, but received provincial grants)

$1,300: Queen Mary Street Public School (no active school council, but received provincial grants)

$1,500: Hawthorne Public School

$1,500: Charles H. Hulse Public School

$1,769.70: Glen Cairn Public School

$1,875: Queen Elizabeth Public School

$2,390: Pinecrest Public School (no active school council, but received provincial grant and revenue from former Severn school council account)

$2,500: Carson Grove Elementary (no school council, but received provincial grants and a donation)

$3,113: Crystal Bay Centre for Special Education

$4,090: North Gower/Marlborough Public School

$4,232: Fielding Drive Public School

$4,250: Featherston Drive Public School

$4,600: Vincent Massey Public School

The top ten per cent of fundraising schools: revenue per student

$290.62: Rockcliffe Park Public School

$209.83: A. Lorne Cassidy Elementary

$209.40: Richmond Public School

$205.06: Elmdale Public School

$198.43: Glen Ogilvie Public School

$194.12: Huntley Centennial Public School

$166.18: Orleans Woods Elementary School

$163.30: Manotick Public School

$162.21: Osgoode Public School

$161.77: Robert Bateman Public School

$155.62: Greely Elementary School

$148.47: Viscount Alexander Public School

$147.12: Briargreen Public School

The bottom ten per cent of fundraising schools: revenue per student

$3.01: Arch Street Public School

$4.63: Charles H. Hulse Public School

$5.63: Glen Cairn Public School

$5.79: Pinecrest Public School

$5.99: Queen Elizabeth Public School

$6.55: Vincent Massey Public School

$6.82: Hawthorne Public School

$8.39: Carson Grove Elementary

$9.09: Queen Mary Street Public School

$11.05: Fielding Drive Public School

$12.77: Hilson Avenue Public School

$12.88: Featherston Drive Public School

$20.88: Sawmill Creek Elementary School

 

What does $100,000 buy?

Here are some of the things provided by school councils that raised more than $100,000 in 2017-18:

Library books

Classroom books

Chromebooks

ipads

Robotics kits

Online reading programs such as RAZ kids and info-jeune webzine

Online math programs for kids to practise arithmetic

Kits for kindergarten students that help them explore the life cycle of butterflies

“Scientist in the schools” workshops

Science equipment, including gears and pulleys

Musical instruments

Indoor garden towers

Garden planters for kids to tend

Landscaping

Maintenance of sports fields and a track

Sports equipment

Mats, tents and outdoor phys-ed equipment

New tables and chairs for the gym

Tournament fees and buses for sports events

“Kids in Motion” classes

Parkour classes

Bike rodeo

STEM supplies for kindergarteners

Classes or workshops on dance, yoga, meditation, watercolour painting, puppetry, mosaics, offbeat music, vegetable art, visual arts, Aboriginal hoop dancing, drumming, slam poetry, authors, positive self-talk

Field trips

Theatre and music performances

Blocks and toys

Family math night

Staff appreciation lunch

Grandparents’ day

Cash for classroom teachers to spend on supplies

PA system in the gym

Portable speaker and microphone

Gym compressor

LCD projector

Curtains, sound and lighting for stages

Primary play day

Junior sports day

Cash socked aside for major projects: an outdoor space; kitchen and stage enhancements

Seminars for parents on anxiety, dieting, screen time, relational aggression

A lending library for parents with books on child-related topics

 

 



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