Ottawa parents line up at OCDSB to plead for alternative schools

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Parents at Ottawa’s five alternative schools have gone to bat for the schools, which may be cancelled as part of a wide-ranging series of elementary program changes.

Almost two dozen delegates signed up to speak at a special board meeting held on Feb. 26, many urging trustees to consider the benefits to the program, particularly for students who have had difficulty in mainstream classrooms.

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Others wrote letters of support of the program, which focuses on the student-centred learning philosophy, sometimes described as Waldorf-ish.

Alternative schools allow students to explore at their own pace. Every class has mixed ages. There are no report cards, unless parents insist.

As of October 2023, there were 865 students in the alternative programs at Lady Evelyn, Riverview, Churchill, Regina Street and Summit.

“At Churchill, every classroom is a mixed grade, and that’s done on purpose,” said Emily Addison, the parent of a student at Churchill and the co-chair of the alternative schools advisory committee, in an interview. 

There is also a focus on non-competition and collaboration.  

“There are no awards at our schools. No valedictorian, no best in sport upon graduation, none of that,” said Addison. 

“Anybody can join a sports team regardless of their ability. There are no tryouts for any sports. There’s no public speaking contest. There’s no science fair project prizes. So right there, you remove a lot of pressure in terms of competition and comparison,” she said. 

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While teachers have to assign a grade that gets filed at the Ministry of Education, a report card from an alternative school goes home with no grades on it, although parents can get grades online if they want, said Addison. Instead, the focus is on the students’ strengths, what they need to do next and where they need support.

The philosophy behind the alternative program was once outside the educational mainstream. In explaining its reasons for considering cutting the programs, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board had said many of the alternative program’s tenets have been embraced in regular classrooms.

Many of the parents disagreed, arguing that the program could not be replicated in mainstream schools. 

Pamma Watson, whose son is a student at Regina Street, said her son was enrolled in a Montessori school until that became unaffordable. He would likely manage in a traditional school, but he has been excelling in the alternative environment, she said.

“The alternative program fosters a sense of belonging, character development and a supportive learning environment that cannot simply be replicated across all schools,” said Watson. “Suggesting these practices can be copied and pasted into a rigid one-size-fits-all model is simply unrealistic.”

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Other parents spoke of the importance of having choice within the public school system.

Crofton Steers, a father of two, said some people might like the idea of competing, but alternative schools offer a choice with the tenets of collaboration and innovation “baked right into the fabric of the school.”

Other parents made their appeals in writing. In his letter to trustees, Adam Barnett outlined the frustrations of finding an education model that worked for his son.

“Each afternoon, I would wait at the school gate to collect my kid, and it was almost a coin toss: would it be yet another email chronicling his latest failure to sit still and be quiet, or a frowning member of the administration marching my child up to the fence to discuss with me yet another way he did not fit the mould,” he wrote.

The school board failed his son, but it also rescued him through the alternative program, said Barnett.

“By just the third day in the alternative program, the change in my child was as startling as it was wonderful,” he said. “Instead of avoiding questions about his day, he was falling over himself to tell us about what his teacher said, or what he was learning, or the plans he was making with the friends he was now daring to connect with.”

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Addison said a number of school boards also offer their own version of alternative schools. The Toronto District School Board has 19 elementary alternative schools, she said.

But she admits alternative schools have a “branding” problem. Few parents know what it is, or that it’s an option. 

“We do think that finding term, a term that would better resonate with parents could help,” said Addison, noting that the term “alternative” is likely off-putting to newcomers to Canada, for example.

“We have been making strides in some key areas, and we wanted to keep on making those strides. And now all of a sudden, we’re having to fight to keep our program that we feel provides the board with so much benefit.” 

OCDSB chair Lynne Scott thanked the parents for their comments and said trustees will make sure they have a full understanding of the issues before making any decisions.

“These are important decisions. They are decisions that the board will take very seriously,” she said.

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