Background: The closure of Rideau High School in 2017 caused the neighbourhood to lose a cornerstone instution. While the enrollment did not support a high school there at this time it is important for the school board to maintain ownership of the property for future use as neighbourhood demographics change.

Commitment: Oppose efforts to sell off the property. Seek to reopen a school on the property as soon as demographically feasible.

Background: The City of Ottawa periodically designates old buildings as heritage builgings, most recently York St. Public School was designated in 2022. It is important to remember our cultural heritage and preserve the characteristic elements of these buildings.

Commitment: Work with the city to protect the characteristic elements of old buildings owned by the school system.

Background: This would be useful data to have to evaluate the success of program changes, and evaluate the readiness for university and college that grauduates of the OCDSB have. 

Commitment: Start a conversation with the relevant provincial Ministry about getting this data. I can't promise I will get it, but I would like to try.

Support unionization of high school students through independent student union, more akin to university, cegep, or some highschools.

Background: The OCDSB has two student trustees, and one student trustee mentor. I was chosen as the trustee mentor three years running, and it allowed me to get to know the priorities of the student trustees and to amplify their voice on issues that were important to them.

Commitment: Continue to mentor the student trustees, regardless of if I am selected as the official mentor.

Background: The student trustees have a voice but no vote at the Board table, per the regulations set out by the ministry of Education.

Commitment: Advocate with the ministry of education to empower the student trustees with a vote at the Board table.

Background: Youth are autonomous persons who can provide a unique insight into their education. Listening to young people about their education can help trustees to make decisions to improve their educational experience.

Commitment: I will amplify the voices of students, and student trustees.

Background: In the Safe Schools Policy, the OCDSB rewrote the minimum dresscode for students to maximize freedom of expression, and remove the sexist elements, such as required skirt lengths for girls. The requirements were set to require covering nipples, crotch and bottocks, and not promote anything illegal or hate speech.

Commitment: Support the current dress code, which empowers young people to make decisions about what they feel most comfortable weating, and act accordingly.

Background: The OCDSB has begun a conversation about the Ontario Human Rights Code, and how it applies to students and in schools.

Proposal: The OCDSB should be a leader on adapting privacy rights in Ontario.

Background: At my behest, the OCDSB began collecting data on how often the school system calls police and for what. We found that police we being called to handle disciplinary problems, and the threat of police was being used against disproportionately marginalized students, particularly Indigenous, Black, and students with disabilities. The OCDSB does not currently track how many CAS calls are made, and for what reasons. There is concern in the community through anecdotal experience, and there is evidence backed up by data, indicating the disproportionate number of children in CAS care that children from minoritized communities, notably Indigenous children. This is in part due to a structural discrepancy in CAS. In the grey area cases a given situation that would not result in the removal of a child from a white family would result in the removal of an Indigenous child. Because of this systemic discrepancy, the school system should be prudent when it calls CAS and for what, as there exists notably discrepancies between the removal rates in marginalized populations and the general population. If the school system is calling unnecessarily or frivolously, the practice has to stop, and to determine if it is happening the school system needs to collect the data.  

Proposal: Begin annually collecting the data on frequency of CAS calls starting in or before the 2024/2025 school year. If the data shows that there is unnecessary or frivolous calling, I would create a policy to stop such calls.

Background: At my behest, the OCDSB began collecting data on how often the school system calls police and for what. We found that police we being called to handle disciplinary problems, and the threat of police was being used against disproportionately marginalized students, particularly Indigenous, Black, and students with disabilities. Consequently, I moved a motion which was passed ending the School Resource Officer Program.

Commitment: Continue to minitor police use in schools, continue to monitor police sentiments amongst communities most impacted by police violence. Vote against measures to return police to schools.

Commitment: Ensure public reporting of the number of times police are called and broadly for what reasons. Investigate misuse of police as a diciplinary measure.

Background: The OCDSB shares responsibility with the OCSB for credit accumulation in the youth justice system. In the last term I started to dig into credit accumulation of students in custody, but this was deprioritized due to COVID. As a firm believer in rehabilitation, I would ensure that everything possible is being done to ensure these children graduate. 

Proposal: Work with the OCSB to ensure that students are getting supports necessary to graduate, and if necessary allocate additional resources to the program.

Background: The School-to-Prison Pipeline refers to the school policies and procedures that drive many of our nation’s schoolchildren into a pathway that begins in school and ends in the criminal justice system.

Proposal: Monitor use of police, disproportionate suspensions, and disengagement from school for at risk populations, particularly Indigenous students and students with disabilities.

Background: The police have expressed interest in working in school settings. At this time the OCDSB has decided not to allow that.

Proposal: The asked what the OPS can do to improve, have the OCDSB offer constructive suggestions to police including replacing a subsection of 911 with mobile crisis and social workers teams.

Background: The Board has a number of committees, which give advice and provide expertise to the district. The Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) of the board has requested more meeting time. This committee feels they are currently being held back by the limited number set out by the board of trustees.

Proposal: Increase the number of available meetings for PIC.

Background: Most schools have a parent or school council which meets monthly. During my previous term I would meet with each school council 1-2 times per year (except over COVID).

Commitment: Continue to meet with each school council at least once each school year.

I currently have a rhobust social media presence and an unparalleled response time for emails and retuning phonecalls. It is my intention to maintain this.

Background: There have been an increasing number of staff, particularly teahcers and EAs, who have left the profession or taken leave due to stress, overwork, or mental health concerns.

Proposal: Work with Teachers, EAs, Senior Staff, and union leadership to find innovative ways support people working for the OCDSB. 

Background: The OCDSB was found to have the legal authority to instate a mask requirement for students and staff. Masks have been proven to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the community and within each school. The OCDSB has a legal obligation to educate immunocompromised students just the same as it does all students, and therefore to protect these students the OCDSB should have a mask requirement.

Proposal: Return masking requirements at the OCDSB until CHEO removes their masking requirements.

Background: COVID brought with it an increase in cleaning protocols.

Commitment: Maintain relevant advanced cleaning protocols.

Background: The Ministry of Education maintains a list of 9 essential vaccinations to attend school.

Proposal: Advocate to the ministry to add COVID-19 to this list.

Background: With COVID, the OCDSB ceased to rent out indoor spaces due to extra cleaning burdens. As COVID ends, these rentals will be phased back in.

Proposal: The OCDSB should commit to prioritizing youth programming and low income programming in our rental spaces.

Background: The OCDSB creates a new strategic plan every four years. This plan is used to guide the district in our decision making. The last strategic plan was not specific, it held no specific targets, and as such was very difficult to measure success against.

Proposal: Put specific Key Proformance Indicators, and metrics of success into the strategic plan to hold the district accountable by setting targets and being able to definitively say if they were met or not.

Background: The Board has a number of committees, which give advice and provide expertise to the district. They are allocated a set number of meetings each year, with some, such as the Parent Involvement Committee (PIC) of the board having requested more meeting time. These committees feel they are currently being held back by the number set out by the board of trustees.

Proposal: Increase the number of available meetings for critical committees of the Board, specifically the Special Education, Parent Involvement, Indigenous Education, and Equity committees.

Background: The Board has two types of motions, consent and non-consent. In the former, no one disagrees with the motion and so passes unanimously, usually covering things like reciept of mintues, and approval of the agenda.

Commitment: Continue to provide my rational for the record on why I vote the way I do on each issue.

Background: Streaming is the process by which a student is moved into a particular class, usually with limited understanding of the consequences of this action. Historically, students from low income areas, and has disproportionately resulted in racialized and disabled students in the non-university level class pathway in grade 9. The province undertook a plan to destream grade 9 Math, to ensure that every student entering highschool has the oppertunity to attempt university level math.

Proposal: Extending the destreaming to all grade 9 classes in all classes at the district before the 2025/2026 school year. Students who come from low income areas should not be prevented from accessing the highest levels of education because of a choice they were unaware they were making at the end of grade 8.

Background: The English program has seen significant problems over the past 8 years. Enrollment has plummeted, some of my schools have as few as two grade ones entering the program. By 8^th grade, we see approximate parity between the English and French (Middle French Immersion [MFI] + Early French Immersion [EFI]) streams (~55% English, 45% French) ±5% n=8. We also see disproportionately more students with special needs in the English Program compared with the other two programs. There are also reports by parents that their child has been directed, or streamed into the English through repeated suggestions by staff. The English program, in addition to being under populated in the early grades, also has significantly lower measurable success metrics such as EQAO.

Proposal: Extend the popular 50% English 50% French from Kindergarten until grade 3, and merge both the EFI and the English programs. This will ensure that every child gets a solid foundation in both English and French, and asks parents to make the decision for French or English education after each child has a bit more schooling under their belt. It also exceeds the standards for the number of French minutes of instruction currently set out in the MFI program, which has equivalent success rates at students attempting the DELF. This would also keep more young students in their community school.

Background: The OCDSB owns a building at 440 Albert which used to be the old technical high school. It is currently not in use as a school, instead being rented out.

Proposal: If elected I would explore potential programming to fill the building. It is incredibly well suited to be a city wide program given its proximity to the train line, and would be an excellent alternative location for something like the preforming arts concentration, or a STEM focused program.

Background: The OCDSB shares responsibility with the OCSB for credit accumulation in the youth justice system. In the last term I started to dig into credit accumulation of students in custody, but this was deprioritized due to COVID. As a firm believer in rehabilitation, I would ensure that everything possible is being done to ensure these children graduate. 

Proposal: Work with the OCSB to ensure that students are getting supports necessary to graduate, and if necessary allocate additional resources to the program.

Background: The OCDSB offers an elementary 1-8 program with the 7 tennants of alternative education known as the Alternative Program. The OCDSB also offers a program for struggling high school students known as the Alternate Program.

There have been members of the public who confuse the two programs given the prevalence of similarly named high school programs in other jurisdictions. 

Proposal: Working with the community and parents to determine a different name for the Alternative Program, to minimize confusion. 

Background: the OCDSB offers a program that starts the school day earlier and ends later for families who work early or late and need someone to watch children before or after school. The EDP is revenue/cost neutral by law, and the OCDSB has a partnership with the city to provide subsidies for families in need. This program has been vital to many families where both parents work.

Proposal: I would ensure that the EDP program runs in all schools with at least three families who request the program, as well as advertising that the potential for such a program exists each year to new parents.

Background: The SATE program is a recent program designed to help low income schools improve academic achievement and well-being for underserved students through early targeted intervention and support. The program is recent, but has shown promising preliminary results.

Proposal: Increase funding for the SATE program, hire 2-3 additional full time staff to the program in 2023-2024.

Background: The RAISE index is a list of schools in the lowest income neighbourhoods in the city, for which additional resources are allocated. The allocation at this time is 10$ per student. The goal of these funds are to allow families in those schools to be able to send children on things they could otherwise not afford, such as bus fare for local field trips, or to cover the costs of things often donated to the school by the parent community.

Proposal: Increase the RAISE index funding to at least 20$/student.

Background: There is a wide discrepancy between schools in low income areas, and some other schools. Some schools fundraise less than 1000$ a year, other fundraise over 50 000$ a year. This leads to a massive discrepancy between, for example, sports equipment or libraries.

Proposal: Have each school put 5-10% of all funds raised into a pool that is distributed back purely based on what percentage of students each school is in the system.

For example: Your school is 2% of students, and raised 10 000$. You put 500$ into the pool. The total all schools raised was 1M (an average of 6.7 thousand), so the pool is 50 000$. You would get back 1000$.

Background: Unlike most leveks of government, school board trustees are not able to change revenues through increasing or decreasing taxes. I would commit to passing a balanced budget, and ensuring that money is being spent where it can do the most good.

Background: Technological literacy is increasingly important to succeeding in a modern world. The district manages a number of Chromebook fleets, which are leant to classrooms to assist with particular lesson plans. Increasing the number of fleets at RAISE schools is important because for some of the students without regular computer access at home this is their best opportunity to become familiarized with computers and technology.

Proposal: Increase the Student to Chromebook Ratio in schools in low income neighbourhoods to at least 2:1.

Background: The OCDSB has a standing requirement that all construction pay 787$ per new residential unit and comercial buildings pay 0.58$/sqr foot into a pot of money used to purchase new land for schools.

Proposal: Given the rapid increase in inflation and the skyrocketing cost of construction these figured should be reevaluated sooner than their initual March 2024 renewal date.

• Maintain equity funding for trans graduation coach
• Expand LGBTQ youth forum to include relevant elementary grades
• Ensure libraries have LGBTQ resources so children see themselves represented

• Maintain equity funding for Black graduation coaches
• Maintain the Black Student forum, and expand supports to Black Student groups across the district
• Increase Graduation Coaches from 2 to 3 by 2026
• Increase use of MLOs to increase Black voices at parent councils and in district surveys

• Maintain equity funding for Indigenous graduation coaches
• Expand capacity of IEAC, and Indigenous leads throughout the school system through increased training and funding
• Increase Indigenous graduation rates from ~60% to at least 85%, and set metrics into the strategic plan to ensure these targets are met

• Support the SATE Program
• Increase Chromebook : student ratios in low income (RAISE) schools.
• Increase funding for schools on the RAISE Index

Background: The AODA is legislation requiring, amonst other things, the physical environment of all public buildings such as schools to be fully accessible by 2025. The district will not be meeting this target, despite my best efforts over the last four years. The estimated backlog for AODA compliance work at the OCDSB was 75±15 million dollars with a timeline of 12-20 years. This is not acceptable in my eyes.

Commitment: I have brought up our inability to meet the deadline set by the province at each budget this past term, and I have pushed the district to meet our target. As that was not prioritized by the past board, I would seek to complete the remainder of the work as little over the deadline as possible.

Background: The District provides access to specialists to determine if a student has special education needs. Early intervention is critical for many special education needs, such as struggling with reading. The average wait times are measured in months, with some students waiting year over year for an assessment.

Proposal: Write a policy requiring a maximum wait time of one school year, and reduce the average wait time

Background: EAs are critical to support students with Special Education Needs, but the district has been running a shortage, with even regular absences not being able to be filled as needed.

Proposal: ensure that EAs are maintained and comprehensive lists of replacements prevent normal day-to-day absences from impacting students.

Background: The OCDSB has a legal requirement to provide support for the 12 listed exceptionalities, one of which is the gifted designation. There have been rumblings and attempts to integrate all students with this learning need into the regular classroom, despite the wishes of the students and parents of children with this exceptionality.

Commitment: Seek to ensure that the congregated gifted program is maintained at both the elementary and secondary levels.

Background: The Ministry of Education in 2016 put a prohibition on major boundary reviews and school closures, which has not been lifted to this day. At some point in the next few years it is predicted that this moratorium will be lifted.

Commitment: If the moratorium is lifted, I will do everything in my power to ensure no schools close, but if they absolutely must I will prioritize keeping schools open in low income areas as beneficial community hubs.

Background: The OCDSB Green Climate Fund is a 150 000$ fund which can be applied for by schools or the school community to be put towards Climate related initiatives.

Proposal: Increase the Green Climate Fund to 300 000$ by 2026

Background: The OCDSB manages more than 150 properities, each of which has a boiler, heating, cooling systems. Almost all of these systems are dependant on fossil fuels (natural gas) to function.

Commitment: Ensure that the OCDSB puts in alternatives to fossil fuel burning systems in new buildings, and when the districts does retrofitting.

Background: Over COVID, recycling programs fell by the wayside as custodial time was required for enhanced cleaning. The district has never had a universal composting requirement. Part of the problem has been that no job description has included responsiblity for these programs.

Proposal: Write a policy requiring a composting and recycling program at each school, and add responsibility for these programs to an existing job description in the next round of local collective bargaining.

Background: There is a climate crisis, and the education of young people as to the urgency and importance of this is critical to ensure that everyone in society understands the situation we all find ourselves in.

Proposal: Using my position as a trustee advocate for environmental education.

• Implement a Working Group on Teacher Shortage in the French–Language School system and follow through on the recommendations to help our French language schools thrive

Background: Students have provided feedback to the effect that it is difficult to know who to go to for support with mental health.

Proposal: Create a clear access point for students who need mental health supports, including clarity about how to escalate support if necessary.

Background: Student mental health has plummeted over the course of the pandemic.

Proposal: Prioritize funding for student mental health and welbeing in the next few budget cycles to help overcome the impacts of the pandemic.

Background: The OCDSB provides supportive counselling for students at no cost. The need for this services increased dramatically over the pandemic as more and more students felt isolated and required support. 

Proposal: Reduce wait times for accessing school counselling by allocating additional staff hours (FTE) towards front line services.