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The LABC was invited by Education Critic, Joyce Savoline and our local MPP Khalil Ramal to present our concerns regarding Bill 157 (Mandatory Reporting). It was an honour to represent the parent/victims voice as we continue to shine the light on the problem of bullying in our schools. Attached is our entire presentation. Many voices...One Vision to eliminate bullying.
Documents:
Proposed Amendments to Bill 157
Kathryn Wilkins and Corina Morrison's Speech
Parents Comments
Changes we would like to see to Bill 212
LABC 3 Year report
LABC comments on Bill 212
In January 2007 Chatelaine magazine there was an article written by Rebecca Godfrey entitled "Murder and Mercy".
We are pleased to announce that Corina Morrison was
one of this years winners of the 3rd annual Today's Parent For Kids' Sake
Awards. Please see the May 2006 issue of Today's Parent (page 102)
for the article. This can also be accessed at www.todaysparent.com
Congratulations Corina!! The rest of Canada
now knows what we have known all along. You are an inspiration to the
entire community. Your sister-in-law sure knows how to recognize a
hero.
Bullying_keeps_overweight_kids_off_the_field.htm
The following article appeared Today's Parent October 2005:
B Is For Bully by John Hoffman Page 1/Page 2/Page 3/Page 4
Bullying In The Workplace - Executive Summary - Click below
Bullying In The Workplace
Ministry of Education website
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca to access a report written by the Safe Schools
Action Team. The report is called, "Shaping Safer Schools: A bullying
prevention action plan November 2005". The Safe Schools Action
Team has presented their recommendations on a province wide bullying prevention
plan. Note: The TVDSB is requiring every school to have an action plan
using this report as a template. The secondary schools should have their
plan in order by now and the elementary schools are in the planning stages
presently.
The following article appeared in a recent newspaper:
IS MIDDLE SCHOOL BAD FOR KIDS?
Cities across the U.S.
are switching to K-8 schools. Will the results be any better?
By CLAUDIA WALLIS
It's 10 a.m. on a bright May day, and the arts wing at Gustav
A. Fritsche
Middle School in Milwaukee,
Wis., is hopping. In a band
room, 21 members of the jazz ensemble are rehearsing Soul Bossa Nova with
plenty of heart and impressive intonation, in preparation for a concert
downtown. In another room, woodblocks, timpani and bells are whipping up a
rhythmic frenzy as the 75-member Fritsche Philharmonic Orchestra tackles
Elliott Del Borgo's Aboriginal Rituals. In an art room, eighth-graders are
shaping clay vessels to be baked in the school kiln. Down the hall,
students are dabbing acrylic paints on canvas to create vivid still lifes Ã
la Vincent van Gogh. At 10:49, when the 82-min. arts period ends, kids of
all sizes, colors and sartorial stripes pour out of classrooms, jostling
and joking, filling the hallway with the buzz of pubescent energy. Then
it's off to language arts, math, social studies and the array of other
subjects offered at this sprawling arena for adolescents.
A few blocks away, at Humboldt
Park Elementary
School, which serves kindergarten through
eighth grade, a charming scene unfolds in Karen Hennessy's classroom. Her
kindergartners are enjoying a visit from their eighth-grade
"buddies." All around the room, big kids sit knees to chest in
miniature chairs or cross-legged on the alphabet carpet. Each little kid
has chosen a picture book to share with a big buddy. Some lean on
eighth-grade laps as they listen. Logan Wells, a strapping 14-year-old,
reads The Little Engine That Could to Alec Matias and Jacob Hill. Jacob, 5,
seems mesmerized equally by the bright illustrations and by the eighth-grader
turning the pages. He presses against Logan
as if to absorb some big-kid magic. The older boy reads on with gentle
forbearance.
If you were 13 years old, where would you rather be? Big, frenetic
Fritsche, with its thrilling range of arts classes, bands, Socratic
seminars and TV studio, all aimed at 1,030 sixth-, seventh- and
eighth-graders? Or calm and cozy Humboldt
Park, where the
teachers seem to know the names and histories of all 585 students, ages 4
to 14? If you're the parent of a 13-year-old, which would you choose for
your child? The two schools represent two sides of a debate that has ripped
through Milwaukee and other U.S.
cities. For the past decade, middle schools have been the educational
setting for roughly two-thirds of students in Grades 6 through 8. But
increasingly, communities are questioning whether they really are the best
choice for this volatile age group.
In Milwaukee, both Fritsche and Humboldt
Park have fine reputations, but
the district has decided to place most of its bets on the likes of Humboldt
Park. Since 2001, it
has expanded the number of K-8 schools from 12 to 48, with 14 more on the
way. Meanwhile, the number of middle schools in Milwaukee
has shrunk from 23 to 14. "Once young adolescents get to the sixth
grade, the achievement level begins to decline a bit and disruptive
behavior increases," says William Andrekopoulos, the superintendent of
schools. "We're providing a number of different options,"
including some big middle schools, he notes, "but we know that a small
learning community is going to make a difference."
A surprising number of other U.S.
cities have come to the same conclusion, reversing the trend that created
thousands of middle schools in the 1970s and '80s. Cincinnati
and Cleveland, Ohio;
Minneapolis, Minn.;
Philadelphia; Memphis,
Tenn.; and Baltimore,
Md., are in various stages of
reconfiguring their schools away from the middle school model and toward
K-8s. Some suburban districts, including the wealthy Capistrano
School District in Orange
County, Calif., are
also making the switch.
While issues such as crowding and cost cutting were factors for
some of these districts, the change is driven largely by a series of
studies that depict U.S.
middle schools as the "Bermuda Triangle of education," as one
report put it. It's the place where kids lose their way academically and
socially--in many cases never to resurface. The most comprehensive report,
a review of 20 years of educational research, was released last year by the
Rand Corporation, the nonprofit research group in Santa Monica, Calif.
Cheerfully titled Focus on the Wonder Years: Challenges Facing the American
Middle School, it offered a harsh critique of the middle school record.
Among its findings:
*More than half of eighth-graders fail to achieve expected levels
of proficiency in reading, math and science on national tests.
*In international ratings of math achievement, U.S. students’ rank
about average--ninth out of 17--at Grade 4, but sink to 12th place by Grade
8, setting the stage for further slippage in high school.
*Reported levels of emotional and physical problems are higher
among U.S.
middle school students than among their peers in all 11 other countries
surveyed by the World Health Organization. The same "health
behavior" survey found that U.S.
middle schoolers have the most negative views of the climate of their
schools and peer culture.
*Crime takes off in middle school. Statistics from 1996-97 show
that while 45% of public elementary schools reported one or more incidents
to the police, the figure jumps to 74% for middle schools--almost as high
as high schools (77%).
*While not many studies directly compare K-8 schools with middle
schools, those that do suggest that young teens do better both academically
and socially in K-8 schools.
Most significant, the Rand report
questioned the very idea of having separate schools for preteens:
"Research suggests that the onset of puberty is an especially poor
reason for beginning a new phase of schooling." Jaana Juvonen, the
UCLA psychologist who spent more than 18 months crunching data for the
report, believes that 11- and 12-year-olds are already dealing with so many
changes that it makes little sense to pile on a change in schools.
"Right around the time that most kids are transferring to middle school,
everything starts to happen," she says. "There's physical
development: you're starting to look different. And because of that,
people's expectations of you are changing. In addition, there's cognitive
development and new reasoning abilities. It is a very fragile period."
In Milwaukee,
school vouchers and a policy of choice put a lot of decision-making power
in parents' hands, and pressure to keep vulnerable sixth-graders in their
familiar grade schools has sprung up from the grass roots. "I don't care
if you have world-class middle schools, parents just don't like moving
their children from the elementary school," says Andrekopoulos, who
used to be principal at Fritsche. Pressure to score high on the math and
reading tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act also seems to favor
K-8s. "Elementary schools have done a better job of organizing
themselves around math and reading," he observes.
Boosting achievement in math and reading is a big factor in the
drive to reshape schools in Philadelphia,
where reform has come from the top down. A 2002 study found that
eighth-graders at the city's K-8 schools typically score 50 points higher
on state tests than peers who attend middle schools. Under Paul Vallas, the
energetic CEO of Philadelphia's schools, the district is pruning the number
of middle schools from 46 in 2003 to eight by 2008, while upping K-8s from
10 to 120. "I haven't seen anything to support the creation of middle
schools, especially the way they work in large urban areas," Vallas
says.
How did middle schools, which were ushered in with such fanfare 25
years ago, fall into such disrepute? The answer, many educators say, has
less to do with the philosophy behind the middle school movement and more
to do with how it was executed. Coming after a period of youth unrest, when
juvenile crime and drug use were rising, middle school proponents argued
that old-fashioned junior highs, which usually served Grades 7 and 8 and
sometimes 9, were not meeting kids' social and developmental needs.
Instead, they were providing a watered-down version of high school,
literally a junior high. Reformers proposed that schools for this age group
needed to educate "the whole child," addressing social and
emotional issues as well as building academic skills. Sixth grade became
the usual entry point for new middle schools, both because of crowding at
grammar schools and because puberty was occurring earlier.
Among the key tenets of the middle school movement are these:
fostering a close relationship between teacher and child so that every
student has an adult advocate, having teachers work across disciplines in
teams (example: students read Johnny Tremain in English while studying the
Revolutionary War in social studies), creating small learning communities
within larger schools and stressing learning by doing. "Young
adolescents learn through discovery and getting involved," explains
Sue Swaim, executive director of the Ohio-based National Middle School
Association. "They're not meant to be lectured to the whole day."
Some critics contend that the whole movement was soft in the head.
It "had as its ideological antecedent the notion that academics should
take a back seat to self-exploration, socialization and working in
groups," writes Cheri Pierson Yecke, a former education commissioner
in Minnesota, in a forthcoming report for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
titled Mayhem in the Middle: How Middle Schools Failed America and How to
Make Them Work. "A disproportionate regard for student self-esteem and
identity development," Yecke argues, yielded a "precipitous
decline" in academic achievement.
But many educators believe that ideology was not the problem.
"There were some very good middle schools out there, but middle school
reform never got fully implemented," says Jacquelynne Eccles,
professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a member of a
task force that issued Turning Points, a landmark 1989 report on middle
schools funded by the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation. Many districts
created big warehouse-like middle schools to address crowding and
court-ordered busing but without embracing the pedagogy of the movement.
"They ended up looking very much like the junior high schools they
were designed to replace," says Eccles.
In urban areas, middle schools often became the antithesis of what
reformers had intended. Instead of warm incubators of independence and
judgment, they became impersonal, oppressive institutions. "In many
urban schools," says Juvonen, "you can't help but notice that
there are security guards around. There's someone expecting you to
misbehave." That's especially destructive, she says, because young
adolescents need their independence to be guided and nurtured, not
squashed. "This is when kids start challenging social conventions.
They say things like 'Why do I have to make my bed?' It's proof of their
cognitive maturity, and it's all good." Sadly, this cognitive
development isn't well supported by the middle school curriculum either,
according to several studies. "It doesn't help students see the bigger
picture or to understand abstract concepts," says Juvonen.
Ironically, K-8 schools are in some ways better positioned to
implement the ideas of the middle school movement. Not only do these more
intimate schools tend to foster strong teacher-student relationships, but
they often put their older students in positions where they can exercise
judgment and leadership. At Humboldt
Park, for instance,
seventh-graders have worked with the third-graders to write letters to U.S.
soldiers in Iraq.
"The older grades become mentors and tutors to the younger kids,
giving them a sense of responsibility that may not happen in middle
school," says Milwaukee
parent Tina Johnson, who has two kids in a K-8 school. "All these
raging hormones are kind of directed in a positive way." Some
administrators believe there are fewer behavior problems in K-8s, where
your old first-grade teacher--and her current pupils--are watching. Says Humboldt
Park student Savannah
Bracero, 14: "You have to be much more careful here so the little kids
don't pick up bad behavior."
Along with grownup responsibilities, K-8s tend to offer the
occasional--and still wanted--hug from a teacher, says Dr. Lottie Smith, a
K-8 principal in Milwaukee.
"In middle and high school, that's a no-no. We don't touch," says
Smith. Middle schools were originally intended to be nurturing places, but
it hasn't been easy to pull that off, says Harry Finks, a veteran middle
school teacher and principal, who wrote one of the first handbooks for
middle school staff: "You want to create a dialogue, so that an
eighth-grade boy can come up to you and say, 'Man, my guinea pig died and
I'm really upset.' Most schools don't have that atmosphere."
Those who champion middle schools, however, say that done right,
such schools offer leadership opportunities, a caring environment plus a
rich variety of courses, facilities and subject-matter specialists that
K-8s can't begin to match. Fritsche, for instance, not only has its
elaborate program in the arts but also offers an extensive library, a
graphics and electronics lab, three gymnasiums and many extracurriculars.
While the best of Milwaukee's
K-8 schools have adopted such middle school features as lockers, science
labs, changing classes throughout the day, they can't equal a program like
Fritsche's. At Humboldt
Park, for instance,
Spanish is taught by a paraprofessional using computerized lessons; the
only gym doubles as the cafeteria.
Milwaukee parent
Jeff Wagner decided to send his daughter to Fritsche instead of keeping her
at Humboldt Park
past fifth grade. "There was no comparison," he says. Fritsche
"had activities after school from forensics to track--plus the quality
of teaching and the tough curriculum." Middle school fans also
question the impulse to shelter young adolescents. "You're not in some
sort of cocoon. You need to evolve," insists Fritsche eighth-grader
René Espinoza. And what happens when it comes time to go to high school,
asks Fritsche band teacher Joyce Gardiner: "To go from a little-bitty
K-8 school to a high school that has 2,000 kids? I can't even imagine
that."
But educators on both sides of the debate tend to agree that how
the grades are packaged ultimately matters less than what's happening
inside the school. "The exact configuration is a distraction,"
says Anthony Jackson, a middle school expert and co-author of the Turning
Points report. What counts, he says, is good instruction and caring
relationships. "You can make that happen in a stand-alone middle
school or a K-8 school," Jackson
adds, although he believes that schools with more than 100 kids per grade
should be broken up into smaller units. Hiring qualified teachers and
giving them time to plan and upgrade skills is also critical. Nationally,
only about 1 in 4 middle school teachers has special certification for
teaching middle school grades.
Educators watching the flight from middle schools are worried that
school districts will see the K-8 building as a solution in itself, without
devoting the resources needed to support good education. And there's reason
to be worried. Because that's precisely what happened 25 years ago, when
administrators rushed to abandon nasty old junior highs for those nifty new
middle schools. --Reported by Carolina A.
Miranda/New York
and Betsy Rubiner/Milwaukee |
