Details:

Who: You, me, Carolyn Bennett and lots of friends (children welcome!)

Where: The Twisted Kilt, 1954 Yonge St., just north of Davisville

When: Thursday, October 7, 6-8PM

How much: FREE! Donations will be most welcome. We will provide the snacks and it’s a cash bar.

Also coming soon…

• Two all candidates meetings have been scheduled. The first is October 4 on Goldhawk Live (Rogers Television cable 10) beginning at 9PM. The second is the Town Crier debate on October 6 at the First Unitarian Church, 175 St. Clair Ave. W. tentatively scheduled to begin at 6PM with trustee candidates, followed by city council candidates for Ward 22 (the half of St. Paul’s that is east of Spadina Rd.)

• I’ll be holding a few town hall meetings in different neighbourhoods in the ward to present my vision in greater detail and to listen to your thoughts, concerns and ideas for the TDSB. The dates and locations are still being confirmed but expect to hear about these early in September.

• Councillor Joe Mihevc is having a campaign BBQ fundraiser of his own at the Wychwood Barns on Sunday, September 12 from 4-7PM. Details are here.

I’m doing my best to make it to every single door in St. Paul’s. That’s why I started pounding the pavement in the Maurice Cody community in May and haven’t stopped, even on hot, muggy and stormy days like today. Since May I’ve made it to 10,000 doors.

Tens of thousands of doors remain to be knocked but I’ll be stepping up my efforts even further after Labour Day when I take a combination of vacation days and an unpaid leave of absence from my day job to work full-time on getting my message directly to the families and ratepayers of St. Paul’s.

I’m listening

In recent weeks I’ve heard the Wilcox community’s desire for a more present trustee who takes the time to listen and act on their needs while celebrating their many successes. Cedarvale has expressed frustration with catchment areas that make little geographic sense and the dearth of local childcare options. The Hillcrest community feels like the TDSB is a bad neighbour because of its decision to lock a much-used gate on the north side of the school (the embodiment, in my opinion, of the TDSB’s approach to community relations and community use of schools). And across the family of schools involved in the Cedarvale-Wilcox-Arlington-Humewood-Rawlinson ARC there is tremendous disappointment in the Board’s decision to close Arlington but relief that Councillor Mihevc and I have put together a plan that we hope will save the building as a community center. There are, of course, many other issues that I’ve spoken to parents about at the door, from bullying and accommodation for children with special needs to the sex education curriculum and the impact crumbling schools have on students’ ability to learn.

Please continue to let me know about your priorities by sending me an e-mail at adam@adamcf.ca or call me at 416.799.4447.

Adam

Whether it’s keeping our schools open, saving our school pools, using new and better technology in our classrooms, opening up schools for community use or any number of other priorities, the natural response from the TDSB is, “No!” It takes a community kicking and screaming or doing the school board’s job for it to see the TDSB budge.

I’ve come to call this the “no can do” attitude. What I’m promising to bring is a “can do” attitude. Platitude? Yes. But I can back it up with real accomplishments over years of community work that give that platitude meaning.

The Winona school pool is a great example of my “can do” approach. So is overseeing the expansion of self-checkout technology at library branches so Toronto Public Library can deploy staff resources more effectively, allowing for more open hours at no additional cost. Another example is turning a $25,000 City grant for Wychwood Open Door into more than $100,000 of public and private money that will revitalize the drop-in center and bring in new literacy and health programs.

I look forward to having more conversations with residents about how to build community instead of closing schools; how to create healthier, active communities instead of needlessly ripping down school playgrounds; and how we can move from “no can do” to a new era of “can do” leadership.

******

Last month I knocked on 2,000 doors in St. Paul’s. From the Cody community in the east to Humewood in the west, I heard a common theme: we love our local schools but the school board – the trustees and senior administrators – isn’t doing its part to tackle the system-wide issues we’ve faced since amalgamation.

Through my conversations with residents and education leaders, I’ve developed three top priorities:

1. Transform our schools that are half-empty into community hubs that provide important services to neighbourhoods and make all schools into year-round community centers that offer space for recreational activities outside of school hours to people of all ages.
2. Improve professional development for our teachers and support staff that leads to better results for students.
3. Advocate for a fair funding formula from the provincial government that addresses local needs while ensuring that every dollar the TDSB is already entrusted with is spent as judiciously as taxpayers expect.

Anyone can rhyme off a list of priorities but my unique background demonstrates an ability to work together to win results that benefit communities.

Raised and educated in St. Paul’s, I’ve lived in the community for more than 20 years.

My love for my local school community is what spurred me to get involved when, in the 1990s, the provincial government began cutting my education. Buildings fell into disrepair, labour strikes were an annual event and my high school was closed and relocated to an inadequate facility.

Knowing firsthand what can happen when the wrong decision-makers are elected, I am running to ensure that this generation of students never has to go through what I did.

In the years since I’ve had the opportunity to serve on the Toronto Public Library Board, where I took a leadership role in the development and approval process of capital and operating budgets totaling close to $200 million annually. In that context, I know what it’s like to make tough decisions while ensuring TPL remains the best public library in the world.

I also chair the board of a drop-in center for homeless and socially isolated people called Wychwood Open Door. We served 16,000 meals last year while providing counseling and skills development programs, all on a budget of under $150,000. So I also know how to operate on a shoestring.

Finally, I serve as vice-chair of the St. Clair West Aquatics Club. Earlier this year we saved the Winona school pool with the support of the community and now we’re offering children’s and recreational swim programs. This model of community use of schools is one that I want to roll-out all across St. Paul’s and throughout the TDSB.

Thank you to Josh for hosting the debate this evening and to all of you for taking the time to participate. I look forward to your questions.

The Board’s budget process began with a $42 million deficit. But unlike the provincial or federal governments, the TDSB is not permitted to run a deficit. To plug the funding gap, the Board decided to delay $30 million of much-needed school repairs*.

Though I agree that deferring maintenance costs is a less bad choice than cutting the programs and services that students and their families rely on, framing this decision in a positive light, as some have done, does a disservice to those same students and families.

While revenues and expenditures may balance on the TDSB’s bottom line, continuing to let children attend class in crumbling school buildings is indicative of a severe infrastructure deficit. And, of course, there’s still the ESL  funding deficit, special needs funding deficit, the deficit of new textbooks, library materials, arts and athletic equipment, and others. To me, this shows that the budget was only balanced in the TDSB’s boardroom and fails to meet so many of our students’ needs in the classroom.

Having been in a leadership role on the Toronto Public Library Board’s budget committee for the past three years, I know as well as anyone that there are few easy answers when funds are limited. But taking the easy way out by simply deferring maintenance isn’t the answer. For example, this year I had Library staff provide the most detailed budget documents seen by the Library Board since at least amalgamation. In seeing finer details of each department’s budget, we were able to identify areas where more efficiencies could be achieved, like solid waste collection (happy to expand on what that means but more efficient solid waste collection is not a euphemism for privatization, though some branches do rely on private collection). Our other success was in demonstrating to the City of Toronto, TPL’s main funder, that our libraries are extraordinarily efficient and provide important, popular services. That advocacy ensured that TPL received more money than areas of the City’s operations that are known to be less efficient.

So instead of heaping praise, today is the day I am vowing to do better at finding efficiencies within budgets, do better by fostering partnerships with other orders of government and sectors of society, and do better by more effectively making the case to the provincial government for adequate funding.

*Technically the TDSB moved the maintenance funding from its operating budget to its capital budget. The hope is that the provincial government might decide to fund repairs through a new stream of money. Though I truly hope the province answer’s the Board’s prayers, this seems unlikely as there is already a $2.8 billion school repair backlog and no strategy to fill this void.

***

Over the past two weekends I’ve knocked on about 800 doors in the community surrounding Maurice Cody and Hodgson. Far and away the most popular subject of conversation was how to manage over-enrolment at Cody. Having followed the ARC process closely and attended the hours of deputations from dozens of passionate Cody parents who articulated their concerns about reducing the school’s catchment area, this was no surprise to me. But while the community is of one mind about wanting a solution that keeps children safe and looks after the best interests of their development as learners, there is a diversity of opinion with regard to how we achieve those things.

Unmistakably, the most popular short-term solution within the community is to build a second expansion for the school. But even families that support this approach voiced concern this weekend for how their children will succeed in an ever-growing school that will likely outgrow the second expansion in the short-term. Key among those concerns is that space for children to play in the school yard shrinks every time another expansion project is undertaken; as the school grows so has the number of split grade classes; and it’s harder for families, students and school staff to build important relationships with one another. Families want to know that all these difficult conversations are going to lead to a solution that is sustainable over the longer term. Should the only measure taken by the Board to alleviate overcrowding at Cody be a facility expansion, I would consider it to be a short-term solution.

While we wait to see what decision the school board will make, in the event that the board approves only a short-term solution, the commitment that I am making to the families of the Maurice Cody community and, indeed, those surrounding all of the Yonge-Davisville ARC schools, is this: No one will work harder than me to ensure that the community is a full partner in designing and implementing a long-term, sustainable solution to over-enrolment that is based on the best information available.

As many in the St. Paul’s community have seen already, I am committed to bringing important information to your door and engaging with you in dialogue as part of finding solutions that work for all of us. That will not end on Election Day.

In 2005, when the City of Toronto was about to make a decision on who would provide cold beverages, including soft drinks, in its vending machines, I wrote an op-ed with the lede, “City Council is considering one of the Western world’s deepest philosophical questions: Coke or Pepsi?” That sarcastic opening was the product of my frustration that so little consideration was being given at that time to the merits of exhibiting leadership in healthy choices.

Though I was unsuccessful in campaigning to have the City re-tender the the 2005-2010 contract that ended up going to Pepsi, I did work with a variety of city councillors to ensure that the next contract, to be approved this summer and implemented in the fall, would position the City to be the model for healthy cold drink vending.

Through a motion that I helped craft, the clause allowing for almost automatic renewal of the 2005-2010 deal was removed from the contract and City staff were instructed to bring forward an RFP in 2010 that would include entirely healthy beverage options in serving sizes recommended by dietitians (this last part is not included in the proposed vending contract criteria, though it does limit portion size to 355ml).

To me, this issue isn’t about telling people how to live their lives. There’s no proposal here to ban soft drinks from private vendors in Toronto, just at City-run facilities. But what you learn in any elementary marketing course is that the most successful brands are the ones that are seamlessly integrated into our lives. A child doesn’t ask mom or dad for a cola-flavoured carbonated soft drink, she asks for a Pepsi or Coke. Changing what’s on offer when this girl is done her swim class means that her first instinct in another setting might not be a Pepsi, it might be an orange juice or soy milk. Given the obesity epidemic and dramatic increase in diabetes cases among young people, I think we owe our children at least this much. And for those who really want that soft drink, no one says you can’t bring one into a community centre.

My commitment to this issue goes back to when I was a high school student and found it offensive that the school board was profiting off of the unhealthy choices of me and my classmates. My efforts led to the TDSB reducing the amount of branding on vending machines and elementary schools were banned from selling soft drinks. There is still more work to be done as the serving sizes for all beverages provided to students range from 30-60% larger than recommended by dietitians and the school board continues to earn money based on the number of units sold, which means that it is quite literally in the business of making students less healthy. Possibly the saddest commentary on the school board’s commitment to healthy schools, however, is that Pepsi has beaten the board to the healthy punch: that company has made a commitment to remove all of their soft drinks from schools by 2012.

In summary, it is recommended that Humewood (and the other elementary schools in the ARC) stay open and Arlington Middle School close. As a result, Humewood will change from K-6 to K-8.  It is also recommended that Humewood be the home of a new SK-8 French immersion program (prospectively starting in September 2011), that also includes an entry point at grade 4. Further, the ARC recommended considering Humewood as the home of an alternative school (coincidentally, Humewood did have an alternative school up until the mid-1990s).

The recommendations go much further than what I have described above so I would encourage you to read through the links I have provided below:

• Information on the TDSB’s Accommodation Review Committee process (aka ARC or “Better Schools, Brighter Futures”) is centered here.
• The main page for the ARC that included Humewood, Arlington, Cedarvale, Wilcox and Rawlinson is located here.
• The recommendations from the ARC is in PDF format here.

When I detailed the ARC’s recommendations in conversations over the weekend, families were largely relieved by the news that their school would not close. Though no body was happy to hear of Arlington’s closure, I was left with the impression that so long as the TDSB implements all of the ARC’s recommendations (especially around capital upgrades to ensure elementary schools can handle middle school-aged students) and the building is put to a good, community use, this neighbourhood is able to make peace with the closure. Please let me know what your feelings are with regard to the ARC’s recommendations, either in the comment section of this post or you can contact me directly.

Like this example in Milton, I think it would do wonders for our community if virtually all students were able to use a mode of active transportation (walk, bike, scooter, inline skate, etc) to get to school. Not only would we have more animated streets and a cleaner environment, we would also have healthier children.

But how can we make it safe enough for parents to trust that their child will get to school safely?

In addition to traffic calming measures (stop signs, reduced speed limits, speed humps, etc) and having police around schools to enforce traffic calming, one idea put forward was to get drivers’ attention by using different materials on roads to draw attention to the fact that there are a higher volume of pedestrians than in most other areas. One prime example of this is on St. George St. on the University of Toronto campus. (If you click on the link, zoom in to the “Street View” level and look at the surface of the road). This is a popular solution employed in Europe.

Do you have further ideas on how to make our neighbourhoods safe enough for students to walk and bike to school? If so, please share them in the comments or by e-mailing them to me at adam@adamcf.ca.

Now it’s April and no longer is the pool dark every night. As vice-chair of the St. Clair West Aquatics Club board, I’m excited and proud to be part of the rebirth of the Winona pool as a community asset.

Last week, SCWAC got swimming lessons up and running on Monday and Thursday evenings in partnership with St. Alban’s Boys & Girls Club. Earlier this week we held our first community swim, which attracted 70 tots, children, youth, adults and seniors from all over the neighbourhood. There is another community swim planned for Monday, May 3. And the SCWAC summer program will be announced shortly with registration in early June.

This is the beginning of a beautiful community meeting place. A place for children to meet friends new and old, for families to bond through recreation, and for the entire community to participate in a healthy, active lifestyle. A prime example of how working together can improve communities all across St. Paul’s.