Event – Cabbagetown Schools under review

Dear Cabbagetown Residents,

As you may have heard, the Toronto District School Board is proposing some major changes that would affect the schools in our area, most particularly Sprucecourt Public School and Winchester Public School. The proposals are seeking to change, among other things, catchment areas, home schools (meaning which school your child would be eligible to attend) and the French Immersion programme at Winchester Public school.

The biggest issue affecting Cabbagetown children (both school aged and pre-school aged) is the current recommendation to make Winchester Public School a French Immersion only school, which may include eliminating the Junior Kindergarten programme at the school and phasing out the English programme for SK-6.

The Board Meeting to approve these changes is taking place on November 16th, 2011. We, as residents of the community, have until June 24th (next Friday) to convey our concerns to the committee. Once the board has approved the committee’s report, the changes are final and will be implemented beginning in September 2012.

In speaking with Cabbagetown residents, we have found that many of them are unsure of what the possible changes mean for their children (both pre-school and school age). Accordingly, on Monday, June 20th the DVCRA is holding an information meeting for Cabbagetown parents and community members at the Me to We store at 223 Carlton Street at 7pm to discuss the proposed changes and come up with a plan for communicating our concerns to the TDSB.

Our agenda for the June 20th meeting will be as follows:

-briefly covering the reasons for the Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) and the reasons behind the changes they are proposing

-go over the recommendations of the ARC to be submitted to the board for approval

-ramifications of the recommendations for current and future students of Winchester Pubic school Grades JK-8

-discussing alternative, creative solutions to those recommended by the ARC -next steps

If you have questions you would like answered or ideas you want to run, please consider submitting them to info@cabbagetowner.com ahead of the meeting so that we are able to find the best answers ahead of time. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you at the meeting on June 20th.

Please forward this to any interested community members in the neighbourhood as these changes will affect everyone.

Kind regards,

DVCRA Schools Portfolio Committee
Lindsay Whitfield & Trish Finkelstein