TDSB accused of barring 21 kids from downtown school to make way for foreign students

The Toronto District School Board is being accused of barring 21 preschoolers at a downtown daycare from moving across the hall to a junior kindergarten classroom this fall. saying those spots are needed for the children of incoming foreign doctors and researchers.

The pre-schoolers go to the Orde Daycare Centre, and had been scheduled to graduate to a junior kindergarten class in the same building, Orde Street Junior Public School (OSJPS), in September.

But last Thursday, their parents were told in a letter from the school’s principal that there wouldn’t be room for them, after all.

“It’s very, very frustrating,” said Jeanne Martin, a mother of two children — one who goes to the daycare and the other who attends junior kindergarten.

“These are real kids, and their siblings.”

The TDSB has denied the children are being displaced by the families of foreign medical research fellows. The board said in a statement to CBC Toronto the affected students are from outside the Orde school’s catchment area and are being redirected simply because the school is full.

But that doesn’t line up with what three of the daycare’s directors say they were told by board planners at a Feb. 15 meeting.

Orde Daycare Centre director Anna Gionet, who was at the meeting, said the board planners and the school’s principal all said doctors and academics from overseas were expected to arrive in the school district, near University Avenue and College Street, by September.

And they’d most likely choose to live within the Orde school’s catchment area, since it’s close to downtown hospitals and research centres.

“They indicated to us at this meeting that they expected an influx of fellows — that’s what they’re called — and they would take up spaces,” Gionet said.

“It’s absolutely unfair.”

She said the board’s representatives couldn’t say how many fellows were expected, whether they had children or how many school places might be needed.

“There’s no guarantee that they have children that are school-aged that will need to use Orde Public School,” she added.

As recently as early February, parents say they’d been told their children could graduate to the school’s junior kindergarten classes in fall 2019, even though they live outside the school district’s boundaries.

Last week’s news was a bitter disappointment for some, who’d been looking forward to seeing their kids move into regular classes at the school, which in some cases is also attended by their older siblings.

“The caregivers know our children and they know our family,” said Martin, who was one daughter in the Orde daycare and another at the school. “If I have children at two different schools, that’s a challenge.

“So we have a lot of decisions to make.”

Parents and daycare directors say as recently as Feb. 8 they’d been assured that out-of-district pre-schoolers would be allowed to enrol in Orde’s junior kindergarten program for the fall of 2019.

That all changed, they say, at the Feb. 15 meeting, after which the school’s principal, Michael Walkington, sent a letter to parents warning that out-of-district children would no longer be streamed into the school from the daycare.

“No student who resides outside of the school’s boundaries will be able to attend Orde Street Public School,” he wrote in a Feb. 21 letter to parents.

“Please note: this includes siblings of current students.

“We are sorry for this potential upset for some families, but our school is running over
capacity and we simply do not have the space for out-of-area students.”

Children already enrolled at OSJPS aren’t affected by the decision to exclude out-of-district kids, the board’s statement to CBC Toronto reads.

‘School building is full’

“In 2017 we made the decision to close Orde Street PS to Optional Attendance. Optional Attendance is the TDSB’s policy that permits students who live outside a school’s attendance boundary to attend the school. Orde Street PS was closed to optional attendance because the school building is full due to rising enrolment among students from within the boundary.”

Martin, who lives in the Vaughan Road and Oakwood Avenue neighbourhood, said many families like the Orde daycare and school because they’re close to downtown workplaces, and ease the daily struggle of picking up and dropping off multiple children each school day.

Martin said parents had asked the board for a year’s grace to come up with other arrangements, but were denied.

The University Health Network, which includes nearby Toronto General Hospital and the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, said it had no knowledge of a plan to enrol the children of UHN’s incoming medical fellows within Orde’s school district.