An official with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has asked Thunder Bay’s public school board to scrap a provincial standardize test.
Lakehead Public School Board trustees heard eight delegations at the budget committee meeting Tuesday. The organizations had a chance to give input on the budget process before the board crunched the final numbers.
Richard Seeley, vice-president of the teacher’s bargaining unit for District 6A of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, made his presentation to the board and recommended that the province wide Education Quality and Accountability Office test should be eliminated.
Seeley said the school board should lobby the provincial government to get rid of the test because it isn’t worthwhile to have.
It costs the province thousands of dollars to have and track the test. He said in a time when the government is looking to cut costs that should be one of the options.
“Standardized testing doesn’t tell you a whole lot except the students are prepared to write a particular test,” Seeley said. “Any teacher can tell you within five days what students in his or her class are going to need extra help. We don’t need a test to tell us this. It’s a lot of money that goes into these tests and it’s a lot of money goes into staffing these offices in Toronto. You can take money and put it back into the classrooms.”
Lakehead Public Schools has publically stated that it doesn’t put much weight in those tests.
While the public board hasn’t given a decision on what it will do, Seeley said he wasn’t hopeful that the province would go along with this idea.
“We think this is a good argument but they have different ideas,” he said. “I don’t think there’s much hope the government will get rid of it because they seem to hang their hats on those scores. Maybe over time when new philosophies emerge that will change.”
Seeley also requested the board lobby the government to reverse the decision to limit secondary students to 34 credits. While they don’t have a set number in mind, Seeley said it severe limits choices students have.
Having that limit removed will allow for greater flexibility, he said.
“Some students do know where they want to go right away but some students don’t,” he said. “the councilors do a good job in giving the students a heads up but kids have the right to change their minds.”
Seeley said it’s going to be challenging couple of months but they look forward to keeping a good relationship with the board.
Ellen Chambers, president of Lakehead Elementary Teachers’ Federation, said the whole process is a waste of time. She said teachers who have routinely gone to EQAO sessions are being taught the same thing every year.
She also said some students are being pulled out of classes in order to attend EQAO sessions to improve their score. That’s not something that students are supposed to be doing, she said.
Chambers also gave recommendations for possible cost saving measures. Some of her recommendations included:
• Reducing class sizes in full day Kindergarten, Junior and Intermediate classes
• Increase the education assistant component and review the EA component to include students who have fetal alcohol syndrome
• Education Assistants be hired to work with students and no longer do lunchroom duty and non-student centred activities.
• Occasional teachers replace facilitators for each day of absence
• Increase facilitator time in schools of high needs as determined by a committee that will investigate those needs
• Separation of vice president and facilitator duties
George Saarinen, budget chair for the Lakehead Public Schools, said it’s important to get as much input when putting together a budget because it gives them some good suggestions to work with.
“It’s going to be a very interesting budget,” Saarinen said. “There was a wealth of information that came out tonight. The process has already started.”
The preliminary budget is expected sometime in May with the final budget due to come out in June.
