How Urban Schools Can be Supported

Overall recommendations of People for Education's "Ontario's Urban and Suburban Schools"

In schools

We need to open the doors of our schools  both figuratively and literally  for community use, for integrated services and for the day- and night-time use of the families, students and communities the schools serve.

In municipalities

Joint planning and coordination of services for children, youth and families has the most immediate effect at the local level. Each municipality should have a local coordination office with representatives from the municipality, including municipal planners and representatives from local Boards of Education, Public Health, Parks and Recreation, Housing, Mental Health, Child Care, Social Services and organizations like the United Way, local Social Planning Councils and community agencies.

At the province

We must integrate and coordinate our policy and our goals for families, children and youth. Education cannot exist in isolation from other social services or from other aspects of family life. It is time to implement the long-recommended Cabinet-level Committee to foster coordination and integration of services for families, children and youth. The Committee must include the Ministers of Health, Health Promotion, Education, Colleges, Training and Universities, Children and Youth Services, Citizenship and Immigration, Culture, Community and Social Services, Aboriginal Affairs, Recreation, Criminal Justice, Municipal Affairs and Housing.The Cabinet Committee should be supported by a Secretariat responsible for developing a set of outcome measures to assess our progress toward a standard of equitable academic and social outcomes for all children and young people. The Secretariat should maintain a repository of effective integration models; it should facilitate knowledge exchange, track research, monitor new initiatives, and foster linkages among sectors.

The recommendations in this report have been endorsed by a number of different groups – the United Way, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, Ontario Public Health, the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, and Children’s Mental Health to name a few.  People for Education: website at www.peopleforeducation.com  You can read the whole report at: http://peopleforeducation.com/urban-suburban/report2009