Press Release by the Quebec English School Boards Association

Report on the future of English public education

Pursue new and mutually productive partnerships with French Quebec,

Advisory Council tells QESBA Montreal, October 18, 2006

"The path to a vibrant and strengthened English public school system will best be set through the active pursuit of new and mutually productive partnerships with the francophone majority community." That is one of the suggestions in an Advisory Council report to the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA), released earlier today. The 22-member council is chaired by Alex Paterson, lawyer, former McGill University Board Chair and BishopÕs University Chancellor, and one of the councilÕs seven Ordre national du QuŽbec and Order of Canada recipients. QESBA created the volunteer council to provide the association and its nine member school boards with guidance and recommendations on the future of English public education in Quebec. QESBA President Marcus Tabachnick has promised that the association will move promptly to analyze the report and consider its recommendations. The report outlines three objectives, which Paterson and his colleagues identified during four formal meetings and more than 75 interviews with education practitioners, parents, business and community leaders: - To strengthen the capability of the English public schools to fulfill their core function of education; - To enhance the vital contribution of English public schools to the well-being of the communities they serve; and - To reinforce the contribution of English public schools to the competitiveness and attractiveness of Quebec society. The subjects treated in the report are: Strengthening English education by exchanging its essential asset (the core capability to teach in English), strengthening the school as a community resource, vocational educational and school/business partnerships, and students with special needs. In addressing those subjects, the Council invites QESBA and its member boards to make a fundamental choice: "Continue operating under the current paradigm, towards an inevitable erosion of influence, student numbers, resources and efficacy or embark on new directions and relationships towards a different but invigorated English public school network." On the first subject, Council member Pierre Lortie noted: "English instruction is the defining characteristic of the English public school system and, therefore, a core and important capability. The Advisory Council believes it is in the best interests of the English public school system -- indeed Quebec as a whole -- to leverage that capability as actively and thoroughly as possible." The report offers 10 of its 32 on this subject, the first of which invites French schools and English schools to set up cultural and linguistic exchanges. As the report explains: "Many of theconditions necessary to make this work appear to be in place: there is a steady demand in French Quebec for intensified English second-language instruction, and the French public school network does not seem to have the available teachers to fully respond to the demand. Also,

some small English schools do not have the staff to offer a French immersion program and many English parents would like their child to have an opportunity to be immersed in the French culture." On community schools, the report observes that: - English public school leadership has the potential to play a more central role in community development; - Many school facilities are not used optimally outside of school hours; and - There is clearly room for additional collaboration between English and French school boards, and between school boards, community organizations and municipalities. A total of 10 specific recommendations on repositioning the school at the centre of its community are proposed. On vocational education, the Council observes that there are key challenges with respect to available options, enlisting parent and student interest and meeting job market requirements. It offers an immediate prescription as a first recommendation, inviting QESBA to work in partnership with the FŽdŽration des commissions scolaires du QuŽbec and with the FŽdŽration des chambres du QuŽbec to organize a major conference on the subject. On students with special needs, the CouncilÕs recommendations focus on concerns regarding changing needs for teacher training in the context of the movement (endorsed by the Council) towards the integration of special needs students into the regular classroom. QESBA President Marcus Tabachnick concluded that the report "Éinvites QESBA and its member boards to think profoundly about our role, within our own community and in our relationship to the larger Quebec society of which we are proud and full partners. The Association imposed no constraints on the Council, in fact, we invited its members to examine our system scrupulously and objectively, and to then propose to us in a spirit of frankness and clarity, their recommendations on how to strengthen the future of our English public schools within the Quebec of today and tomorrow. They did exactly that, and we are grateful." Tabachnick confirmed that QESBA will now convene a working group of Board members and senior school board administrators to prepare an analysis and action plan on the report for presentation to the association within eight weeks. The 22 members of the Advisory Council are: Alex K. Paterson, Pierre Lortie, Mich�le Thibodeau-DeGuire, Frederick H. Lowy, Father Emmett Johns, Tim Brodhead, Cynthia Patterson, George Springate, Gary Stronach, William Floch, Robert Bisaillon, Peter Yeomans, May Chiu, Michel Lecompte, Terry Kaufman, Helen Meredith, Ken Cavanagh, Gwen Lord, Kevin Drysdale, Catherine Prokosh, Arthur P. Earle and Marie Anna Bacchi. QESBA is the voice of QuebecÕs nine English school boards. Those boards serve some 115,000 students in 350 schools and adult centres across the province. Contact: Kimberley Hamilton É