Alliston Herald

Today's Weather

Overcast and 7°C

>>more weather info

Find the money for reading program elsewhere

July 02, 2009 17:07

I have been noticing a significant amount of conflict about the spending cuts required by the Simcoe County District School Board because of an annual decline in enrolment.

The Toy Manufacturers of America had forecasted these demographics in the early 90s. Why the delay and why is it such a time-sensitive issue? If the cuts are necessary, the board owes it to its students and teachers to do so.

Society as a whole always preys on the weakest members in our culture. Cutting the Grade 1 Reading Recovery Program is, in my opinion, going to cause great strain and difficulties on our social and criminal systems in approximately a decade.

Most of the board members and trustees will not hold their positions at that time. In my day it was called "slipping through the cracks."

In 2007, through a chain of events, my wife and I were invited to attend a Reading Recovery Program demonstration in Barrie. We watched through a one-way glass window. Kathleen Roth (a teacher at Connaught Public School in Collingwood) was the reading specialist who performed the demonstration. It was an intense and very focused program. The goal was the task at hand, learning to read.

Try telling a parent "your kid can't read, but all of our funding was cut, so things have to stay that way."

These are very well educated people making the cuts. A very frightening picture indeed. Perhaps I'm missing something. It seems to be a paradox. Cut education to save education? Yes, a simple, but well-informed summary.

In my opinion an efficiency expert (from a business standpoint) will obviously want to cut this program, because the children will cause the least amount of backlash and within a couple of years nobody will even know that the program ever existed. The books will balance, but from an education standpoint it's not the answer.

There seems to be a quite substantial amount of dialogue about the new schools that the board is wishing to build. Give any builder or engineer a pencil and a piece of paper. In a very short time, between the architecture and the landscape design they will have all of the money necessary to save any and all education these very well educated people wish to delete.

The kids wouldn't even have to share textbooks.

The program works. Find the money somewhere else.

J. Hyndman,
Collingwood

More Alliston Herald|Opinion|Letters Articles

Thump of the teenage mating ritual shakes house
Is this a mating ritual with young men? Does this somehow make young, pretty girls jump into your car?

Only half measures on waste diversion
The meetings in Simcoe County to discover the best waste management strategy asked the wrong question.

More respect if Guergis resigned
I don't know about anybody else, but I hold our elected officials to a higher standard, and I expect them to act professional when they are carrying...

Blood boiling over Jaffer decision
This "break" has the potential to be a gift that keeps on giving, because if there is a next time, Jaffer could kill someone.

Guergis a bully for PEI comments
Only a bully would call the smallest province in this great dominion a "hell hole." Her hubris is only exceeded by her treatment of her assistant Ms...

Double standard for Conservatives on crime
I guess we can debate whether Rahim Jaffer broke the law and by how much. But what's really interesting is the reaction now emerging from his fellow...

Thanks to candidate for weighing in on transit issue
And by the way, Mr. McInnes, we have heard this campaign song before and pardon me if I am a bit skeptical - once bitten, twice shy. So, just remember...

Press reporting the wrong story
Certainly the progress of our local athletes competing on Canadian soil in the Olympics, international relief efforts and the local municipal election...

Many hands made Kiss Cancer Goodbye fundraiser work
Thanks for all the support from our customers and the many donations to our Kiss Cancer Goodbye Mondays at Mike's Family Restaurant throughout...

OSPCA stands by decision to seize horses
The OSPCA stands behind the Alliston and District Humane Society and their decision to seize the horses involved in the investigation. After working...

SIMCOE.COM is an online publication serving the communities of Barrie, Alliston, Collingwood/Wasaga Beach, Wasaga, Stayner and Orillia in central Ontario, Canada. All rights reserved. Reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission or republication of any material from simcoe.com is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from Metroland Media Group Ltd.