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Opinion: Madness. It’s sheer madness.

If only the Near North District School Board could have the English Public School Board’s equivalent to ESA’s new Arts and Culture Program
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By Karen Matthews, North Bay.

I just watched a CTV news clip about Ecole Secondaire Catholique Algonquin and the Specialist High Skills Major Arts and Culture Program that allows students to “collaborate and problem-solve” and “is a chance for Arts students to work with industry professionals”; it’s a phenomenal addition to the programming at ESA and forward-thinking of their Board and school.

See: Programs allow students to customize their high school education

In early December, our MPP (PC) and Minister of Finance of Ontario Vic Fedeli announced that the Provincial government would be contributing $5.6 million towards the production of five local film/television projects, and his website says that:

“Our government is diversifying the local economy, creating good paying jobs and supporting the growth of television and film production in North Bay and area. We are contributing to the region’s reputation as a top production centre in Canada and letting people know that the film and television industry in Nipissing is open for business.” 

Mr. Fedeli made the announcement at Canadore College’s post-production facility, which is used in their various industry-related programs: Acting for Stage and Screen, Broadcasting - Television and Video Production, and Digital Cinematography, to name a few. On the other end of the corridor is Nipissing University, which boasts its Fine and Performing Arts (AHVS, Studio, and Film). The benefit of these two post-secondary institutions being in The City of North Bay, which lists sixteen film and television projects in our City in 2018, is that graduates - possibly even students - in the programs may find jobs related to their profession. Imagine! Imagine if the province funds the industry, the industry is fed by post-secondary schools, and the post-secondary schools are fed by the local high schools! This is exactly what ESA is taking advantage of! 

Phew. Now...if only the Near North District School Board could have the English Public School Board’s equivalent to ESA’s new Arts and Culture Program. Good news!! The NNDSB hosts one of the two original English-language specialist programs in the province. The Arts and Culture Specialist High Skills Major program at Widdifield Secondary School has been one of the Board’s shining stars (along with the STEAM program at West Ferris Secondary School); a dance studio, the best high school film/tv studio facilities with green screen and next level studio-level lighting and equipment north of Barrie. The studio was used in a television commercial made by the province a number of years ago, selected because of the WSS-attained skill level of the students and their ability to work with a private film production crew from Toronto hired by the government; the students were trained in an actual film studio that replicated the industry and as a result it was a seamless transition for them to work with the private sector (add in the two hospitality rooms and modernized tech rooms and  we’re likely talking $2-3 million in facilities - oh, and tack on an elevator that makes WSS one of the only two NNDSB accessibility-compliant high schools, and the investment grows larger still). The NNDSB can absolutely offer the equivalent of ESA’s new program. It’s not even a can/cannot question - WSS has been offering this program, quite successfully, for ten years, operating as a feeder school for the Canadore and Nipissing programs. 

So why isn’t the Near North’s specialist program front and center in the news? Well, that’s because it’s quietly and sneakily and stealthily, being whittled down with a plan to move it into inferior (largely nonexistent) facilities. When the NNDSB’s Board of Trustees decided to go against the ARC recommendation and close WSS, funneling its students and staff into Chippewa and West Ferris Intermediary Schools, they did so with the pledge that the schools the students were being rerouted to would have ‘the same or better’ facilities as existing ones. But...that’s not possible. It is cost-prohibitive to replicate the same facilities at another school - and why would you spend money on the school with the highest Facility Condition Index of the three English public high schools in the Board? Further, why would you spend money to replicate these facilities when, according to the last Board, there will likely be a single, new school in less than a decade? 

We are all concerned with higher taxes, government spending, our children’s education, and educations that provide solid future employment. Yet we stand idly by with local politicians, parents, the Director of the Board, Senior Staff and Trustees and don’t raise an eyebrow. Few, if any, trustees have toured the existing facilities at WSS, yet they forge ahead with half-formed plans to get tenders, switch schools and programming, and leave the next few years completely unpredictable for staff, students and families. Why are we rejoicing over funding, and then ignoring that almost half the amount of that announced funding has been invested in a school with the potential to feed the television/film industry? How are more people not terribly concerned about such fiscal wastefulness? 

So let’s celebrate the new Arts and Culture program at ESA, but let’s also celebrate the SHSM program at WSS, and ask our local and provincial government, along with the NNDSB why we would even consider fixing a wheel that isn’t broken. Moving students into a school that doesn’t boast those facilities, while wasting the existing facilities that have been bought and paid for, is the complete opposite of what other Boards and the Province are trying to do - creating opportunity while saving dollars. Madness. It’s sheer madness.

Karen Matthews