01 September 2007

If, as the Toronto School Board says...

All GTA schools are pretty much the same... then people, we are truly screwed.
“Westview is in a community ..... that experiences some gang activity. Presumably that recruiting happens at early ages, it is quite possible that Grade 9s at Westview would be involved in gang activity.”

In 2005, Westview was ranked the neediest high school in the Toronto District School Board, because of neighbourhood poverty, the number of single-parent families, the number of immigrants and the education levels of residents.
A school official, unbelievably, goes out of their way to say, "This is not a Jane-Finch thing."

That is simply and (and by the Board's own statistics) demonstrably... not the truth.
With high suspension and expulsion rates, Westview has been identified as a troubled school for some time. In 2005-06, 264 students were suspended — 21 per cent of its student body — and nearly five times the 4.3 per cent suspension rate at Toronto public schools.
Over 1 in 5 students suspended... and then farmed out to other schools like C.W. Jeffreys.
Jefferys last year took in 11 safe-school transfers, and sent out six; Westview took in 13, but sent out 21. Safe-school transfers are used to move students involved in serious or criminal incidents.
This is business as usual? I'm speechless.

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