Join the Call to ACTION
Save TDSB Specialized Programs

Dear Parent and Caregivers,

We would like to bring to your attention the changes made to TDSB high school specialized programs last year, which replaced auditions, exams, and grades with a lottery. We are seriously concerned that the aim of these changes is to diminish the quality of such programs and ultimately eliminate them altogether. These changes align with previous attempts over the last five years to minimize or eliminate educational choices, including Out-of-Area Attendance, gifted programming, and to steer all students towards a single educational path.

The Board of Trustees elected in the aftermath of last year’s changes is open and supportive to strengthening rather than eliminating specialized programs. But Trustees need to hear from parents. Here is our Call to Action:

• Donation support (E-transfer) for the group of parents who submitted a Judicial Review Application against the TDSB lottery admissions and they are urgently looking for lawyers and financial assistance, ideally with expertise in educational or administrative law, and / or civil litigation. For e-Transfer donation, please do the following:  Go to your online banking site and click on the link for sending an Interac e-Transfer. Add “Judicial Review” as new recipient. Recipient’s email is info@GuardiansVOTE.org To get a donation receipt, please provide your name, address, phone number and email address, and indicate this is a donation in the space of a message.  Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@GuardiansVOTE.org if you have any questions.

• Sign and support this Petition: https://www.change.org/p/fight-for-specialized-programs-in-the-tdsb

• Write your concerns and feelings to the Trustees and Superintendents. The email of your Trustee can be found on https://www.tdsb.on.ca/leadership/trustees 

• Very important: We need more volunteer parents to delegate to the Board committees. Delegation is a process where everybody can speak for 5 minutes to inform all the Trustees on any issue, including why specialized programs are important for your children and your education:  

• Planning and Priorities Committee, Wednesday, June th, 2023 @ 4:30 PM

• The delegation can be in-person (Boardroom, Main Floor, 5050 Yonge Street) or through dial-in. If you are interested, please write email to us or call us and we will help you to guide you through the process. ​

• As parents, it's important that we support the motion of "Suspend the Lottery System" raised by some of the TDSB Trustees. This will help ensure a fair and equitable admission process for specialized programs in TDSB high schools. Let's advocate for our children's education by supporting this motion.

​

Please share this message as widely as possible with all parents whose children are in specialized programs, may want to apply to such programs, attend gifted programming, or parents of children who rely on Optional (“Out of Area”) Attendance.

​

If you want to learn more about the impact of the changes please read

• https://tnc.news/2023/04/20/levy-tdsb-policy-failure/

• https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/04/20/why-this-rookie-trustee-is-vying-to-overturn-tdsb-lottery-system-for-specialty-high-schools.html?rf#conversations

• https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/05/24/parents-denounce-admissions-lottery-for-specialty-high-schools-as-tdsb-set-to-vote-on-changes.html

• https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/10/20/we-basically-shattered-a-lot-of-dreams-some-trustees-push-to-reopen-debate-on-specialized-schools.html

• Evaluation: https://marcinpeski.github.io/files/TDSB.pdf 

​

Warm wishes,

​

Email: info@GuardiansVOTE.org

Phone: 416-890-3352

.

March 26th 2023