Schools by, and for, their neighbourhood?
We have touched upon the importance of educational institutions in building strong communities, and have lamented the fact that the current trend by school boards is the closing of local, community-based schools in favour of mega-regional institutions.
Windsor’s City Planner, Thom Hunt, is on record stating that “schools are the backbone to a stable neighbourhood and there is always a concern about declining enrolment and losing schools in neighbourhoods. Schools can be the catalyst for growth in an area.” Which makes it very sad that Chris Aspila, a policy planner in the cities Planning Department as well as the person in charge of Windsor’s five year Official Plan Review, notes that “(t)he school board has not forwarded any comments to the City during the Official Plan Review process”
So, what would it look like if a school board, the municipality and the residents of the neighbourhoods facing school closures took a proactive approach to this dilemma? Let’s look to last Sundays Toronto Star who highlighted one Scarborough school who did just that…
The prospect of closing schools usually leads to angry meetings full of distraught families arguing their neighbourhoods are at risk.
Not in Scarborough, this time around.
Three school communities in the Lawrence Ave. E-Midland Ave. area actually want Toronto public trustees to close their half-century-old buildings within a few years.
In their place, plans call for a campus of bright, new, eco-friendly classrooms, auditoriums and high-tech shops for about 2,000 students from junior kindergarten to Grade 12. Trees, a playing field and track, community green space and maybe even a pond or two will supplant the windswept landscape, offering recreation to residents of condos and townhouses which might rise on the edge of the 38-acre property. The development of that area would help finance the upgraded school facilities.
“Every school gets something out of it. That’s the key,” says Dianne Wilson-Sweet, mother of a newborn and two daughters in Grade 11 and 12 at David and Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute, which is part of the ambitious plan with nearby Bendale Business and Technical Institute and Donwood Park Junior Public School.
Unlike previous attempts to close schools, where local communities were embittered by what they felt were decisions being made from on high by remote education bureaucrats, this is a lesson plan that’s been written from the ground up.
Parents, students, staff and board officials began meeting about what they want from their schools long before there was talk of achieving that through consolidation. The conversations were not focused on what would be lost if a particular building closed but rather what could be gained by creating a place where young people want to learn and all locals feel a connection.
So novel was the approach that when the topic finally turned to what buildings might disappear, graduate students from the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design were brought in to talk to people in the schools – and across the entire community – to produce sketches showing how the new site could look.
All of this before trustees have given the proposal the green light.
“It’s been a really great experience,” says Rondy Singh, 16, who for the past two years has been among a group of highschoolers offering input on the new campus, even though it’s still a few years away from reality, after they graduate.
“There’s a power as a 10th grader and an 11th grader having a say on what it should have and what would look nice,” says Singh, who is going into Grade 12 at Bendale and is specializing in machining.
Plans call for a parenting and family literacy centre, a life skills centre for developmentally delayed students, an array of after-hours community uses from continuing education to sports facilities, auditoriums and a theatre.
The schools are on the edge of Dorset Park, one of the 13 priority neighbourhoods across Toronto where city council and community organizations are trying to increase opportunities for young people and improve services for all. That opens up a host of potential alliances with local agencies on everything from health care to immigration settlement services to job training.
It would also include up to 500 Grade 11 and 12 students from across the city who will focus on hands-on, in-demand skills, including conference event management and hospitality services, medical sciences and environmentally sustainable development. Each would offer services to the public, which in turn, means much-needed work experience for young people and some revenue for the school and the board.
“It’s win-win for everybody,” says Wilson-Sweet, a longtime area resident and member of a committee of parents, students, educators, board officials and area business and community leaders who spent last school year holding public meetings and drafting the plan.
Adds Klara Husain, 17, who is going into Grade 12 at Bendale and specializing in culinary arts: “I wish I could go back and be a part of it when all is said and done.”
Parent Naseema Subratee-Khan, 45, who attended Donwood in the 1970s and now chairs its school council, says “it looks just the same.
“This will be a step forward for the school and the people of the community,” says the mother of three.
That’s hardly talk suggesting there goes the neighbourhood.
It will be controversial. The last time the Toronto District School Board closed schools – nine in 2000-01 – there was outrage.
And now, the numbers are much higher – a study by the lobby group People for Education last week says 77 schools across Ontario are already slated to close within three years and that’s before Toronto’s public board decides what to do with nearly 100 half-empty ones.
Anticipating that, the board, Canada’s largest, began piloting a new consultation process with a few local school communities two years ago, including the one in central Scarborough that includes Bendale, Thomson, Donwood and nearby Edgewood Public School and Highbrook Learning Centre for adults.
The focus was on courses offered, the condition of facilities and how to pay for “programming that prepares students for the future.”
That discussion on revitalizing programs led to an approval by trustees in April 2007 to launch the committee which reviewed the future of those schools, unanimously adopted this plan last spring.
Trustees are expected to vote on it in December or January.
“It’s about improving our facilities to enhance the education of our kids,” says Kerry-Lynn Stadnyk, the board superintendent for the schools who is preparing a report, including the project’s cost, to present to trustees in October.
It’s difficult to argue that updating the old kitchen and shops at Bendale, enlarging the computer labs or creating art and music rooms at Thomson or getting the kids out of portables at Donwood, wouldn’t improve the learning environment.
The proposal’s scope is enormous and the pricetag is likely to match. Among the questions that will be raised is whether junior kindergarten to Grade 12 students should be sharing the same school setting.
Stadnyk, 41, a mother of kids in Grade 2 and senior kindergarten and a former teacher in Scarborough, responds that the cost of not pushing ahead is much greater.
Regarding having JK to Grade 12 students on the same campus, which is a new concept in traditional Toronto public schools, Stadnyk says experience in other schools with wide age ranges shows even though they wouldn’t attend classes in the same areas, older ones act as role models to their younger counterparts.
Having students on one campus throughout their school career also raises the likelihood of parents being involved in the school, which research shows is a big benefit to kids’ academic success. It also makes it easier for teachers and staff to track and monitor the progress of children through the years, building relationships that make youngsters feel more part of a community.
“We’re learning through this process how much more we’ll be able to do for our students,” Stadnyk says.
But it’s the sale of public assets that could raise the most concern. Some will argue turning over land not used in the new campus structure to private developers is nothing more than a board cash grab.
Area trustee Scott Harrison (Ward 19, Scarborough Centre) bristles at the accusation. Far from being a narrow approach of simply getting rid of land to try to balance the books, the project is an opportunity to take a bigger picture view and use an asset to benefit students and the community alike, he says.
“It’s maximizing our resources, not minimizing them,” Harrison says. “These schools are coming to the end of their life expectancy.
“If we can create a new school and make it a `wow factor’ for students, then we’ll better motivate them to come, stay and do well,” he says. “Isn’t that what we all want?”
Selling Toronto public school lands to private developers may be controversial but it’s not new.
Most recently, about half of the $40 million pricetag for rebuilding near-century-old North Toronto Collegiate comes from Tridel, which bought land at the site near Yonge St. and Eglinton Ave. E. in 2007 to erect two condo towers.
“It’s what we need to do now to get our building into better shape,” says Josh Matlow (Ward 11, St. Paul’s), that area’s board trustee.
The school, which is slated to open in September 2009, is being billed as the most environmentally-friendly one Toronto has ever seen. It will also feature state-of-the-art science labs, a football field, a theatre for student and community use and neighbourhood green space.
While acknowledging that some people will flatly reject on principle the school board putting up for sale signs, Matlow says it doesn’t have to mean surrendering control. At North Toronto, students, parents and local residents helped in the interview process that selected Tridel as the developer and signed a memorandum of understanding with the company on the height, density and design of the entire project.
It’s a clear through that experience, Matlow says, surplus schools and land can be used to benefit students and their communities.
“Once you get past the gut reaction that you shouldn’t sell public lands and think about what is really the right thing to do, it’s a no-brainer,” Matlow says.
Genette Morin, 35, agrees. The single mother of four – one at Bendale, three younger siblings who also like its “hands-on” education – says the new campus would allow its students to emerge from under its decades-old reputation as a tough, academically weak place.
“If it’s a whole new school, with up-to-date equipment, kids will feel good about going,” says Morin, a volunteer in Bendale’s culinary arts program. “That’s very positive.”
It’s a sentiment echoed amongst staff at the schools. Particularly at the existing high schools they see a new facility as catering to all kids equally – those going onto university or college, taking an apprenticeship or looking to acquire skills to get into today’s workforce.
“I’d love to see this be the type of school that every kid who doesn’t go, wishes they did,” says Rob Ball, who spent 25 years in the auto repair industry before becoming a teacher at Thomson and moving onto Bendale. “Ultimately, it’s about getting more kids engaged and succeeding.”
Across the playing fields and two old cinder tracks that separate the two high schools, Thomson principal Soriana Mantini echoes that.
“It’s about steping back to look at how we can do things in a better way and that’s exciting,” she says. “We’re trying something that will be a benefit for years to come.”
Tags: community building, Education, Green Building, Official Plan, planning department, sustainable development
Post Feedback
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran
Decling enrollments have hit PEI as well. There is talk of consolidating schools to save money. The situation is markedly different as the majority of students are already bussed to school as it is. Reducing schools decreases overall costs.
The arguement must be made from a multifaceted approach. In addition to having school in neighbourhoods one must sell in the increase in tax revenues from increased home values, reduced transportation costs and the, if the Liberals get their way, the exemption from the carbon tax that both reduced transporation and a green school development (I am assuming that no new or redeveloped school would go without greening) would provide. This, as indicated in the article above, would have to be a complete community effort in order to succeed. The Board, on its’ own, would likely not be able to justify the increased costs of multiple smaller schools that would be required in Windsor. Families would have to commit to the smaller faciilty (a hard sell in the bigger-is-better world we live in).
Just the musings of a East Coaster.
If they are so worried about funds I would suggest that maybe the school boards, if they can, lobby the gov’t and instead of increasing teacher’s pay to over $90,000/yr they fork over some cash for schools in core areas of cities.
Some irony. Watching the Cogeco Home Show, many of the adds state that this or that home is, are close to schools and libraries. I consider schools (public and secondary), libraries, groceries stores and public transit the cornerstones of good stable neighbourhoods, the anchors in another word. But once you knock down any school in a city it will never return because the catalyst for its purpose has also left.
What I think of the school boards and their so called mega schools, is that the only thing they are really teaching the kids is to learn how to commute, how to get up early and fight traffic, that from the day they enter those schools to the day they leave. They can’t linger after school, or get a pick up game of hoops, or go over to someone elses house because they live to far apart and many go home to empty homes. There is nothing great or fantastic about these schools, just another big box where the product is education.
Great blog Chris! You have once again hit on a very crucial aspect of creating sustainable neighbourhoods. Thom Hunt is very correct by his suggestion that “Schools can be the catalyst for growth in an area.” It is very troublesome that the school boards have not participated in the Official Plan Review to this point. It should be imperative that their participation is pursued and are brought into this process.
Urbanrat, I wanted to touch on your point about “schools (public and secondary), libraries, groceries stores and public transit” being the cornerstones of good stable neighbourhoods. Those are very good foundational elements to being creating stable neighbourhoods. To go beyond the cornerstones and look at complete sustainable neighbourhoods would be the next steps.
There has been much research around what else would need to be within a 400 metre walk to contribute to a neighbourhood’s completeness. You can think of the walking shed (using Walkerville street pattern) as about 4.5 blocks on east/west streets such as Wyandotte and about 2 blocks on the north/south streets such as Windermere. The research suggests that a variety of essential service uses are needed within a certain pedestrian proximity or catchment area. The uses include:
Bank
Child care facility
Community/civic centre
Convenience store
Hair care
Hardware store
Health club or indoor recreation facility
Laundry/dry cleaner
Library
Live-work housing
Medical/dental office
Park
Pharmacy
Place of worship
Police/fire station
Post office
Restaurant
School
Senior care facility
Share car
Supermarket
Third Place
Transit
I’m not suggesting that all of these uses must be present, but it can be argued that the more of these uses that are within the catchment area the more complete a neighbourhood is. This type of strategy can help the city begin to get its own house in order and build community capacity and stability before focusing on the ‘silver bullet’ solutions.
Also, I’d like to ask if anyone knows of any of Windsor’s neighbourhoods/communities have at least 50% of these uses within the pedestrian walking distances? It would be interesting to know how complete Windsor’s neighbourhoods actually are from a sustainability standpoint.
i actually have a few of those amenities in my neighbourhood in south windsor. I can easily walk to a pharmacy, school, health club, restaurant, convenience store and a few others in less than 10 minutes and very often do. The problem? No sidewalks. Apparently they are extinct in my neighbhourhood as is the case in many new subdivisions. How can we have a walkable city when there are no sidewalks to walk on and we are forced to share road space with cars?
Redefine Yourself, your above list is my neighbourhood, all except car share and hardware…it’s downtown Windsor! I live and work in the core and have now for nineteen years! Wouldn’t live anywhere else in this city, except maybe Walkerville.
Mine does. What do you consider a walkable distance? 15 minutes?
Bank - Yes
Child care facility - No
Community/civic centre - Debatable, what this involves.
Convenience store - Many within a few blocks.
Hair care - Yes
Hardware store - Yes
Health club or indoor recreation facility - Yes
Laundry/dry cleaner - Yes
Library - Yes
Live-work housing - Not sure how you define this one…
Medical/dental office - Yes with in a few blocks
Park - Three in a 4 or 5 block radius
Pharmacy - Yes
Place of worship - Yes, several from many diffrent faiths
Police/fire station - Yes
Post office - Yes
Restaurant - Yes - Erie St. is full
School - Yes a block away
Senior care facility - No
Share car - no
Supermarket - yes, several independants, plus a chain
Third Place - Central Library?
Transit - Yes, but as we know it’s very poor…
Even counting the maybe’s as “no’s”, that is 5 no’s.
So it’s a yes to 18 of the 23, or 78% withing walking distance.
How would Southwood Lakes compare
Great answers Mark and Andrew. When looking at the neighbourhood completeness test, the definition of the neighbourhoods also comes into play but overlapping nieghbourhoods and communities may help in making up for essential services lacking in one neighbourhood vs another. It is all about providing the opportunity for the majority of residents to obtain essential services by making things convenient and within a reasonable walking distance.
Average walking speed is about 3 mph and the average walking distance people will walk before turning back or opting to drive or ride a bike is about one-quarter mile or 1320 feet. This distance has been a constant in the way people have settled for centuries.
So based on these numbers, the average distance people are willing to walk is about 5 minutes for essential services. You can expand or decrease this based on demographic information, but these are the averages. If you were to use these numbers and the definition of complete neighbourhoods, the number of complete neighbourhoods in Windsor would be interesting to figure out.
I said above that there isn’t a hardware store in my core neighbourhood, there are stores that sell cheap tools, some nails and screws BUT I can’t buy paint which I traveled by bus to Rona to get. Thinking that I had a standard paint tray at home, I left the store and came home only to find a few hours later in my storage locker that I didn’t have a paint tray (a senior’s moment…don’t go there guys!) It will take me a hour by bus on a return trip, where the bus fare will add up to more than the paint tray is worth, just to get a paint try!
If Food Basics (Goyeau and Elliot) moved or closed down in the core I would leave the core all together probably to Walkerville (close to the Market Square) or to the near west side around the university.
Does anybody know if Canada Salvage on Ottawa street has paint trays!
A five minute walk? That’s pretty short, and I’m sure very few Windsor neighbourhoods would even come close to satisfying the qualifications to be defined as a “complete neighbourhood”
I’m in Olde Walkerville, one of Windsor’s most walkable neighbourhoods, and this is how I would rank…
So, in a five minute walk radius, the score for me would be 6.5/23, or 28%
However, within a ten minute walk, it’s 17.5/23 or 76%
A fifteen minute walk? I’d beat Andrew hands down!
Back in my previous life as a Green Party member and candidate, we advocated smaller, neighbourhood-based schooling. A way we could afford more schools in more neighbourhoods would be the fact that they would operate as schools during the weekdays, and community centres/libraries/childcare/etc. the rest of the time. Being open and utilized at a much higher level than one-off schools would make them more cost effective and give the municipality a higher ROI.
However, this would require cooperation between the city and the school boards. Scarborough seems to be doing it, can Windsor?
Bank (YES)
Child care facility (NO)
Community/civic centre (NO)
Convenience store (YES - THREE)
Hair care (YES)
Hardware store (NO)
Health club or indoor recreation facility (NO)
Laundry/dry cleaner (YES)
Library (YES)
Live-work housing (NO)
Medical/dental office (YES)
Park (YES)
Pharmacy (YES)
Place of worship (YES)
Police/fire station (NO)
Post office (NO)
Restaurant (YES - SEVERAL)
School (YES, with a 2ND just a hair over 5 min)
Senior care facility (NO)
Share car (NO)
Supermarket (THREE SMALL BUT ADEQUATE GROCERS)
Third Place (NO)
Transit (YES)
Some other stuff I can mention that was not on this list but that’s OK.
Anyhow…I think expecting everything to be within a 5 minute walk reminds me of Urbanrat’s “20 Waddle Steps” rule. Everything can’t be right outside our front door, just as we can’t always park right next to our destination. In my case if you push that limit of what makes a community walkable to 10-15 minutes (which is still a ridiculously short walk) the score goes up pretty high for my neighbourhood.
Chris’ answer to schools category is a good example of what I’m talking about. The same school my wife walks to from the 1800 block of Chilver is not “walkable” for Chris using this rule of thumb. When I was in grade school, the walk was just under 1 KM and it didn’t seem unreasonable. How did we get by?? Now research indicates it’s 5 minutes or bust?? Gah!
Aside to Mark Bradley: Yes you can get trays and all kinds of painting supplies at Canada Salvage.
King Edward school is 0.6 KM from my house, Walkerville Collegiate is 0.8 KM and the market is the same at 0.8 KM, yet not within the 5 minute radius. Still, highly walkable, eh JCS?
What do you say, Chris? Personally I think the 4-5 block walk from your house to K.E. is a cakewalk. Even Walkerville Collegiate is an easy 15 minutes, tops. Am I the only one who thinks this 5 minute rule is terribly stingy?
A couple of things I want to clarify about the 5 minute walking distance I proposed. You are absolutely right about 5 minutes not being a far distance to walk for people like yourselves. This average walking pace of 3.5 mph factors in everyone from people with infants to the elderly. Some people (like yourselves) probably walk much faster than this and are inclined to walk farther to use the services surrounding you.
The quarter-mile radius is a benchmark for creating a neighbourhood unit that is manageable in size and feel and inherently walkable. Of course sidewalks (present or not), the layout of the neighbourhood and walkable paths will all dictate how far or how long it would be to certain uses. This type of analysis gives a starting point for identifying all of the services within a neighbourhood or community and the gaps in service that may be lacking. From this point, targeting specific types of services to locate in the area becomes the challenge.
If we want those who are not choosing to walk beyond the one-quarter mile distance to these essential services to change their habits, maybe it would be beneficial to reduce the distance they would have to walk if it is in fact achievable. If they are given no incentive (other than rising energy costs), why would they choose to change their habits?
You touched upon another important factor in determining whether someone will walk or not. The quality of the walk itself. Giving pedestrians an interesting environment to take a stroll would certainly elevate the desireability of this mode of transportation.
Anyone ever walk through a big parking lot? Along a busy arterial road? A bland, lifeless subdivision? Not too enjoyable, is it?
Now, how about taking a walk in Greenfield Village? Kensington Market? Whistler? Now, these are places that make taking that first step worthwhile.
We need to make taking steps worthwhile in this city.
So I guess that I must be above average if I say that twenty minutes is my max for walking in any direction, that is what it takes me to walk from my place to the university when I went to university and I still walk it having friends who I play music with, who live a block from the U. On good days I will walk one way from the core to Market Square in about 30 minutes and bus it home. So, I guess tomorrow if it is a nice day, I will walk (stroll actually through the neighbourhoods) to Canada Salvage and probably home, lugging my camera with me.
That is one thing that I never experienced in my life and that is taking a daily bus to school. Early years in Windsor, I and my sister walked from the corner of Olive and Seminole to David Maxwell school on Francois, more that a five minute walk four times a day (we came home for lunch). In Pembroke Ontario I had a fifeen to twenty minute walk from a new suburb to the only public school in the East end, nobody in that end of town took a bus and there again we walked home for lunch and back. Busing was for only high school and specifically for farm kids.
Even when a school sits empty in a neighbourhood, it still acts as a psychological anchor for that neighbourhood (offering hope? I don’t know) but demolishing a school leaves a big hole and a wasteland in the psyche of a neighbourhood.
Redefine Yourself: Funny you should mention that. The person from my neighbourhood I see the most by far walking to from the area amenities (well beyond the 5 minute limit) is the 85 year old widow who lives next door. OTOH the young and able bodied are seen popping their trunks in the driveway and carrying in groceries from The Supercentre and Costco. Stuff they can get around the corner. If you watch the activity on Erie street, again it is the elderly who you’ll see walking blocks for their groceries, bread, produce. They grew up in a different era and don’t presume that the car is absolutely needed for every little expedition. Or that everything needs to be 5 minutes walking distance away for that matter. Now…the people who are capable of walking 3.5mph (I’m a little slower) are simply interesting in the $2.97 t-shirts and doorbusters on coffee grind at the Sprawlmart. It’s not about sore feet. That is proofed out by the simple fact that young and old alike are quite content to walk not 5, not 15, but an hour or more as they hit all their stops at the Mall, Costco. Walmart, et al (never mind the walk in from the expansive parking lots at these places). If it was all about people tuckering out after 5 minutes, these shopping centres would be wastelands? Sounds like there’s more to it than just moving everything 100 ft. closer to our front doors.
JCS, you are absolutely right. There needs to be more than just moving everything 100 feet closer. That is not what I am trying to convey. Cultural norms and values that have been developed around automobile convenience and cheap goods are definitely formidable opponents. But instead of taking on everything at once, this can be a first step in incrementally introducing the idea of walkable complete neighbourhoods back into the psyche of residents.
An identifiable center and edge to the neighbourhood, the mix of land uses and housing types with opportunities for shopping and workplaces close to home, an integrated network of walkable streets (which I believe Windsor has in its older neighbourhoods), as well as special sites that are reserved for civic purposes all must be considered when taking an approach such as this.
Chris, I agree completely with your walkability concern. In an attempt to look at the walkability of places, a gentleman by the name of Dan Burden from Walkable Communities, Inc. has developed some very interesting tools to help examine how walkable a place is and what elements are needed to increase the walkability. The website is here: http://www.walkable.org
More specifically, have a look at this image to get a sense about where I am going with this: http://www.walkable.org/images/1_LOQWalking.jpg