When the Trustees on December 15 2009, voted 10 to 2 to keep Rideau HS open they also tasked the board staff to develop a plan to address the low enrolment/student flight/student retention.
On February 16 staff will be presenting Report No. 10-035 Re: Interim Report on the Comprehensive Plan to Address Long Term Enrolment Issues in Secondary Schools to the Education Committee

Few immediate detailed steps in this report. Basically a recommendation for 1.5 additional staff costing $154,000 and up to $15,000 for a communications strategy.
The section Strategies for Rideau High School is a start but needs a lot of detailed fleshing out and needs to go beyond report speak to actual on the ground implementation. I'll use the comments section at the bottom of the main article to address specific issues.

16 February 2010

Report No. 10-035 to the Education Committee
Re: Interim Report on the Comprehensive Plan to Address Long Term Enrolment Issues in Secondary Schools

ORIGINATORS: Barrie Hammond, Executive Superintendent
Walter Piovesan, Superintendent of Instruction (8287)
Michael Carson, Superintendent of Facilities

PURPOSE:

1. To provide an interim report on the comprehensive plan to address long-term enrolment issues in secondary schools as directed by the Board.

BACKGROUND:

2. At the 15 December 2009 Board meeting, the Board approved the following motion:
   THAT staff develop a comprehensive plan to address long-term enrolment issues and the needs of students and the community by addressing but not limiting themselves to the following recommendations of the Beacon Hill-Ottawa East ARC:
   1. No closure of the schools included in this ARC process;
   2. Board to engage in strategic long-term planning informed by comprehensive diagnostics and active consultation with the community;
   3. Conduct consultation with communities served by low enrolment schools to identify and resolve root causes of enrolment issues;
   4. Add program pathways to schools with low enrolment to increase appeal and viability;
   5. Add non-semestered options to low enrolment schools;
   6. Review impact of previous and future boundary changes; and
   7. Provide additional funding to schools with low enrolment so programs can be enhanced.
3. In the 2009-2010 academic year, there are four secondary schools with enrolments of less than 700 students. (Note: Ottawa Technical Learning Centre, Sir Guy Carleton and Longfields Davidson Heights are excluded). Of these schools, Rideau High School is the lowest with an enrolment of 503 students.
4. Planning staff has noted that the secondary panel has experienced a gradual average decline of approximately 1% per year in recent years. A steady decline in secondary enrolment is projected to continue into the next decade as smaller elementary cohorts continue to enter their secondary years. Based on this overall decline, during the next five years projected enrolments estimate that one-third of the secondary schools could have an enrolment under 700 students. Those schools will be predominantly in the urban area.
5. Rideau High School is projected to be the only secondary school with an enrolment under 600 students in 2010-2011.
6. The impact of the new Cross Boundary Transfer Policy on 2010-2011 enrolment is undetermined at this time and will need to be monitored.
7. Research on school size provides varied conclusions in terms of optimal school size. A 2009 article by Leithwood and Jantzi: A Review of Empirical Evidence About School Size Effects: A Policy Perspective, suggests that for disadvantaged students, optimum school size is 500 and for advantaged students it is 1,000.
8. The issue of school size as it relates to student success is a complex issue that must be considered in the context of student needs with respect to course programming. One issue that must be addressed is the matter of essential course programming versus the breadth of course programming available in larger schools.

STATUS:

9. The Board motion of 15 December 2009 was multi-faceted and will require more extensive data-gathering and planning in order to develop a fulsome comprehensive plan to deal with these issues. In order to develop an interim report, staff has separated the issues into three categories:
   1. Strategies for Rideau High School
   2. Strategies for Other Small Schools (Enrolment less than 700)
   3. Long-Term Strategies in Development.

The following summary outlines our preliminary thinking in each of these three categories.

Strategies for Rideau High School

10. To encourage and facilitate participation in the 2010-2011 grade 9 program, buses were provided to parents and students to assist them in attending the Grade 9 Information Night.
11. To support students at risk of leaving school, an in-school alternate program has been established. The structure of the program allows for students to work independently in a small group setting on courses that they require, supported directly by a teacher attached to the program.
12. To develop strong links with the community, staff will pursue funding through the Urban and Priority High School initiative to hire staff (social workers, community workers) who will actively work with students, parents and the community to promote strong links to Rideau High School. The Superintendent of Instruction has already reached out to community members who participated in the review and has begun meeting with them to address their concerns.
13. To promote the school and programs in the community, the Communications Department will be working with the school to develop a public relations program. Recognizing the student participation in the accommodation review process and the expressed view of the current students about their school, an important component of the public relations campaign will be student focused and will maximize the use of social media. Another element of the campaign will be parent and community based, building the profile of the school in the community.
14. To continue to increase instructional capacity, instructional coaches will continue to work with Rideau High School staff in the following areas: Mathematics, grade 9 Applied English - preparation for the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, Cooperative Education, the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program and English as a Second Language. This focused support is related directly to the school improvement plan.
15. To expand the availability of courses, staff will promote e-learning options available to students. Student Success staff will ensure students have access to e-learning opportunities as well as guide and monitor their progress in these courses..

Strategies for Other Small Schools (Enrolment less than 700)

16. To address the issues of low course enrolments and timetable conflicts that limit student choices, staff will be requesting a staffing overlay of 2.0 FTE. Each of the four schools with enrolment of less than 700 will be allocated up to 0.5 FTE to address demonstrated needs to maintain student access to courses. These sections will be allocated only on an as needed basis by the School Operations Committee.
17. To support expanded course offerings and student success strategies, we will continue to differentiate the allocation of Student Success and Student Enhancement staff to support small enrolment schools.

Long-Term Strategies in Development

18. Work will need to be done to better understand the factors that influence low enrolment. In addition to changing demographics, some schools have been adversely affected by parents' decisions to select other schools. While there has been much anecdotal information received, the real reasons need to be clearly identified. This will require more detailed analysis of both issues and factors of influence at the system level and on a school by school basis.
    1. 18.1 There will be a need to revisit the structure of schools and their programs. At some point, the District's commitment to meeting student needs will need to be matched with the desire to support access to suitable pathways at all schools.
19. To develop a better understanding of student needs and community expectations of identified schools, local school improvement work groups composed of students, parents,
    community members and staff will be created. These work groups will address the following issues and make recommendations:
    1. increasing parental/community engagement;
    2. better serve the students in the community;
    3. improved relationships with the area feeder schools K-8;
    4. programming needs;
    5. school schedule; start time, semestered vs. non-semestered..
20. Staff will also review the impact of the new student transfer policy on low enrolment schools and on other secondary schools across the district.

Summary

21. As noted in this interim report, the issues of programming in lower enrolment schools and opportunities to increase enrolment in these schools are inter-related and complex issues that will require extensive time, research and consultation.
22. In the short term it is important to ensure that our schools with lower enrolment are viable and addressing the programming needs of students. This interim report presents some ideas to address this.
23. Staff is currently investigating the feasibility of creating a secondary school review that could address a number of issues including the establishment of minimum program guarantees in each secondary school, the relationship to optimum school enrolment and the specifics of community needs.
24. The issues identified in this report are important and complex and will take some time to be fully resolved. The interim strategies identified will result in some additional costs to the school district, both in terms of one-time costs and on-going additional operating expenses.

CONSULTATION

25. In the short term, consultation has been and will continue to be with staff, parents and students of Rideau High School.
26. In developing a report to examine the broader issues of programming in low enrolment schools and increasing enrolment in those schools, staff will include a consultative plan that includes members from both the school and broader community.

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

27. The program additions recommended for Rideau High School could require up to 1.5 additional staff and some infrastructure costs for a total cost $154,000.

Additional staff to support low enrolment in secondary schools for 2010-2011 could be up to 1.5 FTE for a total cost of $150,000.

The communications campaign costs would have to be incurred in the current budget. The estimated cost is between $10,000 and $15,000. Staff has been able to identify some funding from within existing budgets that could be made available to the Communications Department for this purpose.

SUBMITTED FOR INFORMATION

This document has been formatted for HTML from Report 10-035, Interim Report: Comprehensive Plan to Address Long-term Enrolment Issues in Secondary Schools (Walter Piovesan, ext.8287) wich is a PDF file hosted on the OCDSB web site