May 28, 2018: Funding for faith-based schools in Ontario

By Michael Regenstreif

The campaign for the June 7 Ontario election is now in full swing and there are some important issues you won’t hear party leaders Doug Ford, Andrea Horwath or Kathleen Wynne – or, for that matter, any of their candidates – talking about.

Among those issues is funding for non-Catholic faith-based schools in Ontario. Ontario provides 100 per cent of the funding to run the Catholic school system in the province and no funding at all for the schools of all other faith groups. This province is the only jurisdiction in North America which still funds the religious school system of one religion to the exclusion of all others. A number of other Canadian provinces, including Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, have put formulas in place to provide some level of public funding to faith-based schools that meet their provincial curriculum standards.

In 1999, when the Progressive Conservatives were in power under premier Mike Harris, the United Nations Human Rights Commission said the province’s funding of Catholic schools but not those of other religions was discriminatory and a violation of Canada’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN commission reiterated that ruling again in 2005 when the Liberals were in power under premier Dalton McGuinty.

The Progressive Conservatives, under leader John Tory (now the mayor of Toronto), seized on the issue in the 2007 provincial election campaign and promised to find a formula for non-Catholic faith-based school funding in the province. But Tory and the Tories (pun intended) did not manage the issue well. Instead of reaching out to the Liberals and New Democrats and finding consensus on an issue affecting only a relatively small minority of the population they let it become a partisan election issue. McGuinty and the Liberals played cynical, populist politics and made what could have – and should have – been a consensus-building issue into a deeply divisive wedge issue.

McGuinty, whose own children attended Catholic schools, said that children attending other faith-based schools “become sequestered and segregated,” implying that these children do not integrate well in society. This was surely insulting to all of the Jewish day school graduates in Ontario who have proven time and again how well they have integrated and who have made immeasurable contributions to society. And this is surely true, as well, for students who have attended the schools of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities, and various non-Catholic Christian communities including Armenian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Christian, Seventh Day Adventist and Mennonite.

Playing wedge politics on faith-based school funding worked for McGuinty and the Liberals in the 2007 election. Tory and the Progressive Conservatives were shellacked on election night and dropped the issue. None of the parties have brought it up since and this is now the third Ontario election campaign since 2007.

During the 1993 federal election campaign, Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell – then briefly the prime minister – said, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues.” Campbell was ridiculed for the comment and went down to perhaps the biggest election defeat of an incumbent in Canadian history. But maybe there was some truth to her comment. Some issues should not be partisan election campaign issues where party positions become hardened and polarized – as they did in 2007 on the issue of funding for non-Catholic faith-based schools. When talking about rights – or at least about what is right – an issue should be approached through nonpartisan consensus building.

The status quo in Ontario education funding has been in place since Confederation in 1867. But society has changed immeasurably over the course of 151 years. Other provinces have recognized this and adapted and so should ours.

I’ve heard MPPs from all three parties at Queen’s Park say off the record that if it were up to them, they’d support funding for faith-based schools. A common front of faith-based communities in Ontario needs to help the political parties find the consensus needed to correct the situation. The work should begin as soon as possible after the election.

February 23, 2015: OJCS high school – A difficult decision that had to be made

By Michael Regenstreif

The front page of this edition of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin carries the sad news that the Ottawa Jewish Community School (OJCS) Board of Directors has made the very difficult decision to phase out its high school division.

OJCS came into being in 2009 when Hillel Academy of Ottawa, the city’s community day school founded in 1949, amalgamated with Yitzhak Rabin High School, founded in 1995.

The groundwork for the amalgamation began about two years earlier when community and school leaders – understanding various problems faced by both schools, including declining enrolment and financial viability – formed committees tasked with bringing the schools together as an institution that would be stronger than the sum of its parts.

In recent years, we have published many articles chronicling the innovative strides OJCS has made in reinforcing its credentials as a first-class educational institution from kindergarten to Grade 12. We have also covered such major issues as declining enrolment, tuition fees and financial viability.

While enrolment in the elementary grades is closer to sustainable levels at OJCS, enrolment at the high school has remained too low for too long. It was hoped that, when Hillel Academy amalgamated with Yitzhak Rabin High School, many more families would choose to have their children remain at the school for their high school years. But that has not happened.

Over the past two years, only seven of the 51 students who graduated from elementary school went on to high school there. This year, there were just 24 high school students at OJCS and only 20 were projected for the 2015-‘16 school year. When the school surveyed parents of current Grade 6, 7 and 8 students about their high school intentions, it was clear there was no way forward to a sustainable enrolment number for the high school.

As OJCS Board President Aaron Smith wrote in his letter to parents explaining the decision to phase out the high school, enrolment of at least 50 students was needed to sustain the high school.

The high school division’s deficit of $250,000 per year effectively amounted to $1 million for each class as it moved from Grade 9 through Grade 12.

It is estimated there are about 900 high school-aged Jewish students in Ottawa. That means only about two per cent of Jewish families in the city are choosing Jewish day high school for their children.

With efforts in the years since amalgamation to raise enrolment to sustainable levels unsuccessful – even among families who chose Jewish day school education at the elementary level – despite the school’s success an institution of excellence, the decision to phase out the high school had to be made.

There is probably no greater testament to the school’s educational success than the passionate feelings of its students. The day after the announcement was made, Grade 12 student Hannah Srour submitted an article about what the school means to her, while Grade 10 student Ella Sabourin launched a quixotic grassroots attempt to raise enough funds to keep the high school alive.

As the OJCS prepares to move forward as a strong and viable elementary school, it is clear the community must create new models for supplementary Jewish education at the high school level, which will serve a much broader proportion of our community’s teenagers.

Problems of declining enrolment and financial viability of Jewish day schools are not unique to Ottawa. Many communities throughout North America face the same problems. But, on one level, those problems are exacerbated for day schools in Ontario where the province remains the only jurisdiction on the continent that provides educational funding to one faith community to the total exclusion of all others.

A number of other Canadian provinces, including Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, have formulas in place to provide public funding to faith-based schools that meet the provincial standards in their secular education (something that was never in question for OJCS).

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has twice ruled – in 1999 and in 2005 – that the province’s funding of Catholic schools but not those of other religions was discriminatory and a violation of Canada’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

An effect of Ontario not providing public funding is that tuition rates must be higher than elsewhere, which, of course, affects both enrolment and financial viability.