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tribune february 17 1988 c9 parents urged to fight for student spaces by kate gilderdale in spite of blizzard conditions outside st marks gym was packed thursday night for a public meeting on overcrowd ing and the need for an exten sion to cope with rapidly in creasing enrolment mayor fran sainsbury pointed out this community has shown its ability to fight citing the airport and landfill site as examples she addressed the problems of being a small community in a rapidly growing province our population is 17700 now in 2000 it will be 25000 and 30000 by the year 2011 dulver- ton alone has brought in 1500 and groundwork for that was laid 15 years ago we still dont have a school mrs sainsbury noted provin cial policy is a major roadblock there has to be an occupancy rate of at least 80 per cent in new developments before a school will even be considered she said the ministry would not look at a new school until 400500 children were housed in port ables i the only way to correct the situation is money and most of your tax dollars go to the pro vince not the municipality you are going to have to fight hard said the mayor small munici palities are not a priority with the government nine portables possible monica foley guild member presented the positive side of the funding problem first she pointed out as a result of making their presence felt at board level the school was granted 50000 for improvements such as new carpets blinds and books however mrs foley said to keep up with growth more space was urgently needed the school was built over 20 years ago with an enrollment of 257 students in 1986 there were 339 students with five portables on site in the current school year there are 371 students with six portables and projected en rolment for september is 410 with the possibility of nine port ables mrs foley then gave a slide presentation on the effects of portables on students which showed facilities in the main building were inadequate for the present enrollment and that coming soon 1 m petoa o a p plaza stoufcville to tantalize your taste buds featuring i frozen vojurt wide variely o hard ice cream chocolates sot ice cream jliste simta milkshakes fr watch thl pot- or further detail among other problems the portables gave students a sense of isolation from the school- quality education in conclusion mrs foley said at st marks we believe in quality education it is really important we provide the best for our children we have li mited resources and we need the extension now lucille linton congratulated parents on such a strong turn out she explained why funding was such an acute problem the growth in york region is the largest in canada and this is the fastest growing board in north america she pointed out by the mid1900s we will have doubled our current rate going from 15000 in 1975 to a projected 75000 by the middle of the next decade ms linton noted most other boards were not growing rapidly and this made it more difficult to con vince the province of the urgen- cy here maintain standards this school needs that addi- tion to meet provincial stan dards she said she urged pa rents to keep up pressure at ev ery level to achieve this objec tive according to figures pre sented by mpp bill ballinger 17 billion is needed to cover education needs in the province in 1989 the minimum required to cover emergency needs is 700 million but the actual pro jected dollar amount for the year is 300 million we realize in ontario we are running way behind capital needs said mr ballinger he noted allocations for the york separate school board will be announced at an april meeting with education minister chris ward competition for funding is fierce according to mr ballin ger not only from other schools but also from other areas parti cularly health care which now accounts for onethird of the budget 50 per cent for 1987 the increase in capital allowance was 50 per cent higher he said we are trying to catch up but its not easy mr ballinger encouraged pa rents to keep writing to the minister smaller communi ties have a tough time getting higher on the priority list we are dealing with 10 years of underfunding in response to a question from the floor lucille linton ex plained the basis for funding priorities funding is based on looking at all the current needs and how each school would be affected if funding were denied she cited situations in which some schools would be forced to adopt a shift system if funds were not allocated these situations are a higher priority than schools with portables she explained ann pride president of the parents guild told parents bill ballinger and lucille linton had been very supportive of st marks to support their initia tive she urged parents to con tinue writing letters and to keep up pressure on the minis try with phone calls in our next newsletter we will be publishing a number of phone numbers and we encour age you all to keep calling them she said mrs pride suggested parents contact the ministry before april 1st when mr ward will announce spring funding allocations for the york separate school board lobbying vital the message that came across clearly from all speakers on thursday night was sus tained lobbying is vital to give the school a voice at the provin cial level and there seems little doubt the schools representa tives are working hard to make that voice heard mrs pride introduced prin cipal barbara bodkin guild member monica foley board trustee lucille linton and mayor fran sainsbury area mpp bill ballinger who was due to speak had been held up and arrived during the meeting mrs bodkin praised the st marks parents for their initia tive in setting up the meeting st marks has an excellent strong and articulate guild she said she pointed out teaching has changed greatly in the 22 years since the school was built and that programs such as special education put even greater pressure on facilities at the school s reupholster with toromark why pay more for your 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