Parents of children enrolled in Adventure Classes at Queen Victoria School in Belleville are angry with a recently announced decision to cancel the program in two years time.
Adventure Class is a family-oriented program started back in the ’80s that demands heavy parental involvement in and outside of class, lots of hands-on learning and more in-community activities and excursions than have been the norm in the regular classrooms.
The regular provincially mandated curriculum from grades 1 to 6 is taught in a multi-age, multi-grade setting. Families apply to have their children enrolled and students are chosen via a lottery.
This school year, there are 45 students in total being taught by two teachers. There is a grades 1 to 3 group and another with grades 4 to 6. At times, all grades are put together for learning and activities.
At a Queen Victoria school council meeting tonight (Tuesday) Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board Superintentents Laina Andrews and Tina Elliott met with almost 50 parents to explain the decision to discontinue Adventure Class.
Hastings and Prince Edward School Board Superintendents Laina Andrews(left) and Tina Elliott. (Photo: John Spitters/Quinte News)
“Adventure Class was a forward-thinking, before its time, learning concept when it began 33 years ago” said Andrews. “But the years have passed and the entire provincial education system has now caught up with the concept. Most, if not all of our classes, now offer the kinds of experiences that your children are receiving in Adventure Class.
We welcome parent involvement, community outreach and experiential learning.
Superintendent Elliott said senior staff appreciates the value parents were seeing in Adventure Class adding that they want to hear input from the parents.
And hear parents’ input they did.
Several parents spoke to the fact that Adventure Class was a success. Students were learning and loving it and always had. “Why blow something up that’s actually working?” asked one mother.
Another said one of her children would never have done well in a regular classroom but thrived in Queen Victoria’s Adventure Class.
One said many teachers in regular classes were doing their best but that effective learning was hard to come by when there was one teacher for 27 students.
Superintendent Andrews repeated a few times that there was no longer a need for a separate program as the regular system provided the same benefits.
Superintendent Elliott said the best ideas from Adventure Class were being implemented across the board or already had been.
Stuart McVittie disagreed heartily with the idea that regular classrooms welcomed parental involvement. “I’ve tried more than once to volunteer to help
students with reading, with which I have some expertise. I got turned away. It was bad. At Adventure Class I’m welcomed with open arms.”
Superintendent Andrews replied they obviously had some more work to do to make regular classrooms more open to volunteers.
Meanwhile, the entire decision-making process came under fire from parents. The decision to cancel the program was made by a group of 12 senior staff with the school board. “We don’t have to consult with the Board of Trustees. They make policy decisions. Staff make operational decisions. This is an operational decision,” said Superintendent Andrews. “We review our programming every year and this year with the closing of Queen Victoria School on the way and the amalgamation of it with Queen Elizabeth coming we had to take a close look at programs in both schools. We decided Adventure Class wasn’t really necessary anymore. The decision had nothing to do with money.”
Sheryl Parker, a retired Queen Victoria teacher and a mother who has had children in Adventure Class finished off the meeting with a spirited defence of Adventure Class and the generations of parents and students that have benefitted from it over the past 33 years.
“We’ve worked our asses off to get this program off the ground and to keep it going. It’s a great learning environment. It’s a proven success. How can 12 people sitting in a room and not consulting anyone else just take it away?? This is an insult to us. You haven’t heard the last of us and we’ll pack the room at your next board meeting!”
Two trustees, Michael Rush and Lisa Anne Chatten, attended the meeting as observers and had no comment on the proceedings.
The Board of Trustees meets this Monday at 7 p.m. at the Education Centre on Ann Street.
