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TORONTO -- The city's controversial Africentric school will open with twice the minimum number of students needed to justify its creation, a Toronto District School Board official said yesterday.
With 80 children signed up for Tuesday's opening, kindergarten and Grade 1 are full, said Lloyd McKell, executive officer for student and community equity.
"If more parents enrol their children in the next couple of months, we may have to double up on classes," he said.
Grades 6 to 8 could be added in future, McKell said.
Six classrooms in Sheppard Public School will accommodate 125 children, sharing the lunchroom, gym, computer lab and yard.
Courses in the latest of the board's 40 alternative schools are to be augmented with African heritage.
Specialty topics, themes and histories will be included with mandated requirements, including access to other board programs, McKell said.
"We won't be throwing out the regular curriculum," he said. "One school can't address all the problems for all students. We see this as a model for good teaching."
American Africentric schools were studied, but McKell said "we have to design it for Toronto needs."
The students, aged 4 to 10, live across Toronto but most are west-enders, he said. Their parents must provide transportation.
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Principal Thando Hyman-Aman, a former York University course director and co-chairman of the board's African Heritage Educators Network, will oversee 5 1/2 teachers plus office staff.
But while the school aims to address a 40% dropout rate among black youths, "I don't think this was the substantive answer," trustee Josh Matlow said. With dropout rates also high among Portuguese and Arab students, he fears the school is "the tip of a slippery slope."
"Divisions of the past shouldn't be pressed on kids today. This is being done for the wrong reasons ... the Africentric school is a distraction," he said. "These students will be under tremendous pressure to succeed ... there will be egg in the face of the board if they don't succeed.
"Schools should prepare students for success in the real world," Matlow said, adding programs in all 557 public schools should be expanded to reflect Toronto cultures.
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With 80 children signed up for Tuesday's opening, kindergarten and Grade 1 are full, said Lloyd McKell, executive officer for student and community equity.
"If more parents enrol their children in the next couple of months, we may have to double up on classes," he said.
Grades 6 to 8 could be added in future, McKell said.
Six classrooms in Sheppard Public School will accommodate 125 children, sharing the lunchroom, gym, computer lab and yard.
Courses in the latest of the board's 40 alternative schools are to be augmented with African heritage.
Specialty topics, themes and histories will be included with mandated requirements, including access to other board programs, McKell said.
"We won't be throwing out the regular curriculum," he said. "One school can't address all the problems for all students. We see this as a model for good teaching."
American Africentric schools were studied, but McKell said "we have to design it for Toronto needs."
The students, aged 4 to 10, live across Toronto but most are west-enders, he said. Their parents must provide transportation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Are you in favour of black schools?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Principal Thando Hyman-Aman, a former York University course director and co-chairman of the board's African Heritage Educators Network, will oversee 5 1/2 teachers plus office staff.
But while the school aims to address a 40% dropout rate among black youths, "I don't think this was the substantive answer," trustee Josh Matlow said. With dropout rates also high among Portuguese and Arab students, he fears the school is "the tip of a slippery slope."
"Divisions of the past shouldn't be pressed on kids today. This is being done for the wrong reasons ... the Africentric school is a distraction," he said. "These students will be under tremendous pressure to succeed ... there will be egg in the face of the board if they don't succeed.
"Schools should prepare students for success in the real world," Matlow said, adding programs in all 557 public schools should be expanded to reflect Toronto cultures.
[email protected]