Withhold grants from schools that fail to stop dropouts

Report cards are an important part of children's lives. But there are significant numbers of children who never get a report card -- they have dropped out.

Norquay School, for example, with a terrific caring principal, has an attendance rate of 92 per cent. You can imagine the principal and teachers distress when they learn half the children they have nurtured and educated have dropped out of school in Grade 7. Yes, Grade 7. That's approximately 12 years of age. This is normal in our inner city.

Any child who drops out of school at Grade 7 is doomed to a life of poverty and, if they are a boy, probably a life of crime.

Four years ago I led a delegation to the Winnipeg School Division to ask them to live up to their responsibility to ensure every child gets 200 days of school a year. The school board unanimously passed a motion asking the superintendent's office to work with the delegation from North Point Douglas to improve the absentee situation. I faithfully, as a volunteer, attended meetings with representatives of the division and the province for two years before I realized no one was really committed to reach out to these lost children. They just talked.

My wife is a retired school teacher; my granddaughter is finishing her education degree. We know how important an education is to achieve a sense of economic and social self-worth, as well as being a contributing member of society.

So we have 92 per cent attendance at elementary school in the inner city. What's it like at junior high and high school? Well, R.B. Russell, which is a technical training school, had huge attendance problems last time I checked. Dare I mention St. John's High School, where most kids from North Point Douglas go for junior and senior high? Last I checked, absenteeism on some days was more than 30 per cent. Whether this includes children who have been suspended from school for non-attendance is unclear.

What we do know is many parents and foster parents are unable or unwilling to get their kids to school. Raising teenagers is not an easy task. I still have a few emotional bruises to prove it. However, I watch neighbourhood children who rarely make it to school in the morning.

A local teen informed me she was going to live with an aunt so she could go to a school in the Maples. She said that so many kids skipped school and misbehaved at her school it was impossible to learn. This is a self-motivated kid who is on her way to university.

While the parent and then the child are responsible to make it to school, it is society at large, particularly the inner-city society, that suffers from these individual failures.

Education Minister Nancy Allan has introduced more requirements for reporting attendance and raised the school leaving age to 18, but it is up to the school division to ensure attendance.

If school divisions don't accept their responsibility to provide 200 days of school to all students, then drastic action is required. Currently, school divisions receive funding from the province based on the number of students enrolled on Sept 30.

Instead, split the funding so they get half of their money based on enrolment on Sept. 30 and the other half based on enrolment on Jan. 30.

It is sad when you think we need a monetary penalty to get school divisions to act to provide a basic education. All that ethical and educational talk has produced is a large number of children skipping school. How do we reduce poverty and crime rates if we refuse to ensure our children get an education?

All kids should get a report card.

Sel Burrows is an activist in North Point and a longtime New Democrat.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 29, 2012 A13