Roosevelt Park School gets its due

While the debate into the Fraser Institute’s rankings of public schools goes on, Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail does a nice job of putting everything into perspective.

His article for today’s globe takes those Fraser numbers and neatly ties them up in a bundle and puts them away, rendered nothing more than cold dry statistics, that don’t examine the real issues of education in an inner city school, which Roosevelt very much is.

Even more alarming than a study on education, it paints a picture of Prince Rupert that many folks probably don’t want to, or choose not to see. Children who go to school not having had a meal that day, or maybe the day before too. Children in grade school who are thinking of suicide, witnessing substance abuse at home, or even worse serious family abuse in the sanctuary of their own homes. Kids that are more worried about having Family services "apprehend" them in the early morning, than in doing homework on a nightly basis, things like that, things that most of the schools on the Fraser's list probably don't have to think about all that much.

Those are things that never make it into studies such as the Fraser Institute’s rankings, true they aren’t the point of those studies, but they are factors that need to be considered as to root causes for educational performance. They are also of more concern than the silly concept of ranking schools like favourite hockey or baseball teams.

He also takes a sideways glance at the Daily News for its coverage of the story and how the attention paid by the paper to the “results” didn’t do much for school morale there. Perhaps they can borrow his crib notes and follow up on the worrisome things that Mason examined for us. There are obviously too many people falling through the cracks in this town, something that needs to be addressed more fully before we start worrying about pointless numbers from a think tank.

His article will probably do more to help the educational process at Roosevelt (and perhaps the educational process of the town as a whole) than any number of studies offered up by the likes of the Fraser Institute. It tells us more about what we need to know, than all of the conferences and follow up stories to those reports ever will. Mason's article examines the day to day challenges of the staff, students and many parents of Roosevelt Park School, it's a story of surviving against the odds, which may not make for a good report card at the Fraser Institute but certainly counts for more in the real world, where the numbers on the paper live from day to day.

It’s a very good article, one that not only should be read. But one that perhaps should be forwarded to the Fraser Institute as well as our local and provincial politicians; they’re missing something here, time for everyone to catch up

You can start by reading Mason’s article Podunkicized below.


B.C.'s worst school just may be its best
GARY MASON
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VANCOUVER -- According to the Fraser Institute's most recent rankings of British Columbia elementary schools, the picture doesn't get much grimmer than Roosevelt Park in Prince Rupert. Out of the 1,009 schools rated, Roosevelt Park and two others tied for last.

What a morale booster for parents, students and teachers at Roosevelt Park. The Lousiest School in the Province. Roosevelt Park's overall rating out of 10 was 0.0 per cent for 2004-05. That compares with St. George's, an independent boys school in Vancouver, which scored a perfect 10.

Of course, there are a few things that the rankings don't take into account. You know, just little things the teachers at schools such as St. George's and others never have to worry about. Like the fact that 71 per cent of the children entering kindergarten this year at Roosevelt Park were deemed "at risk."

What does that mean? It means they did not possess the basic language skills children should possess by the time they're ready to enter the school system. Many of the kids entering kindergarten at Roosevelt Park don't know their colours, for instance, don't know the difference between an apple and a banana.

Many of them have the language skills of a three-year-old. Or less. The Fraser Institute's rankings are based on results from the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA), a province wide test in reading, writing and numeracy. It is administered each spring to children in Grades 4 and 7.

Oh yeah, that's another thing about Roosevelt Park. Of the 20 pupils who took the FSA test in Grade 4 last year, only 11 had actually been in the school since kindergarten.

There is usually a 50-per-cent turnover of pupils from year to year. So, even though many of the children at Roosevelt taking the assessment test each year have received most of their schooling elsewhere, Roosevelt gets stuck with the results.

Many of Roosevelt's classrooms are filled with children who have "issues," as they say. Many are affected by fetal alcohol syndrome.

In some classes there might be eight or nine with special needs. Many children have witnessed horrible violence at home. Or have had to deal with other traumas.

One girl just finishing Grade 6 at Roosevelt was recently asked by her teacher, as part of a class exercise, what her earliest childhood memory was. She said she remembered one night when she was 7 being left at home alone by her mother who went out for a few drinks. When she didn't return, the little girl decided to pack up her younger sisters -- one was 3, the other a newborn -- because she feared the people from Children and Family Services would come and apprehend them.

It was the middle of the night and the three had to descend a steep staircase from their house. The seven-year-old was trying to manage a buggy and lost control. It went rattling down the stairs with the baby in it, knocking over the three-year-old at the bottom. Thankfully, everyone was okay.

By the time the girl told this story, she'd been in five foster homes. A couple of years ago, 40 of the school's 200 pupils were in government care. That's another thing the Fraser Institute rankings don't tell you.

Roosevelt Park offers suicide programs. Why? Because once a month or so, a child at the school discloses to someone that he or she is thinking of ending it all. Seems the kids at Roosevelt have things on their minds other than the FSA. Who would have thought?

The Lousiest School in the Province has piloted a wonderful new program called Parents as Literacy Supporters, or PALS.

It teaches parents how to help their children read and write. You see, many of the parents weren't taught themselves.

There's another program called Parents and Children Education Services, or PACES. It's also a first in British Columbia.

It offers parents advice on basic parenting skills such as how to play with your children and how to stimulate their minds. At Roosevelt Park, as much of the work is about helping the parents as the students.

Roosevelt Park has piloted a number of programs. In fact, it's been so successful that educators from far and wide have arrived at the school to see the programs in action. Programs offered by the Lousiest School in the Province.

The Prince Rupert Daily News did an article on the Fraser Institute's latest rankings and how Roosevelt Park finished dead last.

That must have made the kids feel even better about themselves, don't you think?

Steve Riley, the school's principal, just shakes his head. What are you going to do? "We're trying to fix kids here," he said an interview. "That's a bigger challenge than getting their FSA results up. There are so many factors in the kids' lives here that affect their schooling, it's not even funny."

Factors the Fraser Institute's rankings don't take into account. Which is why the Lousiest School in the Province may just be the best.