Support specialized programs & schools made possible by optional attendance!

I am a Claude Watson alumni. I owe so much to that school, it would be heartbreaking to see it go. I wouldn't be where I am without it!

The Claude Watson Arts Program was indispensable to my growth. My education in this program instilled confidence, empathy and the necessary skills to make me a leader in my community. Specialized programs give students purpose, help them find their passions and guide them towards finding their voice. They are critical to the health of our future society. They create engaged participants in civic life.

The arts got to me to where I am today. As a Claude Watson alumni, to see the miraculous arts program be phased out in my lifetime would be a devastation. Daily choir, music lessons, art shows every month and musical theatre... all of these features have taught me independence, perseverence, team work, respect, and commitment skills. To have that taken away would be a sad future for many artistic kids and an impediment to academic success.

The program is designed for special needs students. If cancelled, how can the needs being met by other programs?

I cannot believe this is happening. I am extremely frustrated, saddened, and angered by TDSB's proposal to take away all specialized programs including IB, MaCs, & Claude Watson. These programs immensely benefit students, parents, teachers, schools, communities, and the city as a whole. They’re no doubt treasures of TDSB.

We need equity. We also need diversity.

Specialized schools help kids find their tribe and flourish. Small local programs would not be equally staffed nor attended across the city and would result in more inequity not less!

Against it. For Canadian future, please keep those programs, let those outstanding kids to be a scientist, specialties in order that Canada can be a leader in the world. Otherwise, all of kids likes drugs, no study,who will do the resaech and use their brains? Canadians technology is way behind the world, no own new brands an products. Shame to be a Canadian.Think about future generations, please keep it.US tries to attractive talents from all around the world, Canadian even tries to cut out their own talents.If there is the third world war, Canadian will be colony of other countries for sure. Future competition depend on brains. The way TDSB is doing is cut off their throat, and kill their own and their kids.

don’t let claude watson close!!

Strongly disagree!!!

We support those special programs.

The kids that get into these types of programs, particularly the arts, strive to achieve a higher than average arts education, so they can go out into the world prepared for the intense work it takes to be successful in the competitive arts world (music, dance, visual, acting, film, etc.) Schools like Claude Watson are open to all TDSB students to apply to if this stream of educational focus is their passion. Not only are the arts program students focused on their major like music for instance, but they take additional courses (more than average students), to allow them to take an arts minor in the process. One of the first questions my daughter asked was, If this really happens while she's still attending, will she have to stop her visual arts minor, which she's also passionate about. When I was in high school in the 80's you took music and visual art in grade 9, if you wanted to continue in either, you could only pick one. I ended up with a career that required the visual arts path, so I chose the right path. This proposed change is going back to making children with creatively wired brains to go back to making choices that affect their career paths. Not only would my daughter then limit her options to continue keeping visual arts as a potential careel path (and there are many paths), but her first passion music will take a massive blow into an unknown transition of mediocre learning potential in the school system that set these kids up for success in the first place. Please don't take programs like this away, they are vital to enriching our society with young people who go out into the world and make a positive contribution that is specialized and not everyone is capable of. Continue building bigger programs like this, so spaces aren't as limited as they are. Don't phase them out, get schools like Claude Watson their own facility the size or Earl Haig (one of, if not the largest student body in the TDSB at over 2000) and guaranteed it will be full of passi

Specialized programs are important, and in fact, make education more equitable to an individual's needs and goals.

I was in 2 specialty programs in high school and I wouldn't be who I am today without them. Don't kill students' dreams!!

Strongly against to close the specialized program

This is not something I believe will increase the quality of school programs.

Please continue Claude Watson. NYC has LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts; Toronto needs Claude Watson.

We need these kind of program . kids are different

On page 29 of the report, the draft recommendation of "optional attendance and specialized schools should be phased out" obviously contradicts with the purpose of "Ensure Equitable Education Experiences and Opportunities for All Students in All Schools", conflicts with the proposed vision statement of "Equitable learning opportunities, free of barriers, for all students to reach their full potential" (page 28), and is against the need to embrace many learning styles and respect diversity. Equity and inclusive education includes meeting individual needs of all the students. All students in TDSB should be challenged to meet their unique intellectual, social, physician and career development goals, and are enabled to reach their highest potential. The specialized schools and programs do respond well to certain students' unique needs and goals, and enable them to be at their best. TDSB must ensure that the full range of student differences are respected and valued, and all students are supported and inspired to succeed, not only those in marginalized communities. Reducing gaps in student achievement across TDSB should be attained by increasing the achievement levels of students in disadvantaged communities, but NOT by eliminating the specialized schools and programs which enable students to achieve higher. Regarding the concern that optional attendance may limit enriched learning opportunities for students who experience accessing barriers, TDSB should establish more specialized schools across Toronto to improve the equity, not the opposite.

Every child learns differently putting them in one cluster is unfair and ruining their creativity and passion is stupid. The other schools don’t even have much of a problem