EXPULSIONS WAY UP AT AREA HIGH SCHOOLS

Seven weeks into the new school year, six Waterloo Region students have
been banned indefinitely from all Ontario high schools.

It's a major increase for the Waterloo Region District School Board which
had expelled only one student in the previous four years. The difference is
that this year, because of a $2.3-million pilot project called Choices for
Youth, the board has somewhere to send them.

Project co-ordinator Lynn Zammit said the male and female students were
expelled from elementary and secondary schools for a range of reasons. Most
can expect to remain in the program for about a year, she said.

Board chairwoman Sandy Shantz said she would like more focus on children
and parents when they first run into problems. Help is hard to find "until
the kids get so far that it's really hard to bring them back."

Under the new provincial Safe Schools legislation, students must be
expelled for certain offences involving drugs, weapons or violence.

Principals can issue limited expulsions or can ask the school board to hold
a hearing to consider a full expulsion.

Students expelled for 21 days to one year are sent home with little more
than a list of conditions that must be met before they return to school.
Students can apply to schools elsewhere, but they may not be accepted.

Ironically, more help is available to the students barred indefinitely from
school. Across the province, they are the only ones eligible for the 15 new
programs like Choices for Youth that aim to reintegrate students into
mainstream schools.

Successfully completing such a program is the only way those students can
return to a publicly funded school in Ontario.

Principals can expel students for up to a year, but they need approval from
a committee of trustees for indefinite expulsions.

This fall, the number of requests by principals for board-issued expulsions
is so high that Shantz called for more trustees to volunteer for the
hearings. Another hearing is scheduled for Monday.

Choices for Youth is offered at three sites, each with a different focus.
In Waterloo, outdoor adventure-based learning will help teach personal
responsibility, conflict resolution, anger management and academics.

The site in Kitchener uses community service as a teaching base;
entrepreneurship is the focus at the Cambridge site. Only the Waterloo site
is still waiting for students.

Each site can take a maximum of 10 students, and each has two full-time
teachers -- one elementary and one secondary.

The three share a full-time social worker and a psychologist. Overseeing it
all is Zammit, a restorative justice expert who previously created programs
for at-risk youth at the Toronto District School Board.

Choices for Youth will be the closest program for boards west of Peel
Region, north of Niagara and east of Windsor. If spaces fill up quickly, as
it now appears they might, school boards have to find their own way to
reintegrate students.

The local Catholic board could also direct students to the program, but so
far this year, it has only had one 21-day expulsion for a physical assault.

The Waterloo District School Board has a limited number of spaces available
in the New Dawn and Bridges program for students with chronic behavioural
and truancy issues.

But both these programs face a constant battle for adequate funding.