It’s taken Hibo Hagi-Nur almost 10 years to figure out the codes that govern her Rexdale neighbourhood. And now that she has, she’s standing in front of the Toronto public school board building to demand trustees end what she terms the “economic and educational apartheid” imposed on Somali immigrant students in North Etobicoke.

It’s an incendiary charge, and Hagi-Nur knows it. But she is not deterred.

“Ten years ago our children were forced out of their neighbourhood school — Humberwood Downs — to make room for children from wealthier families,” she says.

“They told us our children would have to go to Elmbank, a school which was much further away and across very dangerous roads. Elmbank was a much poorer school than Humberwood. It had much fewer resources and many more black children, especially Somali children.

“We knew at the time, and we know it now even more — now that we understand the school system a little better — that what our children experienced 10 years ago was out-and-out segregation. It was clear racist restructuring of school boundaries.”

Hagi-Nur and Queen’s Plate parents, bolstered by parents from across the city who are fighting the proposed closure of several city schools, have returned to 5050 Yonge with the same message they delivered last November: Give us back our neighbourhood school.

Such a move would correct what seems like a misguided decision — one the board took without considering all the ramifications and effects on a group at risk, with several strikes against it already.

“Those making the boundary decisions, if they were thinking about us, and were fair, and segregation did not exist, they would have moved other students (who live) closer to Elmbank,” she says.

Officials acknowledge students living at 900, 910 and 930 Queen’s Plate Drive face a less-than-ideal school experience. But to repair the damage is complicated.

Donna Quan, executive superintendent, told the Star’s Louise Brown that Humberwood was built in 1996 and essentially full by 1999. The board re-drew the boundaries, leaving the highrises on the outside.

Bringing them back is a challenge. Humberwood is 87 per cent full. The school shares a complex with the Catholic board, and neighbours a city community centre, an environmentally sensitive ravine and the Humber Arboretum, so it’s difficult to add portables or expand.

“I can feel and hear the community’s pain; they’re wondering why they can’t use this school they see in front of them,” Quan says. Staff members have recommended reviewing the long-term needs of the entire area, she says.

A decade ago, many of the parents — then new immigrants unfamiliar with the language and customs of Toronto, and refugees from regimes less than democratic — did not know how to navigate the system. They just accepted the letter that reassigned their kids to a school out of the neighbourhood.

Later, they would understand the gulf between Humberwood, a school with large resources in a beautiful setting, surrounded by middle-class residents, and Elmbank, in one of the city’s challenged priority neighbourhoods.

Somali kids experience a 40 per cent drop-out rate and many perform below standard levels. Their names are not being called out for prizes at graduation. They are over-represented among the disruptive kids. And here they are the ones being bussed far away to a school with other Somali kids. It’s too much to accept, the parents say.

Parents can’t walk their kids to the school, as they can at Humberwood. The kids miss out on after-school programs because they must catch the school bus. Parents can’t easily volunteer and engage in school trips. They fret and worry about gang activity. And all these obstacles only worsen the educational outcomes of their children.

Hagi-Nur says officials shake their heads, throw their hands in the air and say they can’t do anything to fix it. “We say, ‘No.’ We have to go back to Humberwood.”

Ten years later, the parents have found their voice, out of desperation. Will they be heard?

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: [email protected]a
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Source:-thestar

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