I'll try to be brief.
I want to try to answer the previous question about a grade 12 student, for example, who doesn't know how to read. One of the presenters alluded to the role racism plays in the education system and how that affects groups of children.
In terms of the African Canadian community, there's a disproportionate drop-out rate for our children as opposed to other children. Things such as the Safe Schools Act disproportionately affect African Canadian children, as well as children with disabilities, in terms of how they perceive the education system and also how they progress through it.
Curriculum is also a huge factor. That's one thing the Afrocentric alternative school initiative is working to address. I'm happy to say it is opening in September this year.
But there are students whom I encounter in my work who are somewhat transient through the school system. You'll have a student who....
Just to add to or precede that point, a lot more African Canadian children are diagnosed with behavioural problems than other children. And because there's a lot of targeting in that sense, they're often pushed out of classrooms. As they get older, they're suspended. That problematic behaviour is not only diagnosed as a behavioural problem, but it also results in suspensions.
I'll find children who are suspended and who have been sent home with no school work or no homework. That happens very often. It's the school's responsibility to send them home with homework and also to notify the parents that the child is being suspended. That does not happen in a lot of the cases I have seen—and it's supposed to happen every time. So there are children who get by not having to do work, and the school system is not being accountable for those children. So I think that's a huge problem.
We also have to look at who's being affected by this. That's one thing our community has tried to address. We are very productive in the way we deal with these things. And one of the fights, as I've mentioned before, for the Afrocentric alternative school has come to fruition. So that's one success, but we still have a lot of work to do.
