{"id":21930,"date":"2018-10-17T16:30:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21930"},"modified":"2018-10-17T16:30:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T20:30:42","slug":"aurora-votes-2018-crowe-vows-to-keep-schools-open-if-re-elected-catholic-trustee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2018-crowe-vows-to-keep-schools-open-if-re-elected-catholic-trustee\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2018: Crowe vows to keep schools open if re-elected Catholic trustee"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the past 18 years, Elizabeth Crowe has taken an active role in the education of local students and families serving in various capacities on the York Catholic District School Board.
\nNext week, she hopes voters return her to the role as trustee for Aurora, King, and Whitchurch-Stouffville and, if she\u2019s returned to the Board table, Ms. Crowe says she will focus on keeping local schools open.
\n\u201cThere is a big rumour going around that we may be closing some of the elementary schools in Aurora and that is definitely not on the books, and I am going to try and make sure that it is not on the books,\u201d she says, noting that here in Aurora elementary schools within the Catholic system have been experiencing declining enrollments. \u201cWe\u2019re just not getting the same numbers coming into Junior Kindergarten that we used to, so I would like to gather a committee of parents from each of the elementary schools in Aurora and maybe someone from the parish as well, and we should brainstorm some sort of strategy to also increase awareness of our schools and the good things that are happening. Not having as many schools as the public board, often Catholic parents choose the nearest school, which tends to be a public school. I will try to increase enrollment and work with some community partners and build our classrooms with possible daycare and that kind of stuff that would be conducive to the environment of a school.\u201d
\nLooking back over the last term on the Board, Ms. Crowe says one of their biggest accomplishments is achieving the highest graduations of all the English school boards in Ontario. They have also taken great pride in making sure all principals are specialists in religious education.
\nAs a trustee, she\u2019s proud that just a few years ago the Board brought in phys-ed and music specialists into all elementary schools and began the process of converting a classroom in every elementary school into a music classroom suitable for both music and drama.
\nThen, for families of older children, there is the introduction of the international baccalaureate program at Cardinal Carter Catholic High School, which Ms. Crowe cites as another significant achievement.
\nYet, in her view, there is much work still to do, and the work of a trustee is never done.
\n\u201cThere are always different issues coming up [including] the mental health strategy, which is something that wasn\u2019t around two years ago,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is not that it didn\u2019t exist, but now we have increased awareness for that. I would definitely like to see us implement that more fully.\u201d
\nChallenges in the four years ahead will also come with working with a new Progressive Conservative government in Ontario, but working with a change of government is something she says she has already experienced during her time on the Board.
\n\u201cIf I get re-elected, my first thing will be to meet with all the local MPPs and build relationships with them,\u201d she says.
\nLooking ahead to the next four years, Ms. Crowe says she is firmly focused on that issue of declining enrolment. That declining enrolment has posed some challenges with the Board\u2019s budget, she says, but the budget was \u201cgood\u201d this year and maintaining that while keeping up with \u201cspecial education needs in our system\u201d will be the task ahead.
\n\u201cWe have been lobbying the government for increases in special education funding, so has every other board in the province, our public Board is also overspent, we overspend our allocation, but it is very important that we provide programs for those students,\u201d she says. \u201cThe challenges that are being faced by our teachers in the classrooms and by our parents are more complex than they ever used to be and I think we haven\u2019t been able to keep up with our investments in special education and that would be a number one focus for me in the New Year.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past 18 years, Elizabeth Crowe has taken an active role in the education of local students and families serving in various capacities on the York Catholic District School Board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5HI","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 07:39:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2018-10-18-08.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}