Six years after it was launched in a blaze of controversy, Canada’s only Africentric grade school is still a lightning rod for debate, dogged by falling enrolment, plunging test scores and endless parent disputes over just how Africentric the lessons should be.

Even a press conference Thursday to release a York University report that hailed Toronto’s Africentric Alternative School for boosting student pride and parent engagement was derailed by a handful of school parents yelling that the principal must go — she’s the third in six years — and demanding a curriculum more deeply rooted in African thought.

Yet students at the press conference praised the elementary school for wrapping them in a sense of African-Canadian identity through assignments on everything from black history to black mathematicians.

“It’s been an amazing experience to be around other girls with brown eyes and kinky hair, not just blue eyes and blond hair — it makes me feel more at home,” said Grade 8 student Shereka Jeffrey, who started at the school in Grade 2. “It helps you learn about the African culture; all students at other schools know about is Martin Luther King.”

However, with only 130 students from kindergarten to Grade 8 — down from 208 students three years ago — the school, located in a wing of Sheppard Ave. Public School, faces an “enrolment crisis,” warned parent Yolisa Dalamba, chair of the school’s parent council.

“For us to fall this low is deplorable; there’s been a mass exodus and we’re in a state of emergency,” said Dalamba, blaming a “lack of leadership and lack of Africentric vision.”

Toronto District School Board superintendent Jackie Spence, who was also the school’s second principal, insisted it’s not unusual for alternative school enrolments to “ebb and flow” and noted some of the original students who left the school may have become weary of commuting — there is no school bus service to alternative schools — or simply changed their minds about wanting an Africentric education.

Too, Spence said she was not “hugely concerned” about a staggering fall in test scores two years ago — in Grade 3 math the percentage of students meeting provincial standards plunged to 33 from a lofty 86, and in reading and writing fell more than 30 points. In small schools, such tiny classes are tested that scores can be skewed dramatically by a few weak students one year, she said. A fresh focus on science, technology, engineering and math (“stem subjects”) starting this year at the school will help, Spence expects, as will extra math tutors and coaches.

“We have work to do, and we continue to negotiate what it means to be an Africentric school,” she said.

To York U Professor Carl James, co-author of the study of the school from 2011 to 2014, heated arguments over what an Africentric school should be like are not surprising.

“A lot of good things are going on at the school, but everyone has their own idea of what an Africentric education is, and that’s not unusual because it’s new.

“It’s a very fluid concept, Africentric education, and the school is forging this new vision. It’s an experiment, an incubator of ideas.”

Parent Elaine Ewers agreed there are issues the school must tackle, but said she is pleased her Grade 2 son Tejean is learning about the contributions of African-Canadian entrepreneurs and inventors of technology and other fields “that I never learned about when I was growing up.

“All I ever learned was that we were slaves.”

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Socio-economic background of students

The median income of families with children attending Africentric Alternative School is in the lowest third among TDSB schools. It ranks as number 164 out of 479 elementary schools (1 being the lowest-income and 479 the highest).

The students’ families are among the most likely to be on social assistance (ranked 29th of 479 schools, where 1 is the most likely to have families on social assistance).

The students are more likely than most to have parents with low levels of formal education (ranked 84th of 479 schools, where 1 is the lowest parental education level).

The students are more likely than most to come from single-parent families (ranked 100th out of 479, where 1 would have highest number of lone-parent families).

Timeline of events leading to creation of Africentric school

1991: Bob Rae NDP government sets up black secretariat and education ministry implements measures to push race relations and equity training for teachers and board officials.

1993: Royal Commission on Learning, concerned about the high dropout rates among black students, recommends black-focused schools in Toronto.

May 2004: Parent Angela Wilson and another activist, parent Donna Harrow, meet with then TDSB director Dave Reed to discuss setting up a special school to address underachieving black kids.

February 2005: Harrow and Wilson meet with Gerry Connelly, then TDSB assistant director, along with Trevor Ludski, area superintendent, to present their ideas for an alternative Africentric school.

June 2007: Proposal is presented to the board’s programs and services committee. It’s accepted in principle and sent to the board.

November 2007: TDSB meetings to discuss the idea are heated.

January 2008: Staff recommends an Africentric-focused alternative elementary school. Trustees vote 11 to 9 in favour of opening the school.

September 2009: School opens with 128 students from JK to Grade 5 in a wing of Sheppard Public School. It will add a grade each year.

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