The Peel District School Board is poised to begin collecting race-based data as part of a new student census it believes will lead to better supports for its diverse student body. “We need quantitative data to tell us whether we are going in the direction we want to go in,” said trustee Suzanne Nurse, who introduced the motion earlier this month. Initiatives such as the board’s action plan to support black male students, announced last month, are important steps, she said. But “in order to determine whether it’s having an effect, we need to measure it.”The census for the board’s 154,000 students would be voluntary, confidential and anonymous. While details of what information will be collected haven’t been decided, it would include such data as race, ethnicity and sexual identity.

Source: thestar November 25, 2016 16:56 UTC