OttawaOttawa’s Black Youth Forum, a community-led program for Black youth, plans to re-launch in February without the partnership of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB). Black Youth Forum planning its return after school board moves course onlineJayden Dill · CBC News · Posted: Dec 01, 2025 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Adrienne Coddett founded the Black Youth Forum. She says the program is walking away from its partnership with the OCDSB (Salah Tebessi/CBC)Ottawa’s Black Youth Forum, a community-led program for Black youth, plans to re-launch in February without the partnership of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB). The program, which created a dedicated safe space for Black students, had partnered with the OCDSB’s continuing education branch as an accredited interdisciplinary course for high school students.But its founder Adrienne Coddett said her team made the decision to walk away.”If the system does not celebrate your contribution and who your lived experience has helped you become, that container is too small,” Coddett said.A report from the Ontario Human Rights Commission highlighted the lack of safe, dedicated spaces for Black students as a “significant concern.” Coddett said the Black Youth Forum was a direct response to a systemic lack of faith that Black students could succeed, which she calls “death by low expectations.””Sometimes being in a classroom, you don’t feel like you are part of the story, and so we were responding to that,” she said.Now she says she’s embracing the opportunity to build a new program.”I know why caged bird sings. It sings of freedom. And so in the freedom to now make better choices, bigger choices, we are building different incentives into it other than a credit,” she said.Course continuing onlineA spokesperson for the school board confirmed it’s still running a version of the course, which began Nov. 18 with 34 students enrolled. The course is online, and it’s unclear if it will include a forum at the end of the school year.”The students and staff will discuss and plan experiential opportunities for some in-person learning over the duration of the course,” the spokesperson wrote.Students enrolled in the Black Youth Forum met weekly to discuss their experiences and learn about Black Canadian history. The annual forum itself was held in May.Awad Ibrahim, the University of Ottawa’s vice-provost of equity and a program partner who has hosted the year-end forum for the last two years, said the school board’s reasons for putting the course online remain a “mystery.””I’m just trying to decipher why the decision was taken without consulting us,” he said. “It would be lost if it’s an online course because that’s not the idea. The idea is to have the presence, the experience, and we didn’t want it to be just another course.”Previously, the weekly sessions attracted 40-70 students, and hundreds registered for the forum in May, Ibrahim said. He said he was prepared to host the forum again, but the board never got back to him.Envisioning something newAfter eight cohorts, the Black Youth Forum had “evolved” into “a transformational, experiential learning opportunity” that was rooted in the community, Codette said.Now she must reimagine the program.”We’ve got this foundation, and now we do need to reimagine and reinvent ourselves as well,” Coddett said.She said the new program will focus less on the struggle, strife and survival of the Black community, and more on how the community can “thrive in our own transformation.”ABOUT THE AUTHORJayden Dill is a reporter with CBC Ottawa. Feel free to send him your story ideas and news tips at jayden.dill@cbc.ca
Grassroots program for Black youth parting ways with OCDSB
