It has been almost two years since our provincial government updated and released Facilities Condition Index (FCI) data and disrepair data for all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools in October 2017. At that time, there was $15.9-billion of disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools.
As per the Ministry of Education website:
- “Making sure that Ontario’s school buildings are in a good state of repair is essential for supporting student achievement and well-being.“
- “The Government of Ontario is committed to increasing the transparency of its historic investments in school infrastructure so that Ontarians can see the importance of this funding and the results it yields over time. That is why the Ministry of Education is ensuring that the most recent results from its School Condition Assessment Program are readily available to the public. Through this program, independent, third-party facility inspectors conduct assessments to obtain data on the current condition of all open and operating schools across the province. The Facility Condition Index (FCI) is derived from the information that is collected through this process.“
- “The government believes it is important that Ontarians can access such critical information about their local schools. As the government commits significant investments toward school repair and renewal, Ontarians have the right to a transparent resource for determining the necessity of such investments, and also for monitoring the results of these investments.“
Fix Our Schools wholeheartedly agrees with the Ministry of Education on these three points and, therefore, urges Education Minister Lecce to update disrepair data for schools annually and publicly release this data as soon as possible. We must understand whether current levels of provincial funding to address school disrepair is, in fact, serving to reduce the $15.9-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s schools – and if these current levels of provincial funding are reducing the disrepair quickly enough to ensure that all Ontario students attend schools that are safe, healthy and well-maintained.
In this spirit, we ask Minister Lecce to please release updated school disrepair data, in the same format as was released in October, 2017, as soon as possible.