When the COVID pandemic shuttered schools back in March, millions of dollars worth of technology was, understandably, taken from Ontario’s public schools and redistributed to students who needed this technology in order to access online learning. When Ontario’s public schools opened their doors again in September, the majority of the technology that was borrowed has not been returned to those schools. Again – for good reasons. Many students have opted to attend on-line school this year and, for many high school students in Ontario, online learning is a significant component of their education, if they opted for in-school learning.
All of these decisions make perfect sense.
What makes zero sense is that our provincial government has done absolutely nothing to ensure that the students who opted to return to in-school learning also have access to the technology that they require for learning. In fact, Fix Our Schools is starting to hear from parents and teachers alike that the new provincial math curriculum (that includes a coding component and therefore demands access to technology) requires students to “bring their own device” to school or to conduct their work at home so that curriculum requirements can be met.
This fall parents can look forward to a curriculum that gives kids the tools they need to be successful, and get good jobs when they graduate. Core skills will now include:
📝Financial planning
📝Saving and spending
📝Budgeting
📝Coding pic.twitter.com/hRMom4H7oD— Doug Ford (@fordnation) June 25, 2020
The inequity of this situation is appalling and Fix Our Schools calls upon our provincial government to immediately release new funding to school boards to be able to ensure that every school in the province is able to provide the technology required for students to meet curriculum requirements.
The last time our provincial government announced any funding for technology in schools was back on June 18, 2020 when Minister Lecce proudly announced a paltry sum of $15-million in funding for technology in schools. To illustrate just how inadequate this funding level was to meet the real needs for technology in schools, we point to a recent Q&A post on the Toronto District School Board website:
What are the TDSB’s key fundraising and donation priorities for 2020-21?
A: The TDSB’s key fundraising priorities for 2020-21 are:
- Technology: There continues to be a need for technology to ensure that all students are supported. The TDSB has a plan to replace the devices that were borrowed from schools and sent to students to support virtual learning. However, this will take time. The TDSB is planning to spend approximately $15M for new technology and any additional fundraising support would be used to supplement this technology.
So the country’s largest school board has been able to find $15-M in its budget (which means that some other important line item on this budget is going unfunded this year!) to begin to replace the technology that has been borrowed from schools and to provide additional technology for students who need technology at home to support their learning. The TDSB is relying on fundraising dollars to supplement its technology needs for schools and students, clearly acknowledging in its statements above that their $15-M spend on technology for this year is not going to be sufficient.
The TDSB is just one school board out of 72 school boards in this province. So, if the entire $15-M amount of new funding provided by our provincial government in the face of the COVID-pandemic is not even sufficient for one school board to completely meet its technology requirements for schools and students, then clearly – this level of provincial funding is grossly inadequate.
Fix Our Schools believes that we could have agreed years ago that technology, as well as fast, stable wifi, is a critical element of the Ontario public school infrastructure in order to accommodate “21st-century learning”. In the face of the current high school learning model in many school boards, as well as the recent provincial changes to Ontario’s math curriculum (which includes coding and therefore necessitates access to technology), the criticality of technology within our school infrastructure has become even more pronounced.
Fix Our Schools believes that our provincial government is being grossly negligent by failing to provide the required funding to all school boards to be able to quickly ensure that the technology and wifi requirements for all schools and students are met as soon as possible.