Monthly Archives: December 2015

Auditor-General’s 2015 Report: How disrepair in Ontario’s public schools is assessed

December 30, 2015

We’ve copied and pasted the following section on how disrepair in Ontario’s public schools is assessed from page 13 of Chapter 3 of the  2015 Auditor-General’s report, since there is a lot of interesting information for people concerned with the state of disrepair in Ontario’s public schools:

“In 2011, to quantify the current backlog of renewal needs for all Ontario schools, the Ministry of Education hired a company specializing in asset management to conduct condition assessments on all schools five years and older. The assessments are being done over a five year period covering about 20% of the schools per year. The assessors visit each school and conduct a non-invasive inspection of all major building components and systems (for example, basement, foundation, and HVAC systems).

School portables, third-party leased facilities, equipment and furnishings, maintenance shops and additional administrative buildings are not assessed as part of this exercise. Currently, with 80% of the schools assessed, the Ministry is reporting a total renewal need of $14 billion, $1.7 billion deemed as critical and urgent (i.e., renewal work that should not be postponed due to risk of imminent failure).

An investment of about $1.4 billion per year based on an industry average of 2.5% of the $55 billion replacement value is estimated to be required to maintain the schools in a state of good repair. But actual annual funding in the last five years had been $150 million a year, increasing to $250 million in 2014/15 and $500 million in 2015/16.

The Ministry allocates this funding to school boards based on a percentage calculated by dividing the school boards’ individual needs by the total renewal need of $14 billion. Distributing the funding in proportion to individual school boards’ critical needs should be considered to at least ensure that the critical needs are met.

The assessments made during the first year of the condition assessment exercise are now five years old. Therefore, any further deterioration or repairs that might have been undertaken on those schools over this period have not been captured.”

Auditor-General’s Report: Overcrowding + underfunding = big problems in Ontario schools

December 27, 2015

According to the 2015 Auditor-General’s report, our children’s reality in public schools looks like this:

  • Over HALF of Ontario schools are at least 40 years old.
  • Over 100,000 Ontario students are in portables.
  • 1 out of every 10 schools in Ontario is overcapacity, operating at 120% or more utilization.

Yet, our provincial government’s actions have looked like this:

  • Over the last five years the Ministry of Education has approved only a third of the building projects that school boards have required (to address overcrowding and age).
  • The Auditor-General estimates that $1.4 Billion per year is needed to maintain schools in “a state of good repair,”. Yet in the last five years, the provincial government has allocated only $150-million – $500-million, amounts that equal only 10%- 35% of what is actually needed.
  • For the most part, new projects are favoured over repair and renewal of existing buildings, despite evidence that it should be the opposite.
  • In 2011, the Ministry of Education hired a firm to inspect and assess the conditions of all schools that were five years and older. Total disrepair in Ontario public schools is estimated to be over $15-billion, with over $1.7-billion deemed as critical and urgent (i.e., renewal work that should not be postponed due to risk of imminent failure).
  • The Ministry of Education allocates funding for school renewal based on an overall provincial formula rather than distributing the funding in proportion to individual school boards’ critical needs. The Auditor recommends changing that.
  • School boards can raise additional funds by selling schools with low enrolment, but many boards – for a variety of reasons and competing interests – are reluctant to do that.

We need our provincial government to take a leadership role in addressing both disrepair and overcrowding in our children’s schools.

 

2015 Auditor-General’s report: a synopsis on school repairs falling behind from People for Education

December 17, 2015

The following excerpt is an excellent synopsis from People for Education on the 2015 Auditor-General’s. It was provided in People for Education’s December 4, 2015 E-newsletter

School repair falling far behind

Among the findings in the report, focused on education:

  • There are currently over 100,000 Ontario students in portables and 10% of schools are operating at over 120% capacity.
  • Approximately $2.6 billion worth of building projects to address overcrowding are submitted to the Ministry of Education by school boards each year, but over the last five years only a third of them have been approved.
  • Over 50% of schools are at least 40 years old.
  • The Ministry of education estimates that $1.4 Billion per year is needed to maintain schools in “a state of good repair,” but actual funding over the last five years has averaged approximately $250 million annually.
  • For the most part, new projects are favoured over repair and renewal of existing buildings, despite evidence that it should be the opposite
  • In 2011, the Ministry of Education hired a firm to inspect and assess the conditions of all schools that were five years and older. Eighty per cent have been assessed and the Ministry now estimates a total renewal need of $14 billion, with $1.7 billion deemed as critical and urgent (i.e., renewal work that should not be postponed due to risk of imminent failure).
  • The Ministry of Education allocates funding for school renewal based on an overall provincial formula rather than distributing the funding in proportion to individual school boards’ critical needs. The Auditor recommends changing that.
  • School boards can raise additional funds by selling schools with low enrolment, but many boards – for a variety of reasons and competing interests – are reluctant to do that.

To read the full report, click here

To read the Auditor’s press release on infrastructure spending, click here

Open letter to Minister of Education on school repair backlog

December 15, 2015

NDP Education Critic Lisa Gretzky sent this open letter to the Minister of Education on the repair backlog plaguing Ontario schools.

MPP Gretzky states: “Organizations like Fix Our Schools have brought these issues to your attention time and time again” and goes on to say, “the Auditor General’s report makes it clear that years of neglect by your government have left schools across the province in a state of disrepair. Student and families should have access to quality community schools but your government continues to fail to deliver on even the fundamentals. Minister, it’s time to start listening to the Auditor General and fix our schools.”

Disappointing response from Province

December 15, 2015

While Fix Our Schools appreciates a response from the Minister of Education to the letter we sent on October 27, 2015, we were disappointed in its content. Click here to see formal response letter from  Minister Liz Sandals.

The tone is dismissive, placating and lacks any urgency to fix our schools. The content is surprising given the recently released 2015 Auditor-General’s report confirmed $1.4-billion/year is needed simply to keep schools in a state of good repair (never mind the $15-billion repair backlog that has been allowed to accumulate under the provincial government’s funding model and watch!).

We found Minister Sandals’ response to be completely insufficient for the following reasons:

  • She points to a $1.25-billion investment in schools over 3 years via the School Condition Improvement grant as a positive accomplishment. However, the 2015 Auditor-General’s report confirmed that $1.4 billion per year is needed simply to keep schools in a state of good repair. Therefore, the amount that Minister Sandals is highlighting actually constitutes gross underfunding of buildings in which children spend 6 hours each day.
  • She says, “these historic investments have led to significant improvements in Ontario’s infrastructure.”  Minister Sandals fails to acknowledge that under this Liberal government’s watch, the total disrepair in Ontario’s schools has grown to a total of $15-billion – which is surely not a “significant improvement”?
  • The $11-billion committed over 10 years to school infrastructure is simply insufficient. This funding commitment is earmarked for not only addressing the $15-billion repair backlog but also for building brand new schools and building new additions. As noted in the 2015 Auditor-General’s report, “the province’s current 10-year capital plan for infrastructure spending proposed by the ministries has only about one-third of funding allocated to renewal, and the remaining two-thirds to new projects.” Therefore, only $3.7-billion over 10 years is really allocated to addressing disrepair in Ontario schools. Compare this amount to the existing $15-billion repair backlog and we have a situation where school conditions will continue to deteriorate in our public schools unless new funding solutions are found.
  • Finally, Minister Sandals doesn’t answer the one question asked in the letter: How much of the federal infrastructure money that is expected to flow to provincial coffers from our new Liberal Federal Government will you commit to repairing and rebuilding Ontario’s public schools?”

Overall, a huge disappointment. We have shared this disappointing response with media contacts, both provincial Education Critics and will be following up with the Province, highlighting the inadequacy of their response, urging them to take the Auditor-General’s report seriously and increase capital funding to school infrastructure in this province immediately.

Auditor-General’s Report: What condition are we striving for in schools?

December 9, 2015

The 2015 Auditor-General’s Report raises the concern that there are no guidelines for the desired condition at which facilities should be maintained. There is also no consistent standard for how Ministries ought to measure the condition of assets such as highways, bridges, schools and hospitals.

A bit shocking that the provincial government has gone so far as to log all the disrepair in schools but has not concerned themselves with setting an actual goal to measure success.

Here is an excerpt from page 11-12, Chapter 3 of the 2015 Auditor-General’s Report: which provides examples of how various Ontario Ministries approach determining asset condition and also provides the example of how Alberta approaches this issue in a more transparent, solution-oriented manner:

Assumptions Vary in Calculating Asset Condition

Ministries generally use the Facility Condition Index (FCI), an industry-standard measure of a building’s condition at a given time, to determine if their assets are in good, fair or poor condition. The FCI is calculated by combining the total cost of any needed or outstanding repairs with the renewal or upgrade requirements of the building, divided by the current replacement value. In essence, it is the ratio of “repair needs” to “replacement value,” expressed as a percentage. The higher the FCI, the greater the renewal need.

However, ministries make different assumptions in estimating their repair needs. In its 2015/16 submission to the Secretariat, for example, the Ministry of Education identified an FCI of about 36% for its schools overall by including its current repair backlog and five years of future repair needs in its calculation. In contrast, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care included its current repair backlog and only two years of repair needs in its calculation, and arrived at an average FCI of 23% for its facilities. Because these two ministries assessed the conditions of their respective assets differently, it is difficult to determine which of them has a higher priority need overall.

For highways and bridges, the Ministry of Transportation takes a different approach in assessing their condition. It classifies its highway pavements and bridges as being in good, fair, and poor condition. Pavements and bridges are considered in good condition if they will not require any rehabilitation work for six or more years. Based on this assessment, the Ministry has classified 77% of the pavements and 83% of bridges that they are responsible for to be in good condition.

In comparison, Alberta uses a government-wide standardized FCI as a common measure to enable ministries to compare condition ratings across facility types (schools, post-secondary institutions, government-owned buildings and health-care facilities). It calculates its FCI using current backlogs and five years of future repair needs.

Alberta has targets for the percentage of facilities to be in good, fair and poor condition for the different sectors, and it reports the actual percentage in each category publicly each year, along with the progress made towards achieving each sector’s targets. It uses the following definitions:

• Good—the facility’s FCI is less than 15%, is adequate for intended use and expected to provide continued service life with average maintenance.

• Fair—facilities with an FCI between 15% and 40%, inclusive, have aging components nearing the end of their lifecycle and require additional expenditures for renewal or refurbishing.

• Poor—facilities with an FCI greater than 40% require upgrading to comply with minimum codes or standards, and deterioration has reached the point where major repairs or replacement are necessary.

TDSB Governance Report Issued (finally!)

December 8, 2015

Submitted on August 19,2015 to the Minister of Education, the TDSB Governance Advisory Panel’s report was finally released on December 4, 2015. The report offers many reasonable recommendations to improve role clarity, accountability and leadership on both the Trustee and Staff side of the TDSB, which the panel believes are root causes of TDSB governance issues.

The panel acknowledges the “potential chaos” that could ensue should the Ministry decide to split up the TDSB and therefore, recommends a one-year opportunity to make improvements before seriously pursuing breaking up Canada’s largest school board.

Taken from the report, here is a complete list of all recommendations:

6. Recommendations

Many concerns and problems at the TDSB are related to size, but not size exclusively. There are several issues that need to be addressed, regardless of the size of the board. At the same time, the panel is very aware of the potential chaos of actually dividing the board. Therefore, our recommendations provide the board with a one-year opportunity to work with the supervisor to implement the various initiatives that we think are needed to allow for more effective and transparent governance. If those changes are satisfactorily made, the board will remain as one board.

We know that our recommendations specific to those needed changes cannot be fully implemented in one year, but we believe that motivated, positive senior staff and trustees working collaboratively with a supportive supervisor can achieve enough to signal meaningful change is underway.

If that is not the case, and early signs of positive change are not evident, then, in spite of the disruption and additional cost that might occur, we believe that the board must be divided into two or more smaller boards.

We have, therefore, made recommendations on a two-stage response that we believe is required to address the significant challenges facing the TDSB. We have also made recommendations on supporting the capacity of trustees to fulfil their role effectively, on ways to improve accountability and transparency, and restructuring the organization of the board to improve connection and engagement with students, parents, staff and the community. Finally, we offer recommendations on the electoral process for trustees and student trustees.

Recommendation Regarding Board Supervision

Recommendation 1: That the Minister of Education immediately take steps to appoint a supervisor to work collaboratively with the board of trustees, the director of education and senior staff to implement the recommendations of this report.

Recommendations Regarding the Board of Trustees

Recommendation 2: That the board of trustees clarify and clearly communicate throughout the board and the community the roles and responsibilities of trustees and of the board of trustees in accordance with legislation and good governance practices.

Recommendation 3: That trustees be required to participate in ongoing professional development throughout their term of office and that in the future all trustees be required to participate in comprehensive governance orientation immediately after taking office.

Recommendation 4: That the board of trustees and the ministry review trustee professional development supports to ensure there are appropriate supports for trustees, including student trustees, to fulfil their role.

Recommendation 5: That the board of trustees engage in regular board self-assessments and measure its performance in relation to the goals set out in a redeveloped and realistic board multi-year strategic plan. As a transition measure, the board self-assessment should be conducted with the assistance of a third party.

Recommendation 6: That trustees serve a maximum of three consecutive terms of office.

Recommendation 7: That the board of trustees develop appropriate criteria for the skills and experience required of an effective chair, including but not limited to governance experience and training, conflict-management and consensus-building skills, and demonstrated experience working on city-wide and/or board-wide issues.

Recommendation 8: That an annual assessment of the chair is undertaken by the board of trustees to measure the chair’s performance in relation to his or her duties and responsibilities as set out in legislation and board policy and in accordance with good governance practices.

Recommendation 9: That the board of trustees expeditiously establish a mandate and structure for the two or more Education Centres, with particular attention to clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the trustees, executive superintendents, and school superintendents in these centres, as outlined in the panel’s report. (Appendix C shows a model of this structure with three Education Centres, for illustrative purposes.)

Recommendations Regarding Accountability and Transparency

Recommendation 10: That the board of trustees establish and adequately staff offices for an integrity officer and ombudsman, reporting to the board of trustees. Further, that the board adequately staff its Human Rights Office, and that the human rights officer report directly to the director of education. The board should establish and communicate across the organization and within the community clear roles, responsibilities and accountabilities for each office, and provide that all three officers annually report their activities publicly through the board of trustees.

Recommendation 11: That the role of the secretary of the board be separated from the role of the director of education, and that the board hire a person with the requisite governance skills and experience to be the secretary of the board, and who will report to the board of trustees.

Recommendation 12: That there be greater transparency in how members of the senior administrative team are selected throughout the organization, including appropriate job descriptions and consistent processes for responding to job postings, as well as clearly communicated policies that include principles and strategies for performance evaluation at all levels of the organization.

Recommendations Regarding the Position of Director of Education

Recommendation 13: That the board of trustees work to expeditiously review and clarify the roles and responsibilities of the director of education, board secretary and associate directors to reflect the recommendations in this report.

Recommendation 14: That the qualifications for the director of education be broadened to permit candidates who have equivalent academic qualifications from other jurisdictions to be eligible for the position, and that qualifications also include experience in areas of business management, finance and governance.

Recommendations Regarding Parent and Community Outreach

Recommendation 15: That the board restructure its administrative organization to create two or more local Education Centres staffed by not less than one school superintendent for every 20 schools. The Education Centres will conduct all business relating to the supervision of the smaller clusters of schools assigned to each school superintendent. (Appendix C shows a model of this structure with three Education Centres, for illustrative purposes.)

Recommendation 16: That the board expand its use of community outreach workers to assist families to navigate the school system and other community supports for their children. The outreach workers will be hired by the school board and be employees of the board.

Recommendations Regarding Student Trustees and Student Leadership

Recommendation 17: That student trustees have a binding vote on matters before the board, with the exception of those matters that are discussed in closed meetings of the board in accordance with the Education Act.

Recommendation 18: That the board consult with student trustees, on behalf of the student body, and receive their recommendations on student trustee election eligibility; improved representative student trustee election process; student trustee representation by geographic areas; student trustee term restructuring; and SuperCouncil representation and communication with Grades 7–12. The board must give consideration to the recommendations and respond in a timely manner.

Recommendations Regarding Governance Restructuring

Recommendation 19: That following a full year’s operation, the supervisor undertake an assessment of the progress made by the board of trustees and board administration and make a recommendation to the Minister as to whether the board of trustees and board administration have met the following key performance indicators; if not, the ministry is to proceed to stage two of the recommendations of the TDSB Governance Advisory Panel.

  • Trustee Role Clarification: The board of trustees has clarified and communicated their roles and responsibilities as governors, and has established a plan for their ongoing training and professional development.
  • Clarification of Roles and Responsibilities: In the first three months of the work of the supervisor and the director, the roles and responsibilities of the following senior staff positions have been reviewed and clarified: director of education, board secretary and associate directors.
  • Accountability and Transparency: In addition to the integrity commissioner position the TDSB has recently established, create and staff the Office of the Ombudsman, and adequately staff the Human Rights Office.
  • Administrative Reorganization: The mandate and structure of Education Centres has been established, with particular attention to clarity on the roles and responsibilities of executive superintendents and school superintendents. The Education Centres are staffed by an expanded cohort of school superintendents.
  • Strengthened Management and Governance: The director has reported to the board of trustees and the supervisor on any outstanding recommendations from previous board audits and reviews that have not yet been fully implemented, and the action and resources required to give full effect: 2012 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report; Ernst & Young LLP 2013 report; and the 2015 Wilson Report.
  • Strategic Planning: The board of trustees has reviewed its multi-year plan to support student achievement and well-being, and identified key priorities for annual focus and review, with criteria and timelines for measuring progress.
  • Director Performance Appraisal: The board of trustees has established a clear and transparent process for an annual performance appraisal of the director of education, based on the goals set out in the director’s Annual Plan.
  • Board Self-Assessment: The board of trustees has an approved policy in place requiring regular self-assessments as to how it functions and how board members engage in ongoing professional development to enhance their individual and collective capacity to govern effectively.
  • Board Policy, By-laws and Procedures: Board policies, by-laws and related procedures have been reviewed to ensure that operational or political ownership of system responsibilities to support student achievement are clearly delineated. The review process should involve broad system and community consultation and two-way communication regarding changes to existing practice.
  • Board Meetings: An assessment of agendas of board and committee meetings indicates that the board of trustees is focused on governance issues.
  • Student Trustee Engagement: The board has consulted with student trustees and has provided a timely response to their recommendations specific to student trustee election eligibility; improved representative student trustee election process; student trustee representation by geographic areas; student trustee term restructuring; and SuperCouncil representation and communication with Grades 7–12.

Recommendation 20: If stage two is to be implemented, the ministry would take the following action:

  • undertake the legislative and regulatory work required to establish two or more independent smaller school boards with a mandatory shared services corporation as outlined in the panel’s report. (Appendix D shows a model of this structure with two boards, for illustrative purposes.)
  • determine a timeline for creating the new school boards that takes into consideration the timing of the 2018 municipal and school board elections.

Contents

 

Auditor-General’s 2015 Report: Summary on infrastructure planning

December 3, 2015

We’ve copied and pasted the following section on infrastructure planning from Chapter 1: Summaries of the 2015 Auditor-General’s report, since much of the discussion is focused on schools as infrastructure and is of interest to Fix Our Schools:

“Ontario’s portfolio of public infrastructure includes highways, bridges, transit systems, schools, universities, hospitals, government buildings, and a wide variety of other assets. It has a replacement value of close to $500 billion.

The Ontario government oversees about 40% of these assets, either directly or through broader public-sector organizations such as school boards and hospitals.

Much of Ontario’s current stock of infrastructure was built between the end of the Second World War and the 1970s. Infrastructure spending slowed between 1980 and 2005, but picked up again in the last 10 years.

Many infrastructure assets are older. The average age of hospitals in Ontario, for example, is 45 years, while the average of schools is 38 years. More than half of all hospitals and schools in the province are at least 40 years old.

In the last 10 years, Ontario’s largest infrastructure spending has been in the transportation sector, followed by health and education. Over those 10 years, for example, the province spent nearly $20 billion on transit projects, more than $23 billion on roads and bridges, nearly $25 billion on major hospital and other health-care projects, and nearly $21 billion on schools and post-secondary facilities. Infrastructure spending includes preserving or expanding existing assets, and building new ones.

Proper planning is necessary to ensure infrastructure needs are identified and existing infrastructure is adequately maintained and renewed for public use. Such planning must take into account the benefits of infrastructure investment, the risks to the public when needed facilities are not built or are allowed to deteriorate, and the resources required to meet future demand.

The Treasury Board Secretariat (Secretariat), responsible for reviewing infrastructure funding requests from ministries, generally evaluated each ministry on a stand-alone, historical basis, and did no comparison at an overall provincial level to ensure the most pressing needs receive top priority for funding. Some of our significant observations include the following:

• Two-thirds of funding is planned to go toward building new assets and one-third to repairs and renewals of existing facilities, even though the province’s analyses has determined that it should be the other way around in order to adequately maintain and renew existing public infrastructure.

• There are no guidelines for the desired condition at which facilities should be maintained, and there is no consistency among ministries on how to measure the condition of asset classes such as highways, bridges, schools, and hospitals.

• Ontario lacks a reliable estimate of its infrastructure deficit—the investment needed to rehabilitate existing assets to an “acceptable” condition—to better inform where spending should be directed.

• An independent assessment calculated that the Ministry of Education needs $1.4 billion a year to maintain schools in a state of good repair. However, actual annual funding in the last five years has ranged from $150 million to $500 million.

• A similar assessment done for the Ministry of Health and Long-term Care identified annual funding needs of $392 million for the province’s hospitals. However, funding since 2010/11 was just $56 million, and rose to $125 million in 2014/15.

• Existing funding does not address significant pressures faced by ministries for new projects. For example, there are 100,000 students in temporary accommodations (portables) and about 10% of schools in the province are operating at over 120% capacity. Although portables are needed to provide some flexibility to address changes in school capacity, existing funding is not sufficient to rehabilitate the existing portfolio and to replace these structures with more permanent accommodations in some cases.

• The Secretariat did not know how well individual projects were managed. Our review of reports from the ministries to the Secretariat noted that information is generally reported at a program level only, and not on individual projects within a program. Instead, the Secretariat relies on ministries to monitor individual projects.”

 

Auditor-General’s Report confirms gross underfunding of public schools

December 3, 2015

The following excerpt from the summary of the 2015 Auditor-General’s report confirms that Ontario’s provincial government has grossly underfunded public school infrastructure in our province for many years:

“An independent assessment calculated that the Ministry of Education needs $1.4 billion a year to maintain schools in a state of good repair. However, actual annual funding in the last five years has ranged from $150 million to $500 million.”

The $1.4 billion per year that is needed is for maintenance intended to KEEP buildings in good repair; and does not include the funding required to address the $15-billion of outstanding repairs that have been allowed to accumulate under provincial watch and funding for the past two decades.

If only some of the $37-billion that Ontarians have overpaid for electricity since 2006 has gone to repairing and rebuilding Ontario’s public schools, 2-million children would be attending schools that are in much better shape!

 

 

Fix Our Schools – 13 months in and going strong!

December 1, 2015

The Fix Our Schools campaign is a grassroots, non-partisan, parent-led campaign asking for safe, well-maintained Ontario public schools that are funded as an integral part of our public infrastructure – on par with transit.

We believe the 2-million children who attend Ontario public schools deserve safe, well-maintained schools, as do the adults who work every day in these buildings. We believe both students and teachers deserve environments that are conducive to learning and teaching.

We also believe that our provincial government must take responsibility for the unacceptable level of disrepair that has accumulated in Ontario’s schools and take the lead in finding funding solutions to address the $15-billion capital repair backlog in Ontario’s schools. For 2015/16, the provincial government has allocated an amount that is less than 5% of what is needed to address this $15-billion of disrepair. While this is significantly more than in previous years, it is still insufficient and disrepair will continue to worsen in Ontario’s schools.

The Fix Our Schools campaign is building a large, connected network of people in Ontario who share these beliefs and want to work together to effect change. The campaign launched in October 2014 and, in the 13 months since then, we’ve built a network of close to 1,500 people that is growing daily. This network gives us far more collective power than we’d have as individuals so we are working hard to continue to grow our base of support to include people from all areas of the province.

If you value public schools as important infrastructure and believe that these buildings must be repaired and rebuilt – then please ensure you: