Frustration indeed. We hear from teachers all the time about awful learning/working conditions in their schools and classrooms but this letter was particularly poignant. We wanted to share:
“I have followed you since you started this campaign. I grew up and taught in the US, then taught abroad for a year before coming to Ontario. In my first teaching assignment here, I taught half-day kindergarten. As soon as I saw the learning space, I immediately went to the Vice Principal about the peeling paint in the room where 3-5 year olds would be spending their day. He appreciated my concern, but the only one who did anything about it was me: I sanded it.
I was shocked when I went into the daycare room in the same school to find fresh paint in vibrant colours. I asked about it and the daycare worker matter-of-factly stated, “We would be shut down if we had peeling paint.” But it’s the same kids! How can It be that there are standards if you call it “daycare,” but anything goes if it’s labelled “school?”
In that same kindergarten room, the heat was relentless in the winter time. When I inquired about it, I was told to open the window!
At another school, I took off the rad covers and vacuumed out the entire heater because the dust in them was so thick I thought, “If it’s impacting me, it must be hard on the grade one students in my class.” Why did I do the work myself? It seemed to be nobody’s job. Vacuuming or blowing out the rads are not on the summer cleaning list, and it was clear that it would never be done or take years if a request was put in.
Things that had been fixed at the school lacked follow-through. For instance, a new toilet paper holder had been installed in a multi-use washroom, but the mess from the old one was left behind. So, I pulled out the plastic plugs, filled in the holes and painted it. While I was doing it I fixed the peeling paint around the sink and a big hole in the wall. The entire time, I felt I had to be very sneaky about it, hoping I didn’t get caught, but it had been like that for the two years since I’d been there, so I finally decided to fix it myself.
At a third school, a decade earlier a teacher had put wallpaper on the wall to dress it up. However, by the time I arrived, it was peeling and sagging. So, I pulled the paper off at the end of the school year. The summer went by and nothing had been done about the wall. The week before school, I finished scrubbing and scraping and painted the small wall between two windows. The caretaker was very upset by my action, claiming we could be sued if anyone found out I had painted the wall. I know other teachers, principals and parents who have “snuck in” and fixed things as well. Complete frustration.
I know the Fix Our Schools campaign is addressing HUGE needs at the schools, but why can’t the little things be addressed too? Children deserve to learn in conditions and environments that are clean, safe, healthy and just plain pleasant – that isn’t too much to ask I don’t think. We need our whole education system to run with our end “customers” in mind – the children! There has to be a way for provincial funding, school board budgets, unions, parents, teachers and community to come together and Fix Our Schools.
It is late May and temperatures are soaring. The vast majority of Ontario schools do not have air conditioning, many have classrooms without blinds, and often classroom windows do not open fully to be able to get an actual breeze. And yet, children in Ontario have another month of school left and many are writing EQAO tests.
