The Ontario Alliance Against School Closures (OAASC) is an important group representing the interests of communities that have been negatively impacted by school closures, the majority of which are in rural and northern Ontario. Despite their focus being on school closures and our focus being on school building conditions, our work frequently intersects because the same root causes of provincial underfunding and misguided provincial education policies inform both these key educational issues.
OAASC conducts excellent research, lead community advocacy and have recently unearthed some disturbing data that they recently shared with us:
We are pleased to share our letter to the leaders of Ontario’s political parties and our report supporting our request to halt school closures until a “value for money audit” of the capital cost of closing schools is completed.
We have identified 301 school closures since 2014 that are associated with capital expenditures exceeding $1.7 billion. This capital spending is out-stripping the renewal needs of schools tied to these closures. This is still escalating as the Ministry of Education continues to approve capital projects without media releases.
We have uncovered an estimated $18.8 million in capital recently spent on schools that have since closed and slated for imminent closure. An inefficient use of capital.
We believe the next governing party of Ontario must shift from an infrastructure priority to an education priority. Keeping our existing schools in a good state of repair must be a priority.
The capital and social costs are adding up.