On January 7, 2019, Fix Our Schools had the opportunity to meet with Education Minister Thompson, who signed the Fix Our Schools Pledge leading up to the provincial election in June.
She seemed open to working with Fix Our Schools and genuinely concerned about the state of Ontario’s schools. We discussed the following asks and agreed to ongoing dialogue on each:
1) Ensure that the guiding principles of adequacy, affordability, equity, stability, flexibility, and accountability, as outlined in the 2002 Rozanski report, are followed in your government’s approach to funding public education.
2) Develop a standard of good repair for all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools.
3) Continue to collect and publicly release annual updates on school disrepair data; adding portables to this process.
4) Commit the additional $1.6-billion/year investment required to eliminate the $15.9-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s publicly funded schools in the coming seven years:
+ an additional $1.3 billion/year in renewal funding
+ an additional $100 million/year to cover amortized cost of rebuilding 346 schools
+ an additional $165 million/year for operational maintenance in schools
= AN ADDITIONAL $1.6 BILLION OF ANNUAL FUNDING until the $15.9 repair backlog is eliminated and the $1 billion of SCI funding can be redirected
Reactive repairs waste taxpayer money and the vast majority of repairs at schools are now reactive.
5) Implement a new approach to school closures.
6) Help us work with your Ministry to ensure the provincial government allocates a larger piece of the overall pie to publicly funded education.