In the first of a two-part investigative series in Toronto.com entitled, Deteriorating Schools reporters Cynthia Reason and Tamara Shephard explore why so many TDSB schools are in need of extensive repairs.
In this first part of the series, Etobicoke’s John English Junior Middle School is profiled because of its dubious honour of having the highest Facilities Condition Index (FCI) amongst all Etobicoke schools.
Pamela Gough, a 17-year Trustee veteran commented, “(School maintenance funding) is an issue that’s been there latent in the background since amalgamation 20 years ago, and has not been properly addressed for two decades. Meanwhile, the schools just keep getting worse and worse and worse. But because it’s so difficult an issue to address, because there are no easy fixes, and because it’s not a program issue, it tends to slide into the background.”
Steve Shaw, TDSB’s executive officer of facility services and planning, had the following to say about how inadequate provincial funding for school repairs plays out for school boards: “There are enough John English buildings out there, that we’re taking Band-Aid solutions versus building an entire new building or installing new components, because we don’t have the money.”
Fix Our Schools was quoted as saying, “Schools were so chronically and grossly underfunded for so long that every school board now is generally in a situation where the majority of their repairs are done reactively, not proactively. We know from industry research that can cost up to three times more — that is throwing money out the window. To expect boards to be efficient and effective, they really do need to be fully resourced in a stable manner.”
Heather Vickers, who recently spearheaded the relaunch of the Etobicoke Parent Network, had this to say about disrepair such as holes in school ceilings and walls, aging boiler rooms, and lack of air circulation within old school buildings, “If repairs like those in some of our schools were happening in our own homes — whatever the problem, we’d look at them right away, because no one would want to live like that. Yet here we have students spending eight hours of their day in these same kinds of conditions? That’s not acceptable.”