Fix Our Schools was so pleased to be able to volunteer with Progress Toronto on June 8 to knock on doors in Etobicoke North – a riding that is represented by Premier Doug Ford and a riding that has $178.4-million of disrepair in its publicly funded schools.
On our way to canvass, we passed a couple of publicly funded schools, both of which look pretty good from the outside. Therefore, it can be easy for parents and the general public to think that these schools are in good shape. However, they’d be wrong.
At West Humber CI, $13.9-million of repairs are needed as per most recent data released, including 3 URGENT ones and 27 HIGH PRIORITY repairs. The 3 urgent repairs include: Fire Alarm System renewal, Major Repair to Standard Foundations – Parging Repair, and Roofing. So you can see that all three of these repairs, despite their being marked urgent in nature, remain invisible and unnoticeable until there is system failure. Students, teachers and education workers who all spend their days in this building would have no way of knowing the fire alarm system may not work until there was a real fire and it failed. The same can be said for the roof – it may be fine for another year or two or perhaps many leaks will emerge after the next rain storm, leading to damage inside the building and possible unsafe electrical situations. Would you want your child attending a school where the number one repair needed was Fire Alarm System renewal?
At Elmbank Junior Middle Academy, $9.4-million of repairs are needed, including 21 repairs marked URGENT.
Unfortunately, since so much of the disrepair in Ontario’s publicly funded schools is on the inside of the schools and since so much of the disrepair in Ontario’s schools is invisible, people often mistakenly assume that local school conditions must be good. After all, children spend their days in these publicly funded buildings so how could we have possibly allowed so much disrepair to accumulate in this important public infrastructure?
We encourage you to click the link above to better understand how we have, indeed, allowed a gobsmacking $15.9-billlion of disrepair to accumulate in the school buildings where 2-million Ontario children spend their days. And we also encourage you to have a look at some of the photos we’ve collected over the years that illustrate some of the substandard conditions that students face in their schools.