On Thursday, November 14, Nova Scotia’s Education Minister Zach Churchill announced twelve new capital projects for schools across the province, including a new high school for Bedford, which will serve approximately 1,200 students. At Fix Our Schools, we’re wondering when Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce will start announcing new school buildings being built in this province?
Back in July, after 13 months of silence on the annual process of approving new school builds and additions in this province, Ontario’s Ministry of Education finally announced that they would resume the process of accepting business cases from school boards for new school builds and additions.
Prior to the election of the Ford government in June 2018, Ontario school boards were approached each summer by the Province to submit their top 10 school-based capital priorities for funding consideration. The Ministry of Education would then review these submissions and announce successful projects annually.
For the 13 months following the provincial election in June 2018 – this annual process was put on hold. So, in essence, Ontario students, teachers and education workers lost over a year where no new school builds or additions were approved by the provincial government. Knowing that disrepair in Ontario’s publicly funded schools has increased to $16.3-billion, we must start to address this massive issue more aggressively and, clearly, new school buildings must be a part of any solution that will truly fix Ontario’s schools.
At Fix Our Schools, we are anxious to hear an update on where the process stands for approving new school builds in Ontario. We hope to hear from Minister Lecce soon with specific announcements on capital projects that have been approved and can get underway.
We also hope to hear from Minister Lecce that his Ministry will update and release school disrepair data for school buildings across this province. The last time this important data was updated and released was over two years ago in October 2017.