Back-to-school “Plan” for Ontario’s 2-million Students

July 8, 2020

In the weeks since Education Minister Lecce announced the “plan” for Ontario’s 2-million children to return to school in September, many concerns have been raised by many people.

In a July 2, 2020 opinion piece in the Globe and Mail entitled, “Education is a human right, but it certainly hasn’t been a COVID-19 priority”, Lauren Dobson-Hughes states that, “Education is a human right. But you would not know this in most of Canada, where lockdowns are ending, people are returning to work, and patios and nail salons are open, all while parents are hearing that children might only be attending school a couple of days a week in the fall – if schools open at all.” She goes on to state that, “We must make the safe return to school a political and national priority.” Fix Our Schools wholeheartedly agrees with the notion that publicly funded education and schools must be prioritized. We have been advocating for safe, healthy, well-maintained schools in Ontario since 2014. Since late May of this year, we have been urging our provincial government to prioritize public education and schools in this province and to commit to the funding required for a safe, healthy return to school in September.

In a June 29, 2020 article in Today’s Parent entitled, “Ontario’s back-to-school plan ignores a glaringly obvious problem”  Kalli Anderson asserts that, “a truly responsible, proactive plan for the fall would include hiring more teachers and early childhood educators and working with municipalities to free up additional physical spaces, like community centres, that could be used for small-group learning. A truly ambitious, forward-thinking plan might involve experiments in outdoor education or other experiential non-classroom-based learning. If our government is actually concerned about children and families, it needs to invest now to avoid a cascade of further public health, education, and economic crises in years to come.” Fix Our Schools also agrees wholeheartedly that our provincial government must invest now and pursue an ambitious, forward-thinking plan to eliminate the almost $17-billion of disrepair that plagues Ontario’s schools and to pursue out-of-the-box solutions that could leverage outdoor learning and alternate spaces in the short-term.

As Fix Our Schools has maintained since 2014, our publicly funded schools are critical infrastructure. However, successive provincial governments have allowed over $16-billion of disrepair to accumulate in these buildings over the last several decades. The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that, with political will, previously unimaginable public resources can be found and allocated. Now is the time for political will to be applied to our publicly funded schools and education system and public funds prioritized to pursue ambitious, forward-thinking plans for Ontario’s schools.

For instance, let’s consider ventilation in Ontario’s schools. The SickKids report recommends that good ventilation in classrooms ought to be part of a safe plan to return to school. However, the sad fact is that many schools in this province have classrooms with no windows, windows that do not open, windows that only open a tiny bit, and overall bad ventilation. When Fix Our Schools called out to citizens to provide specific examples of ventilation concerns, we heard back plenty of examples from across the province. Arguably, children, teachers, and education workers would always have benefited from good ventilation in classrooms. The COVID-19 pandemic has only served to emphasize the importance of good ventilation to learning and health. So again, let’s use this moment to exert the political will to make real change in how we prioritize and fund public education and schools in this province.

Ontario’s 2-million students need to know that the adults in charge are committed to their education, their mental health, and their development. Our economy also demands a prioritization of public education and schools. As our Education Minister said previously, “Our schools are a learning environment for 2-million students, and a workplace for almost 200,000 teachers and education workers. The re-opening of schools in a safe and effective way is essential for the development and mental health of our children, our economy, and our well-being as a province”

Fix Our Schools agrees with this quote from Minister Lecce. We will believe that his words actually mean something when we see his government commit to prioritizing public schools and education by allocating adequate, stable provincial funding.