Demand a Safe and Fully Funded Return to School

July 20, 2020

Fix Our Schools urges every citizen in this province to demand a safe and fully funded return to school in September! Ontario Families for Public Education and the Ontario Parents Action Network are calling upon every parent, teacher, education worker, and citizen to visit their local MPP’s office between noon – 1 pm on Wednesday, July 29 to demand a safe and fully funded return to school.

Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, our provincial government grossly underfunded schools to the extent that $16.3-billion of disrepair had been allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s school buildings. Please consider that in a COVID-19 reality, items such as PPE, good ventilation, reasonable classroom temperatures, resources to ensure proper hand hygiene and cleanliness, sufficient caretaking staff, water-bottle filling stations all become items that are even more important for students, teachers and education workers to be safe and healthy in their place of learning/work.

For those of you who live in a riding with a PC MPP, we urge you to make a special point of pressuring your local MPP to ensure a safe, fully funded return to school. Mark July 29th at noon on your calendar now to visit your local MPPs office. Below, you will find school disrepair details for many PC ridings and we  will provide details for additional PC ridings later this week:

Doug Ford: $178.4-M of disrepair in Etobicoke-North’s schools

Stephen Lecce: $30.9-M of disrepair in King-Vaughan schools

Rod Phillips: $74.5-M of disrepair in Ajax schools

Christine Elliott: $72.1-M of disrepair in Newmarket-Aurora schools

Raymond Cho: $111.8-M of disrepair in Scarborough-North schools

Vic Fedeli: $96-M of disrepair in Nipissing schools

Merrilee Fullerton: $77.5-M of disrepair in Ottawa-Carleton schools

Ernie Hardeman: $118.8-M of disrepair in Oxford schools

Lisa MacLeod: $98.8-M of disrepair in Nepean schools

Monte McNaughton: $131.4-M of disrepair in Lambton-Kent-Middlesex schools

Lisa Thompson: $113.8-M of disrepair in Huron-Bruce schools

Jeff Yurek: $176.9-M of disrepair in Elgin-Middlesex-London

The provincial education funding formula has allowed this gobsmacking amount of disrepair to accumulate in buildings where children spend their days. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the criticality of safe, healthy, well-maintained school buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. The COVID-19 pandemic has also revealed that, with political will, previously unimaginable public resources can be found and allocated.

The time is now to demand that our provincial government prioritize public education and schools by providing the funding that is actually needed. The time is now for political will to be applied so that previously unimaginable public resources can be found and allocated to ensure all Ontario schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. Adequate and stable provincial funding is imperative for a safe return to school amidst a global pandemic and, quite frankly, for always.