Getting Children Back to School Has to Be Our Top Priority

July 23, 2020

As per the July 18, 2020 article in School Magazine entitled, “Re-opening schools in September – many loaded questions”, “in just over a month, roughly 2 million Ontario students may get ready to return to school after 6 months away from the classroom. But, in the light of COVID-19, it’s not at all clear how a safe return will work. There are a lot of factors in play, but the overriding one is money.” 

In a July 20, 2020 opinion piece in the Globe & Mail entitled, “Getting children back to school has to be our top priority“, André Picard states, “six months into the pandemic and six weeks shy of the traditional post-Labour Day return to school, the question we need to ask is not, “Should kids return to school?” The question we need to ask and answer is: How can we ensure that children return to school as safely as possible?“. Picard urges governments and school boards to stop dithering and propose clear reopening plans so that these plans can be debated, discussed and tweaked. Wisely, he concludes that “getting children back in the classroom, smartly and safely, has to be the number one priority of politicians, public-health officials, educators and parents alike. Bars, restaurants, hair salons, golf clubs and the like should all take a back seat to ensuring that children get an education – and a childhood – pandemic or not.”

Fix Our Schools agrees that provincial funding and leadership is key to ensuring children can return to school in September as safely as possible. Since June 1, Fix Our Schools has been calling on the Ford government to prioritize publicly funded schools and education and commit the funding required for a safe return to school. We urge you to assist in building the political pressure needed to make this happen.

Please mark July 29th on your calendar to visit your local MPP’s office at noon and demand a safe and fully funded return to school for Ontario’s students. Ontario Families for Public Education and the Ontario Parents Action Network are organizing this event and ask that you please register here.

When you connect with your local MPP, be sure to remind them that even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, provincial funding for schools was grossly inadequate, allowing $16.3-billion of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s school buildings. Below, we’ve listed school disrepair details for PC ridings where local MPPs signed the Fix Our Schools Pledge during the last provincial election, committing personally to ensuring all Ontario schools are provided adequate funding to ensure they are safe, healthy, well-maintained and provide environments conducive to learning.

Now would be the perfect time to remind these MPPs of their commitment and to hold them to their election promise! And please be sure to point out that for a safe return to school amidst a global pandemic, school boards will need additional funding to ensure PPE availability, good ventilation in classrooms, reasonable classroom temperatures, proper hand hygiene and cleanliness, and sufficient caretaking staff, to name but a few details.

Andrea Khanjin: $36.2-M of disrepair in Barrie-Innisfil schools

Michael Parsa: $45.9-M of disrepair in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill schools

Bill Walker: $84.4-M of disrepair in Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound schools

Jane McKenna: $177.1-M of disrepair in Burlington schools

Vincent Ke: $191.5-M of disrepair in Don Valley North schools

Robin Martin: $181.7-M of disrepair in Eglinton-Lawrence schools

Kinga Surma: $281.6-M of disrepair in Etobicoke-Centre schools

Christine Hogarth: $151.8-M of disrepair in Etobicoke-Lakeshore schools

Daryl Kramp: $115.9-M of disrepair in Hastings-Lennox-Addington schools

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

Natalia Kusendova: $113-M of disrepair in Mississauga Centre schools

Rudy Cuzzetto: $237.9-M of disrepair in Mississauga Lakeshore schools

Deepak Anand: $92-M of disrepair in Mississauga Malton schools

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

Christina Mitas: $212.2-M of disrepair in Scarborough-Centre schools

Lorne Coe: $102.1-M of disrepair in Whitby schools

Stan Cho: $125-M of disrepair in Willowdale schools

Roman Baber: $171.2-M of disrepair in York Centre schools

Ontario’s education funding formula has allowed this gobsmacking amount of disrepair to accumulate in school buildings where your children spend their days. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare how critically important it is for a society to have schools that are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. The COVID-19 pandemic has also made it clear that, with sufficient 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 to ensure this critical public infrastructure is safe, healthy, well-maintained and offers environments conducive to learning and working. 2-million Ontario children, their families, their teachers, and the education workers who support them all deserve nothing less.