Monthly Archives: October 2020

MPP Clark: $107-Million of Disrepair in Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lake

October 29, 2020

Dear MPP Clark

Did you know there is $107-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lake? We commend you for signing the Fix Our Schools Pledge during the election, and making the personal commitment to ensure all Ontario’s schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working.

We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lake:

J. L. Jordan  $                    476,571
St. Edward  $                    590,767
St. Francis Xavier  Brockville  $                1,260,701
St. John Bosco  Brockville  $                    331,015
St. John CHS  $                4,747,481
St. Joseph  Gananoque  $                    276,693
St. Joseph  Toledo  $                    120,219
St. Mary CHS  $                1,448,145
Athens District High School  $                3,153,473
Brockville Collegiate Institute  $                5,236,600
Centennial ’67 Public School  $                1,262,526
Commonwealth Public School  $                3,987,977
Front of Yonge Public School  $                    451,451
Gananoque Secondary School  $              10,093,658
Linklater Public School  $                3,497,574
Lombardy Public School  $                2,787,549
Lyn Public School  $                1,695,599
Maynard Public School  $                4,366,558
Meadowview Public School  $                      61,812
OxfordOnRideau Public School  $                2,656,199
Pineview Public School  $                1,140,588
Prince of Wales Public School  $                4,926,687
Rideau Centennial Elementary School  $                1,708,323
Rideau District High School  $                6,606,508
Rideau Vista Public School  $                1,709,871
South Crosby Public School  $                2,481,787
South Edwardsburg PS  $                2,357,611
South Grenville District High School  $              11,148,722
Sweets Corners Elementary School  $                2,663,287
The Stewart School  $                    128,842
Thousand Islands Secondary School  $              12,315,593
Toniata Public School  $                1,679,841
TR Leger – Prescott  $                1,980,814
Vanier Public School  $                3,275,453
Wellington Elementary School  $                1,210,162
Westminster Public School  $                3,128,186
ÉÉC AngeGabriel  $                      60,156

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors. 

Technology is Critical Infrastructure in Schools to Delivery Curriculum

October 27, 2020

When the COVID pandemic shuttered schools back in March, millions of dollars worth of technology was, understandably, taken from Ontario’s public schools and redistributed to students who needed this technology in order to access online learning. When Ontario’s public schools opened their doors again in September, the majority of the technology that was borrowed has not been returned to those schools. Again – for good reasons. Many students have opted to attend on-line school this year and, for many high school students in Ontario, online learning is a significant component of their education, if they opted for in-school learning.

All of these decisions make perfect sense.

What makes zero sense is that our provincial government has done absolutely nothing to ensure that the students who opted to return to in-school learning also have access to the technology that they require for learning. In fact, Fix Our Schools is starting to hear from parents and teachers alike that the new provincial math curriculum (that includes a coding component and therefore demands access to technology) requires students to “bring their own device” to school or to conduct their work at home so that curriculum requirements can be met.

The inequity of this situation is appalling and Fix Our Schools calls upon our provincial government to immediately release new funding to school boards to be able to ensure that every school in the province is able to provide the technology required for students to meet curriculum requirements.

The last time our provincial government announced any funding for technology in schools was back on June 18, 2020 when Minister Lecce proudly announced a paltry sum of $15-million in funding for technology in schools. To illustrate just how inadequate this funding level was to meet the real needs for technology in schools, we point to a recent Q&A post on the Toronto District School Board website:

What are the TDSB’s key fundraising and donation priorities for 2020-21? 

A: The TDSB’s key fundraising priorities for 2020-21 are:

  • Technology: There continues to be a need for technology to ensure that all students are supported. The TDSB has a plan to replace the devices that were borrowed from schools and sent to students to support virtual learning. However, this will take time. The TDSB is planning to spend approximately $15M for new technology and any additional fundraising support would be used to supplement this technology.

So the country’s largest school board has been able to find $15-M in its budget (which means that some other important line item on this budget is going unfunded this year!) to begin to replace the technology that has been borrowed from schools and to provide additional technology for students who need technology at home to support their learning. The TDSB is relying on fundraising dollars to supplement its technology needs for schools and students, clearly acknowledging in its statements above that their $15-M spend on technology for this year is not going to be sufficient.

The TDSB is just one school board out of 72 school boards in this province. So, if the entire $15-M amount of new funding provided by our provincial government in the face of the COVID-pandemic is not even sufficient for one school board to completely meet its technology requirements for schools and students, then clearly – this level of provincial funding is grossly inadequate. 

Fix Our Schools believes that we could have agreed years ago that technology, as well as fast, stable wifi, is a critical element of the Ontario public school infrastructure in order to accommodate “21st-century learning”. In the face of the current high school learning model in many school boards, as well as the recent provincial changes to Ontario’s math curriculum (which includes coding and therefore necessitates access to technology), the criticality of technology within our school infrastructure has become even more pronounced.

Fix Our Schools believes that our provincial government is being grossly negligent by failing to provide the required funding to all school boards to be able to quickly ensure that the technology and wifi requirements for all schools and students are met as soon as possible.

 

MPP Calandra: $33.6-Million of Disrepair in Markham-Stouffville Schools

October 22, 2020

Dear MPP Calandra

Did you know there is $33.6-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Markham-Stouffville? We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Markham-Stouffville Riding:

St. Brigid CES  $                                                   67,897
St. Brother Andre CHS  $                                              5,250,585
St. Edward CES  $                                              2,063,934
St. Julia Billiart CES  $                                                   21,000
St. Kateri Tekakwitha CES  $                                                 854,932
St. Mark CES  $                                              2,186,540
St. Patrick (Markham) CES  $                                              2,949,215
Cornell Village PS  $                                                 186,224
David Suzuki PS  $                                                   20,280
E T Crowle PS  $                                              1,089,700
Franklin Street PS  $                                              1,538,745
Glad Park PS  $                                                 872,547
Greensborough PS  $                                                 250,400
Harry Bowes PS  $                                                   20,280
James Robinson PS  $                                              2,803,665
Legacy PS  $                                                 750,000
Little Rouge PS  $                                                   80,100
Markham DHS  $                                                 259,100
Markville SS  $                                              2,400,657
Mount Joy PS  $                                                 196,000
Oscar Peterson PS  $                                                   20,280
Ramer Wood PS  $                                              1,122,600
Reesor Park PS  $                                              2,428,834
Roy H Crosby PS  $                                              2,057,050
Sam Chapman PS  $                                                   54,100
Summitview PS  $                                              2,204,631
William Armstrong PS  $                                              1,696,929

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors. 

A Shell Game: Ford Government’s Funding of Schools During a Pandemic

October 20, 2020
shell game
/ˈSHel ˌɡām/

noun

NORTH AMERICAN
  • a deceptive and evasive action or ploy, especially a political one.

This definition is applicable to how the Ford government has funded Ontario’s public schools and education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have repeatedly claimed that they will “spare no expense” to ensure the safety of Ontario’s children, teachers, and education workers. In fact, Ford is on record as claiming that “we have done absolutely everything, everything. We’re sparing nothing. Every idea possible, we’re putting into the classrooms.” These claims are false. They are a deceptive and evasive political ploy – a shell game if you will – where Ontario’s students, teachers, and education workers are the losers.

As the Toronto Star article entitled, “Ontario trumpeted its $1.3-billion back-to-school plan. But a closer analysis shows it’s all about muddy math” outlines, only $413-million of the $1.3-billion the Ford government claims has been provided is actually new money from the provincial government. Approximately $500-million of the $1.3-billion is meant to come out of school board reserve funds, money that these school boards have already allocated to important future expenses, such as capital improvements and retirement benefit obligations. So the numbers behind the government’s funding announcements are, in reality, far less than what parents have been led to believe.

Halton District School Board chair Andréa Grebenc said it well when she said, “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, really,” 

Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, has analyzed the provincial numbers and also concluded they simply do not add up. He has called the government’s claim that it is providing $1.3 billion “disingenuously inaccurate.”

As Fix Our Schools has noted previously, if Premier Ford’s primary concern was safety and he was genuine in his claim that his government would “spare no expense”, he would have announced a whole lot more funding a whole lot earlier. Instead, as one example of underfunding, Premier Ford’s government allocated $50-M for school boards to address HVAC and ventilation issues, an amount that nets out to a mere $10,000 per school in the province – and he announced this funding extremely late in the game for school boards to reasonably be able to conduct the work. 

Fix Our Schools is not proposing that money solves all the world’s problems. However, sufficient money is imperative if we believe that all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools ought to be safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings. Since 2014, we have been calling on successive provincial governments to ensure stable, adequate funding for schools. Amidst a global pandemic, this call to action becomes all the more urgent. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce: If you will not provide adequate, stable funding now – then when?

Why Are We Relying on Corporations to Fund Safe Classrooms?

October 15, 2020

Our provincial government is responsible for funding public education and schools. Full stop. 

To Fix Our Schools, this means that our provincial government is responsible for providing adequate, stable levels of funding that would ensure the safety, health, and well-being of the 2-million students who generally spend their days in Ontario’s schools, along with teachers and education workers. Yet, for over two decades, this has not been the case.

In fact, the gross and chronic provincial underfunding of school infrastructure by successive provincial governments lead to a situation where, even before the pandemic revealed further cracks, there was a school repair backlog of $16.3-billion in Ontario’s schools.

Now, in the midst of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, public schools and the safety of our classrooms seem dependent on the charity of corporations rather than proper provincial funding, as we consider the recent donation of 500 air purifiers by Danby corporation to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

Almost half of TDSB schools are reliant on windows for air circulation, without any form of mechanical ventilation. Experts believe that standalone filters can be an effective tool to improve safety in those classrooms. Therefore, the TDSB was understandably pleased to receive the 500 air purifiers from Danby, which will be placed in 37 TDSB schools in the highest-risk COVID areas. However, I hope we can all agree that when Doug Ford and Stephen Lecce promised they would do whatever was needed to ensure the safety of students, teachers and education workers, they lied. Full stop.

Our provincial government has clearly not done everything in its power to ensure the safety of students, teachers, and education workers if corporate donations of safety equipment are being welcomed by school boards! Even back in late August as we approached the re-opening of Ontario schools, Premier Ford all but admitted that his government had not done everything possible to ensure a safe re-opening when he stated that, he was “relying on school boards to make sure that students and staff are in a very safe environment“.

So where do we go from here? After six years of working to ensure all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings, Fix Our Schools is convinced that this will not happen until funding for public schools and education is adequate and stable. We are convinced that Ontario’s schools cannot be fixed by simply “finding efficiencies”. $16.3-billion of disrepair did not accumulate in Ontario’s schools because of “inefficiencies” by school boards.

But how, you may ask, can governments afford to provide the billions of dollars required each year to properly maintain and improve our public schools? If there is insufficient public money in the coffers to pay for this public good properly, then Fix Our Schools suggests that we must look to increase the amount of money in those public coffers. And, Fix Our Schools would suggest that most citizens already pay their fair share (or some would argue more than their fair share!) of taxes, so corporations must start to pay their fair share of taxes, as they did decades ago.

 

MPP Kanapathi: $63.5-Million of Disrepair in Markham-Thornhill Schools

October 13, 2020

Dear MPP Kanapathi

Did you know there is $63.5-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Markham-Thornhill? We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Markham-Thornhill Riding:

Sir Richard W. Scott CES  $                                                   71,994
St. Benedict CES  $                                              2,378,792
St. Francis Xavier CES  $                                              4,616,267
St. Robert CHS  $                                              8,955,988
St. Vincent de Paul CES  $                                              2,533,654
Aldergrove PS  $                                                 837,200
Armadale PS  $                                                 679,631
Bayview Fairways PS  $                                              1,563,588
Bayview Glen PS  $                                              2,228,704
Bill Crothers SS  $                                                 578,400
Boxwood PS  $                                                 449,526
Cedarwood PS  $                                                 173,000
Coppard Glen PS  $                                              1,879,898
Ellen Fairclough PS  $                                                 199,600
German Mills PS  $                                              2,029,066
Highgate PS  $                                              2,585,540
Johnsview Village PS  $                                                 684,956
Markham Gateway PS  $                                                 128,600
Middlefield CI  $                                              4,993,360
Milliken Mills PS  $                                              3,140,483
Parkland PS  $                                              2,309,100
Randall PS  $                                              1,814,916
Thornlea SS  $                                              4,316,572
Unionville HS  $                                              7,692,672
Wilclay PS  $                                              1,495,320
Willowbrook PS  $                                              1,107,362

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors. 

MPP Elliott: $72.1-Million of Disrepair in Newmarket-Aurora Schools

October 8, 2020

Dear MPP Elliott,

Did you know there is $72.1-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Newmarket-Aurora?

We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Newmarket-Aurora Riding:

Canadian Martyrs CES  $          1,995,699
Notre Dame CES  $             263,123
Sacred Heart CHS  $          3,697,853
St. Elizabeth Seton CES  $             687,832
St. Jerome CES  $             130,000
St. John Chrysostom CES  $               70,290
St. Maximilian Kolbe CHS  $             140,000
St. Nicholas CES  $          1,229,590
St. Paul CES  $          1,890,041
Alexander Muir PS  $             115,847
Armitage Village PS  $             602,408
Aurora Heights PS  $          1,040,393
Bogart PS  $          1,280,885
Clearmeadow PS  $          1,704,095
Crossland PS  $          1,229,562
Denne PS  $          2,874,868
Devins Drive PS  $          1,453,209
Dr John M Denison SS  $          5,479,453
Glen Cedar PS  $          1,412,822
Hartman PS  $               22,726
Huron Heights SS  $       18,337,683
J L R Bell PS  $          2,261,626
Lester B Pearson PS  $          1,009,062
Maple Leaf PS  $          4,711,432
Mazo De La Roche PS  $          2,413,219
Meadowbrook PS  $          3,523,312
Newmarket HS  $          3,575,364
Northern Lights PS  $             170,601
Poplar Bank PS  $             427,097
Prince Charles PS  $          2,250,573
Rogers PS  $               76,755
Sir William Mulock SS  $             881,510
Stonehaven ES  $          1,504,776
Stuart Scott PS  $          2,395,981
Terry Fox PS  $               71,960
ÉÉC SaintJean  $          1,042,239
ÉSC Renaissance  $               89,539

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors. 

Let’s Look to Science and Industry Best Practices to Ensure Schools are Safe

October 6, 2020

Today, we are grateful to have Douglas Green, Founder/President of GROK Energy Services, as our guest blogger. Please see his complete bio at the end of this blog post.

Managing Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is an Art and a Science

Building Science is complex. Dedicated professionals spend many years developing their skills and expertise in this field, and they should be consulted when it comes to maintaining and upgrading school buildings. The important things being managed are very difficult to ‘measure’ with normal human senses. These include:

  • Energy Use
  • Air Quality
  • Temperature
  • Humidity
  • Noise Levels
  • Lighting
  • Air movement

These are all the elements of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). When it comes to large, complex commercial buildings like schools, it takes a professional with considerable technical training and experience to properly measure and evaluate IEQ characteristics, then effectively correct deficiencies in order to maintain safe, comfortable, and healthy conditions.

The consequences of this critical task being underperformed or ignored are many, and can include:

  • Short and long-term negative impacts on occupant health
  • Increased risk of disease transmission
  • Reduced productivity
  • Occupant discomfort
  • Higher rates of staff turnover
  • Absenteeism;
  • Reduced asset lifespans;
  • Increased operating costs
  • Structural damage or deterioration

Unfortunately, this is the point we, as a society, have reached with our public schools when it comes to operating and maintaining school facilities. To varying degrees, many of the above consequences are the day-to-day reality in most of our public schools, because the buildings simply have not been properly looked after, over a very long period of time.

A Critical Knowledge Gap Has Allowed IEQ in Schools to Deteriorate

For over two decades in Ontario, School Boards have been responsible for maintaining school buildings and safe, healthy IEQ (and all the ‘invisible’ elements that are part of that), while our provincial government has been responsible for providing the funding required to carry out this responsibility. In Ontario, provincial funding has been far less than required over this time and has resulted in a $16.3-billion repair backlog across Ontario schools. This model has also meant that frequently, local School Boards may not have the expertise required for every aspect of the details of maintaining school buildings, and safe, healthy IEQ. I am not suggesting that school boards do not have maintenance and engineering departments (they certainly do). However, there is sometimes a critical knowledge gap.

HVAC systems in buildings tend to be ‘out-of-sight and out-of-mind’, and thus easily ignored by those who do not fully understand the importance of good IEQ to occupant health, productivity, and safety. The negative impacts of this neglect can also be hard to quantify, sometimes taking years to become apparent. This contributes to the ease of dismissing industry-standard Operations & Maintenance recommendations. Chronic provincial underfunding, lengthy ‘lowest bidder’ tendering processes, and constantly ‘deferred’ tasks have allowed substantial deterioration to progress.

Focusing on the Long-term Goal of Healthier Buildings

As with many things in life, HVAC systems will appear to be ‘working fine’, until they aren’t. When an HVAC system fails, a building tends to get pretty uncomfortable, pretty quickly. Understandably, rapid response and repair is suddenly an urgent priority. Other, less sudden deficiencies like high energy consumption, ‘stuffiness’ in parts of the buildings, growing absenteeism, or declining asset lifespan, tend not to get as much urgent attention. And yet, these factors can cost a lot more money and cause a lot more harm in the long run.

Sometimes an unexpected change can finally shine a spotlight on something that has been neglected for a long time. When it comes to our school buildings, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is just such a change. It is now recognized by the health and scientific communities that a significant vector for infection by this potentially deadly pathogen is via airborne transmission in crowded indoor spaces. This fact has suddenly escalated the importance of having excellent IEQ in all buildings. Unfortunately, this is not quickly or easily achieved in many school buildings, after decades of neglected maintenance, upgrades, and replacements.

Meeting the Challenges of HVAC Upgrade and Repair 

HVAC ducts and plumbing often run behind walls, and above ceilings, with major mechanical components often located in basements or on rooftops. Accessing many of the components of a large HVAC system in a commercial or industrial building for maintenance, upgrades, or replacement, is often a very invasive task. It is likely to involve opening up walls or ceilings, which in many older schools also means disturbing asbestos in the structures.

This is not something that can be done while the building is occupied and operational, on an ‘expedited’ basis. This is something that needs to be scheduled and completed while following industry-standard recommendations, at a cost that is easily determined and budgeted for well in advance.

Yet, it is precisely these types of tasks that have seen their budgets reduced or eliminated over the last several decades in our school buildings. These decisions have been made by people within the provincial government who simply do not understand these dynamics, because they lack the knowledge, or were not willing to follow guidance provided by subject matter experts.

In terms of dedicating budget to maintaining HVAC infrastructure, commercial buildings tend to fare better than schools, because the dynamics are very different. Unlike public school buildings, the management of commercial buildings tends to be handled by professionals with appropriate skills, knowledge, and experience who operate in a non-politicized, non-partisan manner. Commercial building owners are motivated by tenant retention and steady increases in net operating income – both of which increase asset value – so proper maintenance over time produces a positive financial return. While proper maintenance of school buildings produces the same results, Ontario’s provincial government has tended to avoid these costs, since there is no perceived ‘reasonable return on investment’.

Adapting our school buildings to help achieve resilience and recovery from COVID-19 is not going to be easy, but it is not impossible. Some changes may need to wait until buildings are unoccupied, but many other less disruptive things can be done immediately to improve IEQ in schools, such as:

  • Evaluate ventilation systems to ensure correct operation and maximum outside air-flow
  • Ensure adequate air movement in all indoor spaces
  • Upgrade filtration where possible to MERV 13 or higher
  • Install air sterilization technology;
  • Review any existing air quality issues, and ensure resolution;
  • Review control sequences to verify systems are operating to maximize indoor air quality, set to flush indoor air before and after occupation;
  • Refer to “ASHRAE Reopening Schools and Universities C19 Guidance” for more detail

These steps can help improve IEQ and mitigate against potential localized accumulations of infected bioaerosols. [Note: Bioaerosols are small droplets suspended in the air, which is the specific condition that could result in COVID-19 transmission. Surface transmission is generally being well addressed already through enhanced cleaning regimes].

One of the biggest challenges is simply the number of schools needing immediate attention, compared to the number of Building Science professionals. Another reason why completing this work over time, on a scheduled maintenance basis, is the preferred approach.

Steps Forward to Making Classrooms Safer

Moving forward, it would be ideal to separate budgets for school building operations and maintenance, from the actual delivery of education within the school buildings. School buildings are public infrastructure assets, no different from highways and bridges. As such, they should be maintained so they function properly, last the expected lifetime, and provide a safe, healthy, and comfortable place for students and teachers.

Perhaps one way to accomplish this would be to place the Operations & Maintenance activities of school building infrastructure under federal jurisdiction to ensure a standard of good repair for all publicly funded schools in Canada, and to ensure stable, adequate funding required to ensure these standards are met. These separate activities with separate budgets, could each be managed by professionals with the right credentials. I am sure that educators and school boards be happy to be absolved of the responsibilities of school infrastructure so they can focus on what they do best – educating people. Operating and maintaining school buildings should not be a political activity, left to the whims of political election cycles. Instead, it should be funded properly and be left to HVAC and Building Science professionals so we can do what we do best – delivering the lowest operating costs and best IEQ dynamics, resulting in the most comfortable, productive, healthy, and safe spaces.

Author: Douglas Green, CEM, CMVP

Bio: Doug is a Certified Energy Manager (CEM) and Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) accredited by the Association of Energy Engineers with more than a decade of direct experience working in energy management.

MPP Rasheed: $143-million of Disrepair in Mississauga East-Cooksville Schools

October 1, 2020

Dear MPP Rasheed

Did you know there is $143-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Mississauga East-Cooksville?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Mississauga East-Cooksville Riding:

Father Daniel Zanon  $                938,564
John Cabot Catholic  replacement school  $                800,000
Mary Fix Catholic S  $             1,423,474
Metropolitan Andrei Sep S  $             7,323,367
Philip Pocock Catholic SS  $             5,476,966
St. Alfred Sep S  $             2,700,556
St. Basil  $             1,545,084
St. Philip Sep S  $             1,495,784
St. Sofia Sep S  $             1,248,897
St. Teresa of Calcutta  $             1,404,390
St. Thomas More Sep S  $             2,600,840
St. Vincent de Paul Sep S  $                588,810
Sts. Martha and Mary Sep S  $             1,218,180
Applewood Heights SS  $           17,778,170
Brian W. Fleming PS  $             5,292,899
Briarwood PS  $             4,282,249
Burnhamthorpe PS  $             4,891,399
Cashmere Avenue PS  $             4,495,409
Clifton PS  $             3,499,651
Dixie PS  $             4,068,937
Floradale PS  $             6,360,523
Forest Glen PS  $             3,762,801
Glenforest SS  $           15,105,185
Glenhaven Sr PS  $             3,410,377
Silver Creek PS  $             3,886,796
Silverthorn PS  $             4,033,556
T.L. Kennedy SS  $           18,393,562
Thornwood PS  $             3,977,024
Tomken Road Middle School  $             5,542,592
Tomken Road Middle School South  $             2,905,395
ÉÉC RenéLamoureux  $             2,554,879

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors.