Monthly Archives: February 2021

How Long Will Ford Delay Investing in Ontario Schools?

February 23, 2021

As many students across Ontario have returned to in-person classes in recent weeks, Fix Our Schools wonders why our provincial government has fought against making decisions that would positively impact school children amidst the COVID pandemic, and in the long term.  Since our provincial government is the sole funder of schools and education in our province,  the only answer Fix Our Schools could surmise is that the Ford government would rather emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with money in its coffers rather than having invested in our schools and education system.  

In September, the Dufferin Peel Catholic School Board (DPCSB) wrote this letter to the Province, explaining that their school building ventilation needs alone would cost $60 million, whereas, at that point, the provincial government had only allocated $50-M for all school boards to improve ventilation. In this letter, the Chair of the DPCSB wrote, “we are cognizant that some classrooms, especially those located in school basements, do not have any windows.”

If you wonder why on earth children are learning in basement classrooms with no windows, consider the shocking lack of schools being built in the province.  In 2017, economist Hugh Mackenzie identified that, according to the government’s own data, Ontario needed  346 new schools built.

Instead of taking steps to build these much-needed new schools, the Ford government, which ran on a platform of “increasing local infrastructure funding”, instantly halted all processes in place to move new school buildings forward. This delay meant that for years, no new school buildings were approved and we are now years behind. In the opinion of Fix Our Schools, as long as children and teachers spend their days learning and working in windowless rooms, our government is failing us.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us the mistake of not investing in school infrastructure. If you believe that schools ought to be safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working, then we must pressure the provincial government to start investing in schools and education now.  

What does Hand Hygiene in School Look Like in Ontario?

February 16, 2021

With many Ontario children back to in-class learning, the timing seems appropriate for considering hand hygiene in our schools. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “handwashing with soap and water has been considered a measure of personal hygiene for centuries”. Yet, if we take a look at what hand hygiene looks like in Ontario schools, we may be slightly appalled.

This video of how handwashing must be done one hand at a time at one Ontario school is a reminder that there is much work to be done in Ontario schools to ensure they are safe and healthy environments for students and staff – not only during this pandemic but for the long-term.


The provincial funding provided to school boards for both operating and capital expenses has been inadequate for so many years, that it seems as though soap in schools has become a luxury item; sinks in classrooms have been built to a quality level that they cannot even accommodate regular hand-washing in the midst of a global pandemic (which begs the question, what exactly were they designed to accommodate?);

and countless school washrooms across the province have been allowed to deteriorate to a point where students and staff are uncomfortable using them even for urgent needs, let alone using them for handwashing. In fact, back in 2017, we wrote this blog about a group of grade 5 students who were advocating for better washrooms in their school. Heartwarming to see this kind of activism in young people, and at the same time, heartbreaking that this type of activism would even be necessary, given that Ontario prides itself on having a “world-class education system”.  

https://twitter.com/KellyLMNOP/status/1299350949106978817

Chronic provincial underfunding of schools and education has, indeed, caught up to us. Amidst a pandemic, handwashing is an important hygiene practice in schools and, certainly, as we move past this pandemic, hand hygiene in schools will continue to be important to ensuring healthy students and staff amidst more “normal” times to prevent the spread of colds and flus. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has gone so far as to call for investments in things like touch-free faucets, such as the ones we see in local community centers, and ON Route rest stops along the 401 and 400 highways. Fix Our Schools wholeheartedly agrees with this call to action and urges our provincial government to invest in our schools to ensure they are healthy, safe, well-maintained buildings for students today…and for years to come. 

Transparency: A Building Block of Effectiveness and Efficiency

February 9, 2021

Transparency is generally accepted as an important aspect of any democratic government:

Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset.        – Barack Obama, Former US President

In Ontario, the Ford government has been anything but transparent since taking office. For example, Fix Our Schools has made regular calls for the Ford government to follow the lead of the previous government in updating and sharing disrepair data for Ontario’s schools each year. The Ford government has consistently ignored our calls for transparency into this information, which is collected using taxpayer dollars, and is necessary for citizens to assess success in improving the state of local schools, and to advocate locally for urgent repair items. Instead, we continue to rely on the detailed school disrepair data that was last published by the previous Liberal government in Fall 2017 to understand whether Ontario’s publicly funded schools are healthy, safe, and well-maintained buildings. Thanks to the persistence of NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles, we’ve also been able to glean that overall school disrepair has increased from $15.9-billion in Fall 2017 to $16.3-billion in Fall 2019. This is not transparency. This level of secrecy will not lead to efficient, effective solutions to fix Ontario’s schools. 

This culture of opacity has continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and we’ve seen the Ford government routinely ignore calls for transparency. In November, even some of Ford’s key advisors were calling for more transparency about the details and rationale of its pandemic response. Dr. Charles Gardner, a member of Ford’s public health measures table, urged Premier Ford to provide more information to the public, stating, “I believe when people have good information they understand things better, and they’re more likely to abide by restrictions.” However, these calls for increased transparency again went unheeded.

More recently, and specific to the education sector, students, teachers, parents, school boards, and the general public have sought transparency on how this government is making decisions about when to close schools due to COVID-19 and when to allow schools to open amidst the ongoing pandemic. On Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, David Williams, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, was quoted in a Globe & Mail article entitled, “Ontario officials vague on school reopening criteria” as saying that there was “not an exact number, per se” when asked about the metrics being considered in reopening schools. “We would like them all down, ideally quite low,” he added. This Toronto Star opinion piece responded clearly to this lack of transparency or use of any clear metrics –  “the government hasn’t even bothered to provide the specific metrics it’s using to determine when schools can reopen.” The title of the article published by School Magazine on February 2 says it all: “Return to school: A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma cloaked in uncertainty” This is not transparency. 

Also amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a tremendous lack of detail and transparency, and perhaps even a lack of truth, into the details of what is being funded to keep students, teachers, and education workers safe in schools. It is one thing for a government to cite what needs to be done but if they are not providing the required money to actually fund what needs to be done, then these are empty action plans that will not result in anything to benefit students, teachers, and education workers.

For example, during the week of Feb. 1, Minister Lecce proudly announced that “Ontario would provide additional funding to keep schools safe“, without clarifying that the $381-million being announced had already been announced with fanfare back in August. This $381-million was simply the second allotment of federal funding provided to Ontario schools. In the same week, Minister Lecce also proudly announced that 1400 custodians had been hired. However, the union representing these workers cannot confirm or substantiate this claim and has actually submitted a Freedom of Information request to the government to seek clarity. This is not transparency. 

Minister Lecce also claimed that more teachers have been hired and yet, the general public is again left relying upon Freedom of Information requests to substantiate these claims.

This is not transparency.

Safe, Healthy, Well-Maintained Schools – a Non-Partisan Issue

February 2, 2021

Ever since the Fix Our Schools campaign began in 2014, we have operated in a non-partisan manner, recognizing that the goal of safe, healthy, well-maintained schools is a non-partisan issue. Whether we spoke to a 78-year old white man who lived in rural Ontario and had always voted conservative, or whether we spoke to a 23-year old Black woman who lived in downtown Toronto and voted NDP, the consistent and unanimous response to stories of disrepair in schools, or substandard learning conditions was simple:

We need to fix our schools

To fix our schools requires money and, in Ontario, the only money that can be used to fix schools comes from our provincial government.

Based on recent reports, we know that Premier Ford’s government is sitting on over $6-billion of unspent federal pandemic funding, so our provincial government has unallocated money literally sitting in its coffers. Based on recent reports, we also know that Premier Ford’s government ignored the recommendations of SickKids, medical professionals, public health professionals, education professionals, and, indeed, it ignored the recommendations of civil servants within the Ministry of Education when this government implemented only “half-measures” to ensure the safety of students and education workers in the classroom amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.  

These are the facts.

So, why is our provincial government politicizing the issue of safe, healthy, well-maintained schools in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic? Is it political to want well-ventilated classrooms? Is it political to want children and adults in schools to be able to readily wash their hands? Is it political to want classrooms where students can readily practice the physical distancing that is a tenet of every single COVID public health message?

The NDP, Liberal, and Green parties all agree on what needs to be done for children and adults to be safe in schools: low community spread, proper ventilation in classrooms, quality PPE, room to practice physical distancing, adequate nurses and custodians, and testing in schools. It is the 11th month of the pandemic, and we still await these measures. These MPP’s represent 57.76% of Ontarians. Why doesn’t Premier Ford listen to hundreds of medical experts, all of the other parties, and a good portion of voters? 

What are we to make of a government using distractions to avoid spending money for the safety of its citizens? The Ford government could choose to listen to students, parents, teachers, health professionals, and its own Ministry staff, but instead, saves the desperately needed funds for some unspecified future date.

Do you agree with Fix Our Schools that the goal of safe, healthy, well-maintained schools, especially in the midst of a pandemic, is a non-partisan one? If this is a non-partisan goal, and there is money in the bank, then what on earth is stopping the Ford government from spending money to get Ontario’s students back in classrooms safely?