Monthly Archives: March 2021

Mandates, Money, and Just Plain Mean-Spirited

March 30, 2021

MANDATES

As the Liberal Party of Ontario continues to seek input to build their party platform, leader Steven Del Duca made an interesting announcement on Monday, March  22. He said that that his Liberals would “kill Highway 413 once and for all”, and redirect the $8-billion allocated to this infrastructure project of questionable value towards additional investment in building and repairing publicly funded schools in the province. Hurrah! This could be an education mandate that the Fix Our Schools campaign could certainly get behind, and we hope that all provincial parties will prioritize school infrastructure in their platforms. 

Speaking of mandates, the Globe & Mail’s revelation that the Ford government is “considering legislation that would make remote learning a permanent part of the public-school system” begs the question, “what was the PC party’s education mandate with which the Ford government was handed a majority government?” As Fix Our Schools noted back during the 2018 election, “the PC education platform was scant at best“, and made no mention of addressing the massive repair backlog in Ontario’s schools. Ford’s education mandate did, however, mention banning cell phones in class in order to maximize learning time. So, Ontario voted in a Premier that did not even want cell phones interrupting in-class learning time. Yet, after a year of emergency on-line learning, Premier Ford’s government is looking to fundamentally change the way education is delivered in this province without a mandate from the electorate, and without any understanding of the impact that this year of on-line learning has had on students.   

MONEY

Why is Fix Our Schools so concerned about this proposed legislation since our focus is on ensuring all Ontario schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings? Glad you asked! It is because the provincial budget delivered on March 24 provides no new money for education and schools. 

And so, every dollar “invested” in expanding online learning will actually take money away from school buildings, classrooms, and in-person learning. So, while Minister Lecce claims that parents want this “choice” of online learning, we must highlight that that this choice comes with a cost to the quality of in-person learning in this province.

Although, after seeing Minister Lecce try to explain the provincial budget’s impact on schools and public education, we’re not sure our Minister of Education understands how provincial funding of education actually works:

Further to this confusing statement by Minister Lecce, the budget document touts that, “investments in schools are investments in the future and contribute to the long-term economic prosperity of the province”. Yes! Fix Our Schools agrees! However, then the budget document states, “this is why the government is investing about $14 billion in capital grants over 10 years to build more schools, upgrade existing facilities across Ontario and support education-related projects. This includes $1.4 billion in school renewal for the 2021–22 school year, which will ensure excellent learning environments. As part of the government’s ongoing efforts to improve and modernize infrastructure, Ontario is investing $550 million in the 2020–21 school year to build 20 new schools and eight permanent additions to existing schools.”  OK. Stop right there. Are you as confused as we are about these statements?

Investing “about” $14-billion over 10 years equates to “about” $1.4-billion per year. I think we can all agree that math makes sense? What doesn’t add up is that the total amount being allocated only for school repair and renewal for 2021-22 is $1.4-billion. Yet, the budget document states that a separate amount of $550-million has been allocated for 2021-22 to build new schools and additions, which brings the total investment for 2021-22 to “about” $1.95-billion. So, if our math is correct, wouldn’t this yearly level of investment in schools require a 10-year commitment of “about” $19.5-billion, which is significantly more than the $14-billion mentioned? Does this mean that next year, we can expect a drastic cut? We’re simply not sure.

Furthermore, it is important to note that the $1.95-billion/year funding allocation for school infrastructure in 2021-22 is roughly the same amount as the previous several years. And, this level of funding has resulted in year-over-year increases in overall disrepair in Ontario schools. Therefore, with a $16.3-billion repair backlog in Ontario’s schools and no significant new funding, it is hard to imagine that $1.95-billion will somehow during this budget cycle lead to “excellent learning environments”?  Again, the math used in this budget document simply does not add up to Fix Our Schools, nor does the rosy picture Minister Lecce paints of “excellent learning environments” with no new investments.

AND JUST PLAIN MEAN-SPIRITED

Fix Our Schools became aware of this 3-page memo that was sent from the Ministry of Education to all school boards on March 8, 2021, letting school boards know they are “required to display Ontario Builds signage at the site of construction that identifies the financial support of the Government of Ontario” and that “all expenses related to Ontario Builds signage, such as design, production, and installation are the responsibility of the school board. School boards are also responsible for posting the signs in a prominent, high-traffic location in a timely manner.” 

This is a mean-spirited action by a government that, time and again, fails to prioritize students, schools, and our public education system. This is a provincial government that, instead, prioritizes self-promotion, and getting re-elected. Fix Our Schools would suggest that this money, time, and energy would be much better invested in actually repairing, renewing, and rebuilding Ontario’s publicly funded schools rather than on a marketing and promotion campaign for the Ford government.

Imperative: Prioritizing Schools and Education in Party Platforms

March 16, 2021

Political parties in Ontario are already beginning to think about their platforms for the next provincial election. The Liberal party reached out to Fix Our Schools to provide input to the Education Platform they are building for the next provincial election, and have been seeking input from all citizens using a campaign called “Take the Mic” to solicit citizen’s opinions on a wide range of topics, including education. We hope that many of you in the Fix Our Schools network will provide input in the coming days. And, as a non-partisan campaign, Fix Our Schools hopes that you will take every opportunity in the coming days, weeks, and months to provide input to all political parties about what you believe is important to include in a strong education platform.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the criticality of schools that are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning. In 2020/2021 amidst a global pandemic, the gross and chronic underfunding of Ontario’s schools by successive provincial governments over 23 years came back to haunt us. We learned that we cannot underfund and neglect critical infrastructure for decades, and then expect that infrastructure to provide what is needed during an emergency situation. So, the time is now to learn from the hard lessons of this past year, and embed this learning into the education platforms being developed by our provincial parties.

With this in mind, we urge all provincial parties to prioritize investing in schools, and to include in their education platforms these recommendations, originally submitted to the government in our pre-budget submission in January 2021. Here is an overview of the detailed recommendations provided in our pre-budget submission:

1. A commonly understood and measurable standard of good repair must be developed and implemented for Ontario schools, that takes into consideration not only disrepair but also things such as air quality/ventilation, water quality, and temperature of classrooms.

These same standards must also be applied to all First Nations schools. Furthermore, these standards must be applied not only to permanent school buildings but also to portables, which often end up being on a school site for over a decade, instead of as a temporary measure, as originally intended. Integral to this new Standard of Good repair is a commitment to transparency into the state of all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools and portables, and First Nations schools.

 

2. A thoughtful, detailed review and revision of the education funding formula, which has allowed for $16.3-billion of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s publicly funded schools. Given the Ministry of Education is the sole funder of our publicly funded schools and education system, the Ministry holds responsibility for ensuring the funding formula provides adequate, stable funding for school infrastructure.

Therefore, we continue to call for an education funding formula that will include the following additional renewal and capital funding, and operational funding:

    • Keep special School Condition Improvement (SCI) funding at $1 billion per year until the repair backlog is gone, in conjunction with the following funding steps:
    • Increase annual School Renewal Allocation (SRA) funding from the current $357 million per year to $1.7 billion per year, and maintain that funding at 3% of the replacement value of Ontario’s schools to conform to the generally accepted level of renewal funding required to keep schools in a state of good repair. 
    • Create a new and separate capital stream of funding to replace the 346 school buildings across the province determined to be too expensive to repair as of the most recent provincial review cycle; estimated $3.9 billion one-time capital injection amortized over 40 years would result in a new budgetary expense of $100 million per year
    • Increase the current operational maintenance budget by $165 million per year (an 8.7% increase from current levels, based on industry averages) and ensure that the formula used to determine this annual figure explicitly recognizes the underlying drivers of differences in operating costs for schools in the province including: labour costs in the community, heating costs in given climates, age & design of school buildings.

3. An updated provincial regulation that guides the collection and use of Education Development Charges must be developed and implemented, such that developers contribute to the local school infrastructure from which they ultimately profit. Of note is that back in 2018, Canada’s largest school board, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) challenged the Ontario government on the equity of its EDC regulations. This hearing is now set to take place on March 25, 2021 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In the hearing, the TDSB seeks to have the court declare certain provisions of the Education Act regulations invalid and permit TDSB to charge Educational Development Charges. Fix Our Schools has been pushing for these changes since our inception in 2014, and recently co-authored a paper called The Missing Money Our Schools Need Now, so we will be watching this court decision closely.

4. An approach to school closures must be developed and implements, that is not focused on utilization rates but, instead, determines the importance of a school to its surrounding community and considers the implications for student access to programs and commute times. If a school is open, then its capital costs and operational maintenance costs must be fully funded by the provincial government, regardless of the utilization of that school.

5. Provide additional funding for school boards to reasonably meet the 2025 deadline for compliance with Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA) Act. The goal for Ontario is to be fully accessible by 2025, including publicly funded schools. Clearly, when the current provincial levels of funding don’t even allow for school boards to proactively address disrepair, without specific funding for AODA repair and renewal items in schools, school boards cannot reasonably meet the 2025 deadline for full accessibility in schools.

So to recap, Fix Our Schools urges every provincial party to prioritize safe, healthy, well-maintained schools that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We believe the recommendations we have made ought to be an integral part of each party’s education platform for the next provincial election. We know that our recommended platform for schools requires a lot of new money to be invested in publicly funded schools. We also know that:

  • Schools are a critical element of our public infrastructure, made even more evident during the COVID pandemic
  • 2 million Ontario children spend their days in school buildings and need safe, healthy, well-maintained places to learn.
  • Teachers, education workers, adult learners, and pre-schoolers who attend childcare facilities in local public schools also need safe, healthy, well-maintained environments in which to work and learn.
  • Repairs in Ontario’s schools are only going to get more expensive if we do not fully address the $16.3 billion repair backlog as soon as possible.

Therefore, if we collectively agree that we value our children and we value their education then we will start to do what it takes to truly fix Ontario’s schools and fix the broken provincial funding approach to education that has allowed $16.3 billion of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s schools.

Ford Government Continues to Grossly Underfund Schools

March 4, 2021

With the ongoing COVID-pandemic and the new variants emerging regularly, ventilation and air quality in classrooms and schools continue to be a hot topic, as they have been since August.

Fix Our Schools sees this new interest in topics such as ventilation and air quality as a silver lining of the COVID pandemic. We have been urging the Ontario government to go beyond simply acknowledging ventilation and air quality as priorities and start providing the levels of funding that would enable local school boards to invest in making substantive improvements. These investments in improving ventilation and air quality would provide benefits immediately amidst the pandemic reality – but also for the long-term health of students and staff who spend their days in schools. 

In response to a recent study that showed carbon dioxide levels at several Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) buildings regularly exceeded limits, TCDSB Trustee  Norm Di Pasquale said the province could do more to address the air quality in TCDSB schools. He mentioned the need for additional provincial funding to purchase air purifiers for the 1/3 of TCDSB classrooms currently without air purifiers. He also mentioned that addressing the ventilation concerns revealed in just one TCDSB school would cost up to $600,000.

Let’s contrast this identified funding need with what our provincial government has actually provided to school boards to improve ventilation, air quality, and HVAC systems amidst the pandemic:

  1. In mid-August 2020, the Ford government announced $50 million for “improved ventilation, air quality and HVAC system effectiveness in schools.” This equated to roughly $10,000 per school in the province, and was allocated between school boards as per this memo from the Ministry of Education. 
  2. In late-August 2020, the first tranche of the federal Safe Return to School funding was announced, including $100 million for “health and safety components of school reopening plans,” which included “the hiring of custodians, HVAC improvements, internet connectivity for students and other local needs.” It is unclear how much of this $100 million in funding actually went to HVAC improvements.
  3. On February 1, 2021, the provincial government announced $50 million specifically for “portable HEPA filters and other immediate options to optimize air quality and ventilation in schools.” 

So, even if half of the federal Safe Return to School funding went to HVAC improvements, the total funding provided to school boards to address air quality, ventilation, and HVAC systems in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is only $150 million.  So, the total funding provided for all Ontario schools to address ventilation, HVAC, and air quality issues is one-quarter of the $600,000 estimate to address the ventilation issues at one TCDSB school.

Hmmmm… this doesn’t sound like a provincial government that is taking the necessary steps to invest in school infrastructure – does it? However, successive provincial governments in this province have grossly and chronically underfunded school renewal and repairs for well over twenty years, such that going into the pandemic, Ontario schools had a total of $16.3 billion of disrepair. So, maybe the Ford government is simply continuing a long-standing tradition of underfunding the buildings where 2-million children spend their days? Fix Our Schools hopes that a lesson learned from the COVID pandemic is that you cannot chronically and grossly underfund infrastructure and systems, and then expect them to be there for society when an emergency (like a global pandemic!) hits.