Monthly Archives: June 2021

Make Children a Priority Now

June 28, 2021

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently took a deep dive into the state of school education one year into the COVID-19 pandemic. A strong, yet imperfect, relationship emerged between how countries historically value education and how frequently schools have been shut down to in-person learning during the pandemic.

Ontario has had repeated and prolonged school closures since the start of the pandemic. Students lost approximately 70 days of in-person learning in 2020, and have lost another 65 days of in-person schooling in the Greater Toronto Area in 2021. Given the OECD research, perhaps this speaks to a general lack of regard for publicly funded education and schools in this province. At Fix Our Schools, we certainly believe that Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have consistently failed to prioritize Ontario’s children, their schools and education, and their mental health. This failure may emerge as a “generational catastrophe”, according to Stefania Giannini, the top education specialist at UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

In a CBC interview on The House, Giannini said that about 90% of the global student population has been impacted by school closures during the pandemic and that, “the UN has warned that unless education is prioritized, the world could be facing a “generational catastrophe.”  She urges governments to “think of education as a third pillar — along with health and job creation — that’s needed to end and recover from the COVID-19 crisis.”  

Closer to home, several Ontario organizations are also ringing alarm bells that publicly funded education and schools absolutely must be a priority as we transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic:

Letter to Premier Ford from the Ontario Science Table, Released on May 29, 2021

The Wilfred Laurier research briefing confirms that the following  significant harms to Ontario students have been caused by school closures. This research briefing also confirms that these harms have fallen most heavily on vulnerable populations such as students with lower socioeconomic backgrounds, racialized children and youth, newcomers, and students with disabilities:

  • Substantial deterioration of mental health status among children and youth, which will present significant long-term challenges during our recovery from the pandemic.
  • Reduction in school attendance and student achievement
  • Loss of skills development and in lifetime earnings for Ontarians
  • Reduction of social connections
  • For some Ontarians, school closures meant missing meals and other critical health services.

Beyond the findings on the impact of COVID-19 on Ontario’s students, the research paper cited above also points to the “need for an explicit education recovery strategy that is informed by data and measurement. It also highlights a significant challenge for the province: there are extensive data gaps and there has been a lack of ongoing consistent evaluation over the last year, both of which are needed for effective evaluation and recovery”.

The letter to Premier Ford from the COVID-19 Science Table also contains a look to September and beyond. The letter states that “summer will provide an ideal time to make the whole school system even safer by continuing to improve ventilation in school buildings and by vaccinating students. Moreover, Ontario should now start developing recovery plans to address the long-term mental health, health and educational problems arising from COVID-19-related school closures. This will require investments.”

OPSBA Discussion Paper, Released on May 27, 2021

The OPSBA discussion paper is designed to elicit collaborative dialogue with education partners by identifying key questions to build on current observations, identify the need for further study, and to create a frame for a new vision for school. Recognizing the COVID-19 pandemic as “one of the great social and economic disruptors of our time, with widespread impact on one of society’s most traditional institutions – school”, OPSBA’s discussion paper states, “We can’t pretend this educational roller-coaster hasn’t left many students isolated, their parents stressed and some teachers on the brink of burnout. Nor can we ignore the fact low-income and racialized families were hit hardest by both the virus and the switch to online learning. The truth is, COVID-19 reinforced inequities many students face.”

Fix Our Schools agrees wholeheartedly with OPSBA that “this is a rare once-in-a-lifetime chance to reset how Ontario provides education, a critical moment that needs everyone’s voice – students, educators, parents, trustees, everyone in our school communities.”  As Fix Our Schools previously stated, “beyond basic health and safety needs, we also need a vision of excellence for Ontario’s schools and education that is better than what was considered “normal” prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that this vision for excellence absolutely must be developed with input from all education stakeholders.” Given that Ford’s government was elected having a scant education policy platform, the Ford government has no mandate from the electorate to determine a vision for public education and schools without input. Ontario’s children and youth are going to need to be prioritized for many years to come.

What is Next Premier Ford and Minister Lecce?

Premier Ford and Minister Lecce: Are you willing to acknowledge that public education and schools in this province are as important as public health and job creation in order to end and recover from the COVID-19 crisis? Are you willing to prioritize and invest in public education and schools in this province? Are you willing to be transparent, and use data, standards and metrics to ensure Ontario’s students get what they deserve? So far, the answer seems to be NO.

While British Columbia seems actively planning for a safe and “almost normal” back to school, Ontario’s provincial government says they will get back to us in July about what September may look like. While Doug Ford’s government continues to stall and dither on making firm investments and commitments to Ontario’s schools and education system, the Liberals announced their “Education Recovery Plan” to significantly invest in smaller class sizes, mental health, special education, learning recovery supports, safe schools and a supportive start to the school year.

The Liberals noted that every dollar invested in education returns $1.30 to our economy and that the Ontario Liberal Education Recovery Plan would pay for itself in money returned to our economy, and therefore returned to the province in increased tax revenue. Specific to school infrastructure, the Liiberals called for:

  • Cancellation of Highway 413 once and for all and a reinvestment of the $8 billion in savings into building and repairing schools, so that our children can learn in state of the art facilities measured by publicly-reported standards.

  • $525 million of provincial funding immediately (to match federal investment in urgent upgrades) to improve ventilation and filtration systems, air conditioning and window upgrades that will significantly and permanently improve air safety for COVID-19 and other illnesses.

While Fix Our Schools acknowledges that the Ontario Liberals had 15 years in power to truly fix our publicly funded schools, we appreciate the thought and specificity of their Education Recovery Plan and will be sure to hold them to account as the provincial election cycle unfolds.

 

Drinking Water in Schools – Another Failing Grade for Canada and Premier Ford

June 18, 2021

Before the COVID-19 pandemic took centre stage in our lives, lead in drinking water had been in the headlines. A 2019 Toronto Star article entitled, “We can do better. Province concedes it must be more transparent about lead in school water“, featured a massive investigation revealing over 2,400 schools and daycares in Ontario with exceedances of lead in drinking water over the previous two years. At that time, the provincial government had acknowledged it could “do better”.

Almost two years later, an investigative piece published on June 11, 2021 in the Toronto Star revealed that “a third of Ontario schools still have dangerous levels of lead in drinking water – two years after Province pledged to fix it.” According to this recent data, one in 10 water tests from Ontario schools and daycares showed levels of lead above Health Canada’s maximum accepted concentration of five parts per billion (ppb). Schools and daycares are not required to tell parents and students when lead exceedances are found.

Lead can have many negative impacts, including lowering IQ and triggering behavioural disorders. According to a March 2021 study published in the Annals of Epidemiology, students in Ontario schools with lead exceedances between 2008 and 2016 scored lower in reading, writing and math testing, compared with students in schools without lead exceedances.

If high lead levels are found in a school’s water supply, as per provincial guidelines, school staff must flush the pipes by opening the tap and letting cold water flow for at least five minutes, or in some instances install a filter, and in other cases decommission the tap for use. Routine flushing of pipes is the most common solution, and many experts, such as Bruce Lanphear, a leading Canadian water researcher at Simon Fraser University, view flushing as only a short-term fix that does not prioritize the health of students. Lanphear suggests that what is actually needed is to eliminate taps or fountains with lead contamination. However, removing lead pipes that wind their way through building walls and floors is expensive. Given that Ontario’s schools rely upon provincial funding for repair and renewal of schools, and given that Ontario’s schools currently have a $16.3-billion repair backlog, it is difficult to imagine school boards having the means to properly address lead in school drinking water without additional provincial support – in the form of both funding and policies.

When parents send their children to school or daycare, they presume that the drinking water available to them is safe and free from any lead. Clearly, this is still not the case – even though this issue was clearly identified back in 2019. We’d suggest the same changes we recommended years ago are urgently needed today:

The Province must institute a policy mandating all school boards to report lead exceedances to parents and students. As one school principal said in this Global News report, “a clear ministry policy would help guide schools in what they should be communicating to parents and students”. Fix Our Schools believes that transparency about the state of our children’s schools is extremely important. While certain school boards, such as the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), have committed to being transparent by routinely publishing and updating disrepair data, and by starting to publish drinking water results, this is not the norm. Therefore, we urge the provincial government to institute a clear communication policy on drinking water safety in schools and daycares to ensure full transparency. In the spirit of transparency, we’ve also been routinely calling on the provincial government to update and release its disrepair data for all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools.

The Province must provide adequate funding that is designated specifically to addressing lead in drinking water. There is currently no provincial funding provided to school boards (or municipalities) to specifically address lead in drinking water. Given that most school boards face many urgent repairs every day such as leaking roofs, unless funding is provided to address lead in drinking water, the solution in many instances where exceedances are found may just be to cap off drinking water sources and place “handwashing only” signs on sinks in classrooms. Therefore, if we want safe drinking water to be available in schools and daycares, adequate provincial funding must be provided to fix the root causes of lead in drinking water.

 

The Province must develop and fund a Standard of Good Repair for Ontario’s schools. There is currently no standard of good repair for Ontario’s schools that would outline the metrics that could be used to measure whether a school is, indeed, in an acceptable state for children to spend their days. While our provincial government has been diligent in collecting disrepair data in schools, this data does not reflect lead in drinking water, asbestos issues, rodents and vermin, classroom temperatures, indoor air quality, nor is disrepair tracked and reported on any portables.

While the above solutions focus on what Ontario’s provincial government must do to ensure safe drinking water in provincial schools and daycares, we must also address safe drinking water for Canada’s Indigenous Peoples, including access to safe drinking water in schools. A May 6, 2021 article in TheTyee.ca entitled, “My Community’s Boil Water Advisory Is Almost as Old as Me“, author Valerie Ooshag starts by reflecting on her remote fly-in community of Eabametoong First Nation, which has been on a boil water advisory since August 2001. Ooshag also takes a broader look to note that there were 52 long-term advisories in effect as of April 2021, impacting 33 communities. This unacceptable situation continues to exist despite a 2015 commitment by Prime Minister Trudeau to lift all boil-water advisories by 2020.

Ooshag states, “Canada is a first world country, with Indigenous populations and communities having to live under boil water advisories, with some children and youth never having had access to clean drinking water in their entire lives. In the 2015 election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed to lift all boil-water advisories by 2020. It is now 2021, and yet there are still these 52 advisories affecting 33 communities that don’t have access to clean drinking water.”

Inconceivably, there is no new target date for the government to keep its six-year-old promise. We recently gave Canada and Premier Ford a failing grade and continue to do so in relation to the issue of safe drinking water for all citizens. Both Canada’s federal government and Ontario’s provincial government can and must do better on this issue.

Failing Grades for Both Canada and Premier Ford

June 8, 2021

A Failing Grade for Canada

Canada has repeatedly failed Indigenous children, their families and their communities. The discovery of 215 children buried in unmarked graves at Kamloops Residential School has highlighted that there was nothing about Canada’s Residential Schools that was safe, healthy or conducive to learning.

NOTE: Several weeks after 215 unmarked graves were found Kamloops Residential School, on June 24, 2021, the Cowessess First Nation announced a preliminary finding of 751 more unmarked graves near the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Southeast Saskatchewan. We expect additional unmarked graves will continue to be unearthed.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was formed in 2007, in response to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action suit in Canadian history. In June 2015, the TRC presented the executive summary of the findings contained in its multi-volume final report, including 94 “calls to action” (or recommendations) to further reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous Peoples.

The following recommendations are specific to Education:

6. We call upon the Government of Canada to repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada.

7. We call upon the federal government to develop with Aboriginal groups a joint strategy to eliminate educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.

8. We call upon the federal government to eliminate the discrepancy in federal education funding for First Nations children being educated on reserves and those First Nations children being educated off reserves.

9. We call upon the federal government to prepare and publish annual reports comparing funding for the education of First Nations children on and off reserves, as well as educational and income attainments of Aboriginal peoples in Canada compared with nonAboriginal people.

10. We call on the federal government to draft new Aboriginal education legislation with the full participation and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples. The new legislation would include a commitment to sufficient funding and would incorporate the following principles:

i. Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation.

ii. Improving education attainment levels and success rates.

iii. Developing culturally appropriate curricula.

iv. Protecting the right to Aboriginal languages, including the teaching of Aboriginal languages as credit courses.

v. Enabling parental and community responsibility, control, and accountability, similar to what parents enjoy in public school systems.

vi. Enabling parents to fully participate in the education of their children. vii. Respecting and honouring Treaty relationships.

11. We call upon the federal government to provide adequate funding to end the backlog of First Nations students seeking a post-secondary education.

12. We call upon the federal, provincial, territorial, and Aboriginal governments to develop culturally appropriate early childhood education programs for Aboriginal families.

So much listening, collaboration, funding, and commitment to do better is needed to address Canada’s hitherto abject failure of Indigenous children, their families and communities. 

A Failing Grade for Premier Ford and his Government 

Premier Ford and his government failed to make the public health policy decisions that could have led to better outcomes for Ontario’s students, their families, teachers, education workers and Ontario’s businesses. In Robyn Urback’s Globe and Mail opinion piece of June 3, 2021 entitled, Doug Ford’s pandemic response has been the worst of Canada’s Premiers, she states,

“nowhere else in Canada have children been out of school so long, have seniors been hit with two equally devastating waves, have outdoor activities been so restricted for months, have personal service workers been forced into such prolonged shutdown and have retailers and other businesses faced such extended restrictions. And in exchange for these sacrifices, the province can boast … average case numbers, and above-average deaths.”  and also  notes, “Along with kids, Ontario’s seniors – particularly those in long-term care homes – have disproportionately borne the burden of Mr. Ford’s aimless, undisciplined approach to pandemic control.” 

Fix Our Schools’ focus continues to be on ensuring that Ontario’s schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. Throughout the pandemic, Premier Ford has claimed that he shared this focus, and that he prioritized Ontario’s students, their schools and education, and their mental health.

However, in our opinion, Premier Ford and his government have:

and in so doing, Premier Ford and his government have ultimately failed Ontario’s students and their families and our economy.

Acknowledging this failure, we must now look forward to ensuring Ontario’s students return to school in September as safely as possible and with as much normalcy as possible, to be sure. To deliver on this goal, Premier Ford and his government must ensure standards, metrics, data and investment are in place as quickly as possible. Success also requires that Premier Ford provides leadership that allows both the education and public health sectors to maintain a steadfast focus on September.

Beyond safety and normalcy, we also need a vision of excellence for Ontario’s schools and education beyond what was considered “normal” prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s remember that pre-pandemic, $16.3-B of disrepair existed in Ontario’s schools following decades of provincial underfunding, and we had no standards in place for schools to measure whether schools and classrooms were safe, healthy, well-maintained and provided environments conducive to learning. This vision for excellence absolutely must be developed with input from all education stakeholders. Given that Ford’s government was elected having a scant education policy platform, his government has no mandate from the electorate to determine this vision on its own. Ontario’s children and youth are going to need to be prioritized for many years to come.

Citizen Advocacy Works!

A recent study found that when citizens make direct contact with their local government representative – they do influence decision-making and policy. This same study also found that sharing personal stories is a powerful way to communicate with your local government representatives. So, at a time when many people have started to disengage, feeling a lack of control and a lack of hope at times – we encourage you to dig deep and advocate on behalf of Ontario’s students.

Please email Premier Ford or call him at 416-325-1941
Please email Education Minister Lecce or call him at 416-325-2600
Please also contact your local MPP

Please share your stories with our provincial leaders. Tell them how school closures and online learning have been impacting the children in your life. As two doctors wrote, “we cannot let our children and youth become the pandemic’s collateral damage.” Let’s work together to make Ontario’s children a priority now.