Monthly Archives: September 2021

September 30 is National Day for Truth & Reconciliation

September 27, 2021

September 30 marks a new federal statutory holiday in our country – National Day for Truth & Reconciliation. The day honours the lost children and survivors of residential schools and their families and communities. It recognizes that public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.

Fix Our Schools wanted to mark this day with some reflection on First Nations schools across our country.

First Nations Schools on Indigenous Reserves Prior to COVID-19

While Ontario’s publicly funded schools rely upon provincial funding, the federal government is responsible for First Nations schools on reserves. Ontario’s publicly funded school buildings entered the COVID-19 pandemic with a $16.3-billion repair backlog and, despite “historic” levels of provincial funding, this repair backlog increased to $16.8-billion by June, 2021. While this number is staggering, it notably does not even include First Nations schools, portables, accessibility retrofits, water quality, air quality, or asbestos abatement. There is, however, significant disrepair as well as a lack of clean water and sanitation in many schools on First Nations reserves. There is also an absence of schools within a reasonable distance for many First Nations students, particularly high schools.

According to the Assembly of First Nations – First Nations Education Infrastructure Capital Needs Assessment, 2020, there are 526 First Nations schools across Canada, and $2.14 billion is required for new school construction and additions, with 28% (or 140) schools being overcrowded. Further to this, 46 of the 526 First Nations schools required immediate replacement based on the school age or poor condition.

The COVID-19 Pandemic Expanded Inequities In Education and Schools

Disrepair, lack of clean water and sanitation, absence of local schools, and overcrowding were issues that negatively impacted Indigenous students even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. And, as the Ontario COVID-19 Science Table noted in its July 2021 briefing, “for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented additional distinctive and substantial challenges for education delivery which has expanded inequities”. This science briefing highlighted specific issues with school infrastructure on reserves:

  1. Ensure clear accountability for education support whether through federal or provincial resources.
  2. Remote learning is less accessible, due to technological challenges, in these communities.
  3. Aging infrastructure, including older HVAC and supplemental ventilation/filtration systems in many remote First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities may impact the ability to properly ventilate schools and ensure adequate air quality, particularly during local outbreaks and in the colder months when opening windows is not an option.
  4. Schools in remote, rural, and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities that do not meet the appropriate minimum ventilation guidelines from ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2019, should be prioritized for upgrades.
  5. Overcrowded education infrastructure in some remote First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities could make preventative measures such as cohorting and physical distancing difficult and could result in the need to shift to remote learning in some instances, further contributing to high rates of disengagement. Appropriate resources should be provided to ensure adequate space is available to support consistent in-person learning in these communities, and to ensure equitable access to digital learning resources.

 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

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 TRC 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.

September 30 is Canada’s first National Day for Truth & Reconciliation

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.

On September 30, we encourage you to mark Canada’s first National Day for Truth & Reconciliation. Consider taking time to:

  • Wear orange. Orange Shirt Day, an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived Indian Residential Schools and remembers those who did not, also takes place on September 30. Wearing orange on September 30 raises awareness of the very tragic legacy of residential schools, and honours the thousands of Survivors.
  • Write your newly elected (or re-elected) local MP and Prime Minister Trudeau to prioritize education and schools for all Indigenous Peoples in Ontario, and across the country.
  • Tune in to CBC coverage of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. CBC will be sharing First Nations, Métis and Inuit perspectives and experiences from across the country. For the entire day, these stories will be broadcast across CBC TV, CBC News Network, CBC.ca, CBC Kids, CBC Radio One and CBC Music, including a commercial-free primetime broadcast special, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
  • “See us, hear us, and to believe us”. Geraldine Shingoose, a residential school survivor – or warrior as she prefers to be called – said in this Global News piece , “I ask Canada to see us, to hear us and to believe us,” echoing the sentiments of Murray Sinclair, who served as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Shingoose suggests Canadians take a moment of silence at 2:15 p.m. – referring to the number of graves found in Kamloops, and adds that small gestures such as displaying an orange shirt in your window can have a powerful impact on survivors.

Largest School Board in the Country Takes a Step in the Right Direction

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is Canada’s largest school board and, as per the following media release from September 22, 2021, has taken a step in the right direction.

“The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) Urban Indigenous Education Centre (UIEC), with guidance from the Elders Council, will open the Boyne Natural Science School as an Indigenous Land-Based Learning site.Trustees unanimously supported the initiative during this evening’s Regular Board Meeting.

This site is located on 308.5 acres of the Niagara Escarpment, adjacent to the Bruce Trail and the Boyne River Provincial Park. Its reopening supports the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action and supports Indigenous Education on The Land for all students, staff and Indigenous communities

The Indigenous Land-Based Learning site, which will have one to two classes on location at a time will feature programming that focuses on holistic Indigenous health and well-being (physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual) in support of Indigenous student success. It will also include professional learning, community engagement, partnerships, curriculum resource development and innovation, research and development, and reconciliation through Indigenous perspectives.

To support the expansion of Land-Based Learning through Indigenous ways of knowing and being, UIEC staff will create resources to support all curriculum areas based on Indigenous Pedagogies; including, but not limited to Indigenous cultures and traditions, Indigenous language revitalization, archery, canoe/kayak building, hiking, maple syrup programming, mapping and orienteering, medicine harvesting and walks, mountain biking and snow shoeing.

In the future, the TDSB anticipates the site can be restored to support larger groups for day and overnight programming when the pandemic allows.”

Has the Ford Government Invested Sufficiently in its COVID-response?

September 16, 2021

The Ford Government Spent $2.6-B Less than Planned in First Quarter

On September 15, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) for Ontario released its latest report, stating that Premier Ford’s government has spent $2.6 billion less than planned during the fiscal first quarter (April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021).

This independent report by the FAO states that, “in the health sector, the province did not spend any of the $2.7 billion COVID-19 Response transfer payment (from the federal government).” Clearly, these findings have raised concerns among critics about whether Doug Ford’s government has truly done all that it could have done to invest in its COVID-19 response.

A spokesperson for Ontario’s Health Minister Christine Elliot took issue with the concerns brought forward by the latest FAO report and said, “the FAO reports on spending as recorded in IFIS at a point in time, which does not necessarily reflect when services/goods were received, the spending plan for the entire fiscal year, or the spending position that will occur at the end of the fiscal year.”

However, when the FAO released its annual report back in mid-July, CBC reported at that time that the Ford government spent approximately $10 billion less than had been planned for the entire 2020-21 fiscal year. At that time, there was also much criticism of the Ford government for not investing those funds in more pandemic supports. This criticism seems well-founded, given Ontario’s relatively poor performance throughout the pandemic compared to other provinces. A Globe and Mail opinion piece from entitled, Doug Ford’s pandemic response has been the worst of Canada’s Premiers, noted that,

“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.”   

Investing in Testing to Keep Ontario’s Schools Open

NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles has certainly expressed concerns over insufficient investments in schools as part of the COVID-19 response of our provincial government.

And, despite claims by Ontario’s new chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore, that “there’s no additional value” to implementing asymptomatic rapid antigen testing at schools, given generally low community infection rates, many others are wondering if rapid testing could be the way forward.

Dr. Suvendrini Lena, a neurologist and the senior medical adviser to pandemic programs at Women’s College Hospital, and Michelle Joseph CEO of Unison Health and Community Services, wrote this September 14 opinion piece for the Toronto Star entitled, “How COVID-19 testing must be conducted to prevent school closures.” They summed up their position with these thoughts, “The bottom line is that we need surveillance testing in high-risk elementary public schools. In the 2020-21 school year, outbreaks and closures in Toronto were predominantly in racialized and low-income schools. These outbreaks caused fear and anxiety among students and parents and ultimately tipped the balance toward system closure. Supporting these schools with special measures will support the system as a whole.”

 

Investing in Ventilation and Standards to Keep Schools Open

Significant provincial funding has gone towards investing in improving ventilation in Ontario schools and classrooms.

However, even with upgrades and extra filters, a September 13 CBC piece examines the issue of ventilation inequity across Ontario’s classrooms. Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist, worries about the inequity in ventilation between classrooms and believes that air quality audits ought to have been done in every classroom in the province during the summer so that we had data from which to ensure an equitable approach to ventilation. 

“Some classrooms may have more than what they need. And many, of course, may not have what they need,” Furness said. For instance, if a HEPA filter is put in a classroom that is naturally ventilated and one filter is put in a mechanically-ventilated classroom, the ventilation in each of these classrooms clearly not the same. David Elfstrom, an Energy Engineer and school ventilation advocate, has been calling for a uniform air quality standard for all Ontario’s schools.

Fix Our Schools wholeheartedly supports Elfstrom’s call for standards and, in fact, has been calling for a standard of good repair since the 2018 provincial election. At that time, 58 newly elected MPPs had made a personal commitment to ensuring that a standard of good repair was developed for Ontario’s schools, and that funding would be provided to ensure that these standards could be met. Interested in seeing if your local MPP made this personal commitment by signing the Fix Our Schools Pledge? CLICK HERE

And if your local MPP did, indeed, make a personal commitment to developing a standard of good repair for schools (which would, of course, include a ventilation and indoor air quality standard) – then we encourage you to reach out to them to remind them of the ongoing need.

School is in Session! Yet Queen’s Park is Not…

September 9, 2021

Premier Ford Prorogues Legislature Until October 4

In the midst of the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the return of almost 2-million Ontario children to schools that have been closed since April is pivotal for students, parents, teachers and education workers across the province. However, Premier Ford felt this was the right time to prorogue provincial legislature until October 4, when our MPPs were meant to be back at work on September 13.

According to the September 3 article in the Toronto Sun entitled, Ontario government prorogues legislature until after the federal election”, NDP and Green Leaders Andrea Horwath and Mike Schreiner both expressed that Ford’s move was irresponsible and an abdication of responsibility.

“It’s bad enough that Doug Ford has gone into hiding for over a month, now he is choosing to hide his entire government,” said Horwath.

Schreiner added, “When the times are tough and Ontarians need support, Doug Ford and his government run for the shadows.”

Mitigating COVID-19 Risks in Schools

Sabina Vohra-Miller, MSc. in Clinical Pharmacology, runs a non-partisan blog called Unambiguous Science, with the goal of “helping people navigate the current anti-science vortex by breaking data down into posts that are easy to understand”.  She released a helpful blog this past week entitled, “Safe Schools – Advocacy and Considerations” to assist parents in advocating for mitigation strategies and in navigating the complexity of return-to-school amidst the fourth wave of the COVID-19-pandemic. Vohra-Miller included the following two graphics to clarify how schools can be mitigating COVID-related risks, and to outline considerations for families as children head back to schools.

Ventilation has been a key concern for us at Fix Our Schools, and we will continue to cover this important topic in the coming weeks and months. At the moment, we believe that our provincial government must provide the required funding and resources to ensure school boards gather measurements on ventilation and indoor air quality in all classrooms to compare against a provincial standard. Without knowing the outcome of ventilation improvement efforts and having a standard that all Ontario schools must meet, we simply have no way of knowing whether the ventilation and indoor air quality in a given classroom is sufficient to reduce the spread of COVID.

Ontario’s University of Guelph has been incredibly transparent about how they are preparing for your safe return, stating that, “Physical Resources has assessed ventilation in all classrooms scheduled for use this fall. Before classes begin in September, all classrooms that will be in use will have ventilation measures in place that provide for the equivalent of six outside air changes per hour (ACH). Air movement and, in some cases, air purifiers will allow these spaces to reach this ventilation target – a measure equal to the standard in place for medical examination rooms.” As of August 12, 2021, anyone can view detailed ventilation measures in all University of Guelph classrooms to track progress towards meeting the 6 ACH standard.

The example of the University of Guelph, which has many other funding options at its disposal beyond the provincial government, provides a stark contrast to Ontario’s publicly funded schools, which rely exclusively upon provincial funding. The University of Guelph has set a standard of 6 air changes per hour (ACH), the same standard in place for medical examination rooms, and then has been taking the measurements in classrooms to ensure these standards are met.  When will our provincial government provide the standards, funding and resources for public schools in this province to ensure that indoor air quality and ventilation is at an appropriate level in all Ontario’s classrooms?  

A Long History of Provincial Underfunding for School Infrastructure 

Chronic and gross underfunding from Ontario’s provincial government for school infrastructure has led to a $16.8-B repair backlog in Ontario’s schools. This massive repair backlog does not even include issues such as classroom temperatures and humidity, accessibility issues with the vast majority of Ontario’s schools, technology gaps, or the state of portables, the conditions of which are never assessed.

When Fix Our Schools began in 2014, provincial funding for school renewal and repair was only $150-M/year for all Ontario school boards – an amount that was ONE-TENTH what industry standards suggest the bare minimum amount of funding ought to have been to keep Ontario’s schools in decent shape. To the credit of the previous provincial government, they did increase this annual amount significantly back in 2016 to $1.4-B/year – the amount industry standards recommended as the bare minimum. However, as Fix Our Schools has repeatedly pointed out – this annual funding level is still insufficient to make up for the 20+ years when funding was grossly inadequate and during which time a $15-B repair backlog accumulated in Ontario’s schools. So, unsurprisingly, despite the ongoing $1.4-B/year of provincial funding for school renewal and repairs, the repair backlog for Ontario’s schools has continued to grow year over year to a gob-smacking $16.8-B.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly laid bare the importance of school buildings for the health and well-being of students, teachers and education workers. As we head into another school year amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, City TV Toronto covered the issue of disrepair in schools on September 7, 2021. They revealed that the schools in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) combined have close to $5-B of disrepair. Fix Our Schools was interviewed for this segment, and emphasized how the current provincial funding, while a huge sum of money, is simply insufficient if we actually want to eliminate the repair backlog in Ontario’s schools and ensure our publicly funded schools are safe, healthy and well-maintained.

CBC Toronto has also started covering this important issue, kicking off a series about the state of TDSB schools on September 9, 2021. John Riete, Angelina King, and Katie Swyers provided a comprehensive and concise look at why school conditions matter and the impact of poor school conditions on learning and health. Fix Our Schools provided an overview of the history that has led to a public education system where Ontario schools face a $16.8-B backlog of disrepair.

Krista Wylie, the co-founder of the organization Fix Our Schools, said the solution has to come from Queen’s Park. Since 2016, the province (under the Wynne and Ford governments) has spent some $1.4 billion per year on school repairs across the province, but that funding is split across some 5,000 schools. That price tag may look big, but Wylie said in her view it’s the “absolute minimum, and noted that even with this often cited “historic level of provincial funding”, the repair backlog in Ontario’s schools has continued to grow every year, proving that provincial funding is simply insufficient.

Back to School is Upon Us – As is the Federal Election

September 2, 2021

Back to School

As Ontario’s students get ready to return to classes for the the first time since April, there is much uncertainty and trepidation. In the August 28, 2021 Globe & Mail opinion piece entitled, “How to fix Canada’s education catastrophe in five steps“, Irvin Studin described the chaos  – “for the majority of Canada’s nearly five million children still in the country’s school systems, learning loss and destabilization during the pandemic have been severe. This is particularly true in Ontario, which includes 40 per cent of the national student body and which has seen some of the longest school closings in North America.” And with this in mind, Studin posits that, “schools must be kept open at all costs” and that, “we must double down on quality because “average” or “normal” – or, yes, “safe” – is plainly not good enough.”

It is now September and many parents, teachers, and education workers are echoing the Toronto Star Editorial Board’s sentiments in their August 24, 2021 editorial entitled, “Ford is sleepwalking Ontario into a rising COVID wave again” and wondering, “where is Premier Doug Ford?” and “why is it that Doug Ford, who has access to the most information about the trouble coming our way and holds the most tools to do something about it, is always the last one to see the light?” The Toronto Star Editorial Board argues that Ontario must follow B.C and Quebec’s lead in implementing a vaccine certificate system (which Premier Ford reluctantly announced this week), noting that the Ford government has consistently failed to be proactive, instead choosing to wait until things got really bad before scrambling to enact policies and measures that then proved too little and too late. They also go so far as to state that Premier Ford’s lack of proactive policy amidst this fourth wave of the COVID pandemic is “a total abdication of political leadership”.

In this absence of political leadership, the Toronto Star released an article on August 30, 2021 entitled, “With September approaching, how safe is your child’s elementary school?” The article notes that “experts say community vaccination rates are one of the most important indicators of COVID transmission risk among unvaccinated kids.” and goes on to release vaccination rates by postal code for Toronto to help families better understand the risks involved as their unvaccinated elementary school children head back to school. Partnering with Tai Huynh, founding editor-in-chief of The Local, the same Star article provides a chart in which the risk of infection for younger students can be compared among Toronto’s 666 elementary and middle schools in the TDSB, TCDSB and the French public and Catholic boards. This chart considers the community case count over the course of the pandemic as well as vaccination rates in order to arrive at a risk rating for each school.

Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education, a non-profit that supports public education, is cited in the same Toronto Star article as stating that, “the best way to protect kids this fall is to require COVID shots for both staff and students 12 and up.” Kidder also noted that children already need to get vaccines for diseases such as measles and polio to attend school.

School Ventilation

Another element of ensuring COVID-spread and outbreaks are limited in schools is good ventilation in schools and classrooms. As of September, our provincial government has mandated that all kindergarten classes and all learning spaces without mechanical ventilation are required to have at least one air purifying (HEPA) filter. Also as per provincial mandate, schools with mechanical ventilation are expected to increase outdoor air exchanges and improve the grade of filter used. Of note is that some school boards, such as the Toronto District School Board, are going above and beyond this provincial directive to ensure all classrooms have portable air purifiers with HEPA filters. Of equal note is that non-mechanically ventilated classrooms may need more than one HEPA filter to achieve the ventilation required to reduce the spread of COVID.

However, our provincial government has fallen short relative to school ventilation. The provincial government has not provided adequate funding to ensure all classrooms ultimately benefit from mechanical ventilation, which would provide benefits well beyond the COVID-pandemic. We know that only 70% of classrooms in Ontario have mechanical ventilation. As well, our provincial government has failed to provide the funding or direction to school boards to institute standards and metrics for indoor air quality and ventilation. At the end of the day, what really matters is the outcome of the ventilation investments so without regular measurements and a standard to meet, we will never know if our children’s classrooms have good ventilation.

In New York City, “school ventilation action teams” have been created to assess the air quality in all schools ahead of September. “Until you actually measure the air in there and what (air) exchange is happening, it’s just a bit of ventilation theatre,” said Seth Bernstein, a secondary school teacher and parent to an elementary school-aged kid.

Federal Election

Since Fix Our Schools’ inception in 2014, we have always taken the opportunity with each federal election to highlight:

  1. The federal government is responsible for First Nations education and schools and there is notable disrepair, lack of clean water and sanitation in many schools on First Nations reserves. There is also an absence of schools within a reasonable distance for many First Nations students. Since the last federal election in 2019, there has been no notable improvements in school conditions, lack of clean water and sanitation in schools on First Nations reserves, nor any move forward in accessibility of quality education to all Indigenous children. Therefore, we once again urge all federal parties and candidates to prioritize the schools and education of all Indigenous children.
  2. How federal funding could benefit school building infrastructure across the country even though historically, our federal government has stayed entirely out of schools and education, which are technically a provincial jurisdiction. However, our argument has always been that if we delineate the school buildings from education, surely federal funding could go towards the renewal, repair and building of critical school infrastructure. Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic led the federal government to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars to provinces to use to make improvements to school buildings that would help reduce the spread of COVID-19. We’ve seen the lion’s share of this federal funding go towards important improvements to ventilation, which will serve to benefit children, teachers, and education workers not only during the pandemic but also for the long-term. With this as a precedent, Fix Our Schools once again urges all federal parties and candidates to prioritize the allocation of annual funding to Canada’s school building infrastructure in order to address the unacceptable levels of school disrepair across the country.

In the coming weeks, as you have opportunities to ask questions of federal parties and candidates, here are some questions and conversation starters you may consider.