If you didn’t already vote in early polls, when you vote on Thursday, we’d ask that you consider the 2-million children who spend their days in Ontario’s publicly funded schools. We’d also ask that you consider the fact that healthcare and education comprise 60% of Ontario’s provincial budget … so schools and education ought to be a consideration in how you vote.

You can see here which candidates across the province have already signed the Fix Our Schools Pledge to commit to developing a standard of good repair for Ontario’s publicly funded schools and to providing adequate, stable funding so that those standards can be met. Any candidate “lit up” in their party colour has signed the Pledge.

It is late May and temperatures are soaring. The vast majority of Ontario schools do not have air conditioning, many have classrooms without blinds, and often classroom windows do not open fully to be able to get an actual breeze. And yet, children in Ontario have another month of school left and many are writing EQAO tests.

Fix Our Schools has been hearing from parents and teachers alike:

“As the weather gets hotter outside, the classrooms are heating up as well – often as hot or hotter than outside.”

“Why does it take so long to figure out that concentration ability drops dramatically in hot weather? Why do we keep forcing our kids to endure this, when it is not necessary?”

“These CHILDREN are forced to endure conditions that would not be tolerated or accepted in any adult place. Why is that? Why are our children being neglected?”

“My daughter has a health issue that leads to seizures, migraine headaches, and all sorts of other complications if she overheats. She has EQAO this week. I’m frightened. Classrooms could be over 30 degrees.”

School conditions matter. The provincial government determines how much funding Ontario’s school boards receive to ensure that school conditions are acceptable so please vote on June 7th with your children in mind.

Frustration indeed. We hear from teachers all the time about awful learning/working conditions in their schools and classrooms but this letter was particularly poignant. We wanted to share:

“I have followed you since you started this campaign. I grew up and taught in the US, then taught abroad for a year before coming to Ontario. In my first teaching assignment here, I taught half-day kindergarten. As soon as I saw the learning space, I immediately went to the Vice Principal about the peeling paint in the room where 3-5 year olds would be spending their day. He appreciated my concern, but the only one who did anything about it was me: I sanded it.

I was shocked when I went into the daycare room in the same school to find fresh paint in vibrant colours. I asked about it and the daycare worker matter-of-factly stated, “We would be shut down if we had peeling paint.” But it’s the same kids! How can It be that there are standards if you call it “daycare,” but anything goes if it’s labelled “school?”

In that same kindergarten room, the heat was relentless in the winter time. When I inquired about it, I was told to open the window!

At another school, I took off the rad covers and vacuumed out the entire heater because the dust in them was so thick I thought, “If it’s impacting me, it must be hard on the grade one students in my class.” Why did I do the work myself? It seemed to be nobody’s job. Vacuuming or blowing out the rads are not on the summer cleaning list, and it was clear that it would never be done or take years if a request was put in. 

Things that had been fixed at the school lacked follow-through. For instance, a new toilet paper holder had been installed in a multi-use washroom, but the mess from the old one was left behind. So, I pulled out the plastic plugs, filled in the holes and painted it. While I was doing it I fixed the peeling paint around the sink and a big hole in the wall. The entire time, I felt I had to be very sneaky about it, hoping I didn’t get caught, but it had been like that for the two years since I’d been there, so I finally decided to fix it myself.

At a third school, a decade earlier a teacher had put wallpaper on the wall to dress it up. However, by the time I arrived, it was peeling and sagging. So, I pulled the paper off at the end of the school year. The summer went by and nothing had been done about the wall. The week before school, I finished scrubbing and scraping and painted the small wall between two windows. The caretaker was very upset by my action, claiming we could be sued if anyone found out I had painted the wall. I know other teachers, principals and parents who have “snuck in” and fixed things as well. Complete frustration. 

I know the Fix Our Schools campaign is addressing HUGE needs at the schools, but why can’t the little things be addressed too? Children deserve to learn in conditions and environments that are clean, safe, healthy and just plain pleasant – that isn’t too much to ask I don’t think. We need our whole education system to run with our end “customers” in mind – the children!  There has to be a way for provincial funding, school board budgets, unions, parents, teachers and community to come together and Fix Our Schools.

Ottawa region schools suffer from over $1-billion of disrepair. Ottawa Catholic School Board has $244.4-million of disrepair in its schools and Ottawa-Carlton has $840.9-million in its properties. Students attending publicly funded schools in the Ottawa area suffer because of this disrepair. You can do something to help!

Contact your local MPP candidates today by email or via twitter and let them know you expect them to sign the Fix Our Schools Pledge. We’ve gathered the following contact info for all candidates in all Ottawa area ridings to make it super easy for you. We’ve done our best but in some cases, contact information is incomplete because we were unable to find data.

When you contact them, simply let them know disrepair in local schools is an issue you want addressed and point them to www.fixourschools.ca for everything they need to sign the Fix Our Schools Pledge!  If you’re interested, we’ve drafted a proposed message you could use here.

The Ontario Alliance Against School Closures (OAASC) is an important group representing the interests of communities that have been negatively impacted by school closures, the majority of which are in rural and northern Ontario. Despite their focus being on school closures and our focus being on school building conditions, our work frequently intersects because the same root causes of provincial underfunding and misguided provincial education policies inform both these key educational issues.

OAASC conducts excellent research, lead community advocacy and have recently unearthed some disturbing data that they recently shared with us: 

We are pleased to share our letter to the leaders of Ontario’s political parties and our report supporting our request to halt school closures until a “value for money audit” of the capital cost of closing schools is completed.

We have identified 301 school closures since 2014 that are associated with capital expenditures exceeding $1.7 billion. This capital spending is out-stripping the renewal needs of schools tied to these closures. This is still escalating as the Ministry of Education continues to approve capital projects without media releases.

We have uncovered an estimated $18.8 million in capital recently spent on schools that have since closed and slated for imminent closure. An inefficient use of capital. 

We believe the next governing party of Ontario must shift from an infrastructure priority to an education priority. Keeping our existing schools in a good state of repair must be a priority. 

The capital and social costs are adding up.

On May 9th, ETFO organized an Education Rally at the Ministry of Education. Fix Our Schools invited you to attend this rally and to bring your children. We were thrilled that so many people attended this event and that many of you did bring your children.

Children are really the focus of the Fix Our Schools campaign – ensuring that the schools in which 2-million of Ontario’s children spend their days provide a safe, healthy environment that is conducive to learning.

Thank you for coming out to help Fix Our Schools!

A parent, who had been in her daughter’s school volunteering, noticed a black tar-like substance strewn about underneath the air vents in a classroom. Concerned that children were breathing in these mysterious particles and that a daycare also operates in this school, she contacted the Toronto Star. This contact resulted in the the May 14, 2018 Toronto Star article by Victoria Gibson, entitled, “A black mystery substance is coming out of vents at this Toronto public school”.

As parents, we want the best for our children and often make housing decisions based on school catchment so our children can attend a “good school”. It is sometimes difficult to reconcile all the great things that go on inside Ontario’s school buildings with the fact that so many of these schools offer completely substandard learning environments for our children. As parents, we need to speak up about disrepair in our children’s schools, whether that means contacting the media, contacting Fix Our Schools with photos and stories, or contacting all your local MPP Candidates. After all, the first step in solving a problem is admitting we have a problem. 

 We were excited to hear from a parent at Dovercourt Public School that they are planning to attend the May 9th Education Rally as a group with their children! And they plan on making it FUN! Check out their ideas and, despite the short notice for this event, see if you and some others from your school can organize even a small group of 7-15 people to come after school to attend the May 9th Education Rally (organized by ETFO).

What Dovercourt Public School is planning! 

• We’re dressing up as members of the Justice League – super heroes – to connect with the Social Justice League team at our school and make it fun for our children!
• We’re planning to augment our costumes with construction themed items like hard hats and hammers to indicate how much FIXING is needed at our school and others in our community.
• A few parents are making placards that say, It’s time to FIX OUR SCHOOLS 
• We’re meeting after school on May 9th at Dovercourt school to organize placards, talk to our kids about the purpose/issues/civic actions, put on hats/costumes
• We’re departing from Dovercourt school by 4:00pm and walking together to Dufferin subway station.
• We’ll get off at Bay subway station and walk south on Bay Street (West Side) to Bay & Wellesley St West to the location for the Education Rally, 900 Bay Street
• We’re bringing some snacks to share to make this a fun activist learning event for our kids and to send a message that the next provincial government must prioritize publicly funded schools and education!