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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. 

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? 

How the Ford Government Has Failed Us

January 26, 2021

On January 21, 2021, SickKids released this updated version of their Guidance for School Operation During the Pandemic document.

In the release of this updated document, Dr. Ronald Cohn, President and CEO, SickKids, and co-author of the document stated, “When considering public health measures aimed at curbing community transmission of COVID-19, it is our strong opinion that schools should be the last doors to close and the first to open in society. The current school closures need to be as time-limited as possible. It is therefore imperative that bundled measures of infection prevention and control and a robust testing strategy are in place. Additional delays will inevitably further exacerbate the harms to children and the inequities caused by school closures.”

In the summary of this updated document, the most significant changes include testing recommendations, enhanced physical distancing and non-medical mask use, emphasis on cohorting, and updates to the section on mental health and wellness.

Ironically, on the same day, the Toronto Star published an article by Rachel Mendleson entitled, “Internal government documents show how Ontario ‘watered down’ its strategies to keep COVID-19 out of classrooms“, where over 450 pages of briefing notes, memos, and reports from the senior civil servant in the Ministry of Education (read: unelected and nonpartisan!) to Minister Lecce (read: elected and partisan!), that had been obtained via a Freedom of Information request, were examined and commented upon:

“It looks like, originally, they (unelected, non-partisan civil servants) had a lot of things covered, but what they (elected, partisan politicians) ended up implementing … was ‘plan lite.’ You know, let’s take it, but massage it so it’s not as stringent, not as costly. It’s frustrating to see things watered down.” – Andrea Grebenc, Chair of the Halton District School Board

After reviewing the documents that include proposals for safety measures that did not come to fruition related to testing, symptom screening, and class sizes:

“Given where we are right now, it’s hard to look back at that, and think about potential alternate universes where we might have done all of these things that were recommended. It’s like we had these branch points and we picked the wrong path to take.” – Ashleigh Tuite, an epidemiologist from the University of Toronto

Last week, Fix Our Schools addressed a question that had been posed many times,  “Is Premier Ford “doing the best that he can”, given these very challenging circumstances?, and the answer we delivered was, unequivocally, no. In fact, we would go so far as to say the Ford government has failed students, teachers, education workers, families, and communities.

Fix Our Schools has consistently argued that Premier Ford and Minister Lecce could have (and should have) done more to ensure Ontario’s students could learn safely in-person back in their classrooms. So, on a day when SickKids emphasized the importance of in-person learning for Ontario’s children, we were particularly struck by the findings outlined in the Toronto Star article presented above. These findings certainly rendered meaningless the claims by both our Premier and our Minister of Education that “no expense was being spared” and that “everything possible was being done by this government to ensure Ontario students could safely learn in classrooms”.

In a January 25th CBC article, the provincial government shared that its plan to reopen Ontario’s schools “has been informed by the best medical and scientific minds in the country, including SickKids and other hospitals.“. Wow. This is a shocking statement by our government, given that we know only a fraction of medical and scientific advice on the safe operation of schools amidst this pandemic has been heeded by this government.

The role of Ontario’s Auditor-General, seems well-suited to examine this glaringly negligent behaviour of the Ford government, and we call upon her office to critically examine what this government has actually done to ensure the safety and well-being of students, teachers, and education workers amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

MPP Bourgouin: $93-M of Disrepair in Mushkegowuk Schools

January 21, 2021

Dear MPP Bourgouin,

Did you know there is $93-million of disrepair in the publicly funded schools in your riding of Mushkegowuk? We commend you for signing the Fix Our Schools Pledge during the election, and making the personal commitment to ensure all Ontario’s schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working.

We wanted to share the following details of disrepair in each school in your riding in the hope that this detailed information would underscore the importance of developing standards of good repair for Ontario schools and also the importance of providing the adequate, stable provincial funding to school boards required for them to meet those new standards and eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog (as of November 2019) that plagues Ontario’s schools:

Total disrepair in each publicly funded school in Mushkegowuk Riding:

ÉÉC AndréCary  $                    3,332,908
ÉÉC GeorgesVanier  $                    1,425,877
ÉÉC JacquesCartier (Kapuskasing)  $                    3,552,855
ÉÉC Pavillon NotreDame  $                    4,734,228
ÉÉC SainteAnne  $                    2,679,708
ÉÉC SaintFrançoisXavier  $                    3,559,548
ÉÉC SaintJules  $                    3,576,733
ÉÉC SaintLouis (Hearst)  $                    4,112,288
ÉSC CitédesJeunes  $                    7,433,674
ÉSC Hearst  $                    9,236,374
Clayton Brown Public School  $                    4,452,227
Kapuskasing DHS  $                  37,242,056
Smooth Rocks Fall Public School  $                       697,724
Bishop Belleau School  $                    1,444,977
St Patricks S  $                    5,300,254
ÉÉP Cœur du Nord  $                       219,822

School conditions matter. They impact student learning, attendance, and health.

We ask that you and your government please prioritize schools as critical infrastructure and take the steps necessary to ensure that the disrepair in all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools is eliminated and that schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We look forward to hearing back from you with details on your plan to Fix Ontario’s Schools.

PLEASE NOTE: Fix Our Schools is relying on the most recent disrepair data provided by the Ministry of Education in Fall 2017 and has mapped postal codes provided by the Ministry for each school to riding postal code information from a third party. Therefore, it is possible that there may be small errors in the data provided here and we would be grateful if community members would contact us with any errors. 

Is Premier Ford “Doing the Best He Can” Amidst Challenging Circumstances?

January 19, 2021

Fix Our Schools has been hearing on social media some version of the following question over the past few weeks:

“What do you expect Premier Ford to do? I think he’s doing the best he can in this difficult situation.”

So we thought now was as good a time as any to give a full and complete response to that question …

Please keep in mind that Fix Our Schools’ focus is on ensuring schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working, so what we expect of the Ford government focuses only on that aspect of education, leaving far more calls to action unwritten here. 

Our Pre-Pandemic Expectations of Premier Ford:

To answer the question fully, it seemed necessary to go back to the beginning. Since the Ford government took power in June 2018, Fix Our Schools has taken advantage of the annual budget consultation process to submit our expectations on what the Ford government should do to ensure Ontario’s schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working. Some expectations that we have consistently outlined in these submissions include:

  • Developing a standard of good repair for Ontario’s schools
  • Providing adequate, stable funding to eliminate the $16.3-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s schools
  • Resuming transparency into the disrepair in Ontario’s schools

We made these recommendations in January 2019 and submitted these recommendations in January 2020, and in each of these years also made presentations to the Committee of Economic Affairs and Finance as part of the budget consultation process.

Since 2018, our unwritten expectation of Premier Ford was that he would cultivate a government culture that authentically engaged with, actively listened to, and humbly learned from key stakeholders, in order to develop the best decisions and policy in the face of complex challenges. Our experience has, in fact, been quite the opposite. In stark contrast to the Liberal government who held power before Ford took over, and also in stark contrast to the PC Education Critic and Leader at Queen’s Park at that time, the Ford government has chosen not to actively engage with, listen to, or learn from stakeholders in any meaningful way. Prior to Ford becoming Premier, Fix Our Schools had true working relationships with the NDP Education Critic and Leader, the PC Education Critic and Leader, the Minister of Education, their political staff and the Ontario public servants in that Ministry, and, most notably, as a parent-led, non-partisan, Ontario-wide campaign, we had direct contact and many productive meetings with senior-level policy advisors within the Premiers’ Office. Those working relationships lead to some excellent progress, including significant increases in provincial funding for school repairs increase from $150-M/year to $1.4-B/year and transparency into the disrepair data in schools. Our experience with the Ford administration is that the culture established there is not one of learning or growth, so they seem destined to fall short when leading amidst the extreme complexity and pressure of a global pandemic.

As our input to the 2021/22 provincial budget, Fix Our Schools sent this submission to the Ministry of Education, and continues to call for stable, adequate, equitable funding for schools; a standard of good repair for all Ontario schools, including First Nations schools (which are funded with federal money) and portables. In this funding submission, we also included funding recommendations for the current pandemic environment, and looked ahead to 2025, when all public buildings are meant to be fully accessible for people with disabilities, and made recommendations to this government to provide funding to school boards to address accessibility within their buildings.

Our Expectations of Premier Ford Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic:

On June 11, 2020, Fix Our Schools sent these expectations to the Ministry of Education, in response to its request for public input to Ontario’s plan to reopen schools. Days later, we learned that an advisory group led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) had been working closely with the Ministry of Education.  SickKids issued its initial recommendations for safe school reopenings in the document, COVID-19: Recommendations for School Reopening (pdf), highlighting the need for:

  • the ability for children to maintain 2M distance from one another in classrooms
  • proper ventilation in classrooms
  • proper hand-washing facilities for all students

Given Fix Our Schools initial recommendations, and SickKids initial and subsequent recommendations, Fix Our Schools would have expected Premier Ford to have done the following, all of which are within his governments’ power: 

  • Released new emergency repairs funding to school boards so that they could have taken advantage of the fact that school buildings were empty for weeks and months at a time, and could have conducted outstanding repairs in these buildings more safely and more efficiently. 
  • Funded a return to school plan that would have allowed for sufficient space for students to maintain the recommended 2 m distance from others, like many other countries
  • Responded quickly to the June 17 Sick Kids report calling for proper ventilation in all classrooms, by immediately releasing funding to school boards to have been able to address ventilation issues, rather than waiting to release only $50-M in late August – weeks before schools were opening.
  • Provided funding required to ensure all Ontario students could have easy access to proper hand-washing in schools.
  • Advocated for Ontario’s First Nations schools, even though these are federally funded
  • Provided funding to replenish the technology that, understandably, was taken from schools back in the Spring to ensure all students had resources to participate in at-home learning, accommodate on-line learning. As it stands now, most schools have a dearth of technology available for in-school learning.
  • Developed a provincial outdoor education plan, acknowledging that being outdoors offers the most protection against COVID-19 transmission.
  • Consulted with educators and other education stakeholders to understand how government policies would actually unfold in real classrooms, in real schools, rather than relying on teachers, principals and education workers to work miracles.
  • Hired additional caretakers.

We, at Fix Our Schools, hope that this provides some insight into all that could have been done by Premier Ford since taking office in June 2018 to lead us to a much better place than we find ourselves in today. This January 7, 2021 Ottawa Citizen article provides some additional recommendations on ways Premier Ford and his government could make schools safer.