Conditions of school portables ought to be assessed

November 20, 2016

black-mold-not-goldThe provincial government released Facility Condition Index (FCI) data for all Ontario schools this August, which provides details of outstanding repairs on all school buildings in the province. Absent from this data is any type of assessment on school portables. Given the number of Ontario’s students and teachers who spend their days in portables, the condition of these buildings ought to be assessed and documented too! 

grci-portable-8_06

We received photos of a portable in a horrible state of disrepair, which highlights why assessing the condition of all learning spaces in Ontario is important. Ceiling tiles had caved in due to a leaking roof, the ceiling structure was filled with black mould and rodent feces. According to the person who sent us these photos, “the pictures don’t do the conditions in that portable justice. It was even worse than this. The mouldy smell was unreal.”

Premier Wynne’s Mandate Letter to Education Minister Hunter

November 1, 2016

mitzie-hunterIn September, 2016 – to mark the halfway point in her government’s mandate, Premier Wynne issued mandate letters to all of her ministers. Wynne’s mandate letter to Education Minister Mitzie Hunter, who was appointed in June 2016, can be read here.

Premier Wynne highlights the $1.1-billion of new money that her government allocated to school repairs over two years as a key accomplishment within the education portfolio. This new funding brings annual funding for school repairs to the recommended $1.4-billion per year but does not address the $15-billion of disrepair that has been allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s schools over the past 20 years, when annual funding to school boards for school repairs was a fraction of what it should have been.

Therefore, we were disappointed to see that Premier Wynne did not mention school conditions or the $15-billion repair backlog when laying out Minister Hunter’s mandate for the next two years. Given we know school conditions impact student achievement, health and well-being – there is no excuse for this oversight.

Premier Wynne and Minister Hunter: The condition of our publicly funded schools must be an ongoing priority for your government.

Response from Education Minister Hunter

October 31, 2016

On September 19, 2016, Fix Our Schools sent this letter to Premier Wynne and Education Minister asking the their government please:

  • Explore and implement funding solutions such as issuing provincial bonds to immediately address the $15-billion repair backlog in schools.
  • Work with school boards to develop measurable goals for what school conditions in Ontario ought to be; and plans/timelines for how those goals will be achieved.
  • Release disrepair data at regular intervals to ensure that the $15-billion repair backlog is decreasing; and not continuing to increase.
  • Include school conditions as a key part of your party’s provincial campaign platform.

On October 24, 2016, Fix Our Schools received this reponse_letter from Education Minister Hunter. Although no direct response was received to three out of four of our requests, Minister Hunter did commit to ongoing transparency about the conditions of schools in Ontario, committing to continuing to release the condition and renewal needs of schools in this province. We are optimistic this will be at least yearly and will follow up with Minister Hunter to clarify her commitment.

Wynne’s report on spending is different than announcing new spending

October 24, 2016

Today, Premier Wynne and Education Minister Hunter announced that 28 new schools are being built in the province; and another 23 schools are being renovated. While this is great news, it is simply a report back to taxpayers on how money is being spent and is not to be confused with an announcement of new funding. The money being used to fund these new schools and renovations was already allocated and has already been announced many times – as part of Wynne’s government’s commitment to school infrastructure over 10 years.

 

Send a letter asking what the plan is to improve school conditions for Ontario’s children

October 9, 2016

On September 19, 2016, Fix Our Schools sent this letter to Premier Wynne and Education Minister asking the their government please:

  • Explore and implement funding solutions such as issuing provincial bonds to immediately address the $15-billion repair backlog in schools.
  • Work with school boards to develop measurable goals for what school conditions in Ontario ought to be; and plans/timelines for how those goals will be achieved.
  • Release disrepair data at regular intervals to ensure that the $15-billion repair backlog is decreasing; and not continuing to increase.
  • Include school conditions as a key part of your party’s provincial campaign platform.

We requested a response to these requests by October 3, 2016.

As of Monday, October 10 – no response has been received.

If school conditions are important to you and you share our concerns, we encourage you to please send this letter to Premier Wynne & Minister Hunter also! Please ensure you include your MPP; and include your name and address at the bottom of the letter.

Here is the letter below, should you wish to copy and paste instead:

To: Premier Wynne, Education Minister Hunter, Minister of Infrastructure Chiarelli & Deputy Minister Zegarac,

I am engaged with the Fix Our Schools campaign, which represents thousands of Ontario parents. Today, I ask your government to improve school conditions for all students in this province by immediately addressing the $15-billion of disrepair that has accumulated in our children’s schools.

While I commend the government’s increase in annual funding for school repairs to an industry-accepted standard, this new level of $1.4-billion/year for school repairs does little to address the $15-billion repair backlog that was allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s publicly funded schools over the past 20 years. In September of this year, an unacceptable number of Ontario’s students headed back to aging schools with hot classrooms, leaky ceilings, and myriad other issues.

Therefore, I call upon your government to improve school conditions for all Ontario students and find funding solutions to immediately address the $15-billion of disrepair in our children’s schools. I ask that your government please:

  • Explore and implement funding solutions such as issuing provincial bonds to immediately address the $15-billion repair backlog in schools.
  • Work with school boards to develop measurable goals for what school conditions in Ontario ought to be; and plans/timelines for how those goals will be achieved.
  • Release disrepair data at regular intervals to ensure that the $15-billion repair backlog is decreasing; and not continuing to increase.
  • Include school conditions as a key part of your party’s provincial campaign platform.

Kind regards,

YOUR NAME

YOUR ADDRESS

 

School conditions in the news again

October 1, 2016

On September 13, 2016, the Toronto Star published, “Sweltering schools in September raise concerns: Students at a Bloor West high school want to see better measures to keep their classrooms cool“. This article featured students at Ursula Franklin Academy, a high school in the west end of Toronto, who were raising classroom conditions – heat specifically – as having negative impacts on their ability to learn.

On September 22, 2016, the Torontoist covered the issue of school conditions in an article entitled, “The TDSB’s Repair Backlog is the Result of Years of Underfunding: Its 588 schools require $3.4 billion in repairs”. Reporter Rhiannon Russell explores how chronic and gross underfunding of school repairs in this province over the past 20 years has led to the current state of disrepair in so many publicly funded schools.

Repairs underway for Ontario’s schools

September 25, 2016

brookmill-blvd-jr-ps-new-roof

Students and teachers at Brookmill Blvd. Junior Public School were happy to return to dry classrooms this September after a new roof was completed over the summer.

In June 2016, the provincial government announced $1.1-billion of new funding for school repairs – to be allocated to Ontario’s school boards over two years. This money brings annual funding from the province for school repairs to the $1.4-billion per year that Ontario’s Auditor-General said was required to keep schools in a state of good repair. What this money doesn’t do is address the $15-billion of disrepair that was allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s schools over the last 20 years.

 

Toronto Star covers issue of classroom conditions

September 19, 2016

The extreme temperatures during the first week of school sparked a lot of media interest in classroom conditions across the province. This Toronto Star article, entitled, “Back-to-school heat wave provokes extreme measures” explores how unseasonably high temperatures impacted our children’s classroom learning environments.

Fix Our Schools co-founder Krista Wylie is quoted as saying, “Problems that surfaced in the heat wave are just another sign of a system overlooked for too long, leaving Ontario schools with a repair backlog totalling $15 billion.