Standards and Funding: Much Needed for both Schools and Schoolyards

October 26, 2021
Schoolyards Count

Fix Our Schools was founded out of a belief that school building conditions matter. Research has demonstrated time and again that good school building conditions contribute directly to positive attitudes and elevated performance, as measured by fewer health complaints, improved student attendance and teacher retention, and higher test scores. Fix Our Schools also firmly believes that schoolyards matter – they must also be safe, healthy, and well-maintained places for Ontario’s students to play, learn, develop and exercise.

The recently released report entitled, “Schoolyards Count: How Ontario’s schoolyards measure up for health, physical activity and environmental learning” underscores not only the importance of schoolyards but also why, as Ontario emerges from the COVID-19-pandemic, the time is unequivocally now to prioritize both schoolyards and schools. Our provincial government is responsible for funding schools and schoolyards, and is also largely responsible for the associated public policies and decision-making processes that impact schools and schoolyards. Therefore, to prioritize schools and schoolyards, our provincial government must commit to policies and funding that prioritize Ontario’s children and the spaces in which they spend their days. 

According to the Schoolyards Count report, “both achievement and well-being are core purposes of the Ontario education system. Overall well-being includes cognitive, emotional, social, and physical elements. During the school week, children and youth spend half their waking hours at school – so schools share responsibility for getting them outside and active on those days.”

Among the findings on Ontario’s schoolyards presented in this telling report:

  • 73% of schoolyards scored less than half the optimum score
  • 26% of schoolyards were rated not suitable for play
  • 19% of schoolyards were rated not suitable for sports
  • 63% of schools had no dedicated outdoor learning space
  • 26% of schoolyards were not well-maintained
  • Speed limits and other traffic-calming and safety measures to ensure student safety as they walk or bike to school are severely lacking in Ontario’s schools
  • Inequity is significant between schoolyards, based on a school’s median family income

Fix Our Schools certainly agrees with the authors of this report that “As children return to school after eighteen months of education disruption, the importance of outdoor spaces at school has never been clearer.” And, we agree that a key recommendation coming out of this report is critical in making progress – that provincial standards must be developed for schoolyards. 

Provincial Standards for Schools and Schoolyards

As students headed back to class last year, in September 2020, Fix Our Schools noted that provincial standards for schools had never been more important, stating that our provincial government cannot grossly and chronically underfund public schools for over two decades, and then expect these buildings to provide the optimum environments for learning during a pandemic.

In fact, Fix Our Schools has been advocating for standards for Ontario’s schools since before the last provincial election in June 2018, when we successfully secured the commitment of 58 elected MPPs to develop and fund a standard of good repair for Ontario’s schools. We had felt this was an important issue for any new provincial government to take on because so many important aspects of our children’s learning environments are simply not reflected in the disrepair is assessed in Ontario’s schools. Specifically, the following aspects are excluded:

And, to that list, today we would add schoolyards! We wholeheartedly agree with the notion put forward in the Schoolyards Count report that, “the provincial government should work with partners – including school boards and municipalities – to establish minimum provincial standards for schoolyard quality.” 

Indeed, standards, metrics and funding will continue to be what Fix Our Schools advocates for in the coming months leading up to the next provincial election, scheduled for June 2022. Surely, one of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic will be a commitment to doing what is clearly the right thing – not only for the 2-million Ontario students, who deserve to spend their days in environments that meet a minimum standard, but also for citizens, who deserve to see that the investments made in schools and education have positive outcomes.

Rapid Testing in Schools

October 12, 2021

As schools across the United States were getting ready to open for the 2021/22 school year back in early August, the Centers for Disease Control and and Prevention (CDC) released guidance for COVID-19 prevention in K-12 schools.

Recognizing that multiple layers of protection were needed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and keep schools safe, the CDC guidance included the following screening testing recommendations, essentially recommending that the higher the transmission rate within a school setting, the higher the need for rapid asymptomatic testing:

Schools in Ontario opened several weeks later than in the United States. Many parents, politicians, and experts have been advocating for rapid antigen testing in schools to be part of the layers of protection against COVID-19 here in Ontario.

As CBC reported on September 28, 2021, Sam Kaufman, a Toronto parent of an 8-year-old Toronto student, founded a grassroots rapid testing program at his son’s school, finding an Ontario supplier, driving hundreds of kilometres to pick up the kits multiple times a month and spreading the news by word of mouth. “I don’t understand why we wouldn’t use every tool we have to try to keep COVID out of our schools,” Kaufman said.

 

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist with Toronto’s University Health Network, has been one of many experts who believes that rapid testing can play an important role in making indoor spaces such as schools safer. “They’re really there to answer the question: ‘Am I contagious with the virus right now?‘” Bogoch said. “Of course, they’re not perfect, but they’re pretty good at doing it and if they were distributed among families, I think we could do a lot of good with those tests.”

Biostatistician Ryan Imgrund has also been advocating for the use of rapid testing in schools, recently sharing this data analysis of COVID-19 cases in Ontario’s schools and comparing per capita case counts in schools to their surrounding communities:

NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles has been calling for comprehensive rapid testing in schools since early September. Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner issued the following comment in a press release in early October, “Almost one in every five schools across the province has COVID cases, and the recent Science Table modelling clearly shows that cases in children are increasing. Where are the rapid tests? Where are the lower class sizes? Where is the commitment to keeping our kids safe and schools open?” Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca was quoted as saying, “I am urging Doug Ford to step up to the plate and to do the right thing and to significantly deploy the rapid tests that are available here in Ontario.” in a National Observer article on September 29, 2021.

And yet, up until very recently, Premier Ford’s government and Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Kieran Moore had resisted implementing rapid testing programs in publicly funded schools, saying that widespread asymptomatic surveillance testing in schools was not an effective tool.

However, leading up to the Thanksgiving weekend, CTV covered Kieran Moore’s announcement that rapid antigen tests would start to be sent to Ontario schools that were at the highest risk of closure due to COVID-19 spread. Moore said that after reviewing data over the last couple of weeks, his thinking had evolved to see value in asymptomatic testing for unvaccinated students and, as such, local public health units would be given the green light to deploy rapid antigen test kits to schools assessed as “high-risk”. A “high-risk” school can be identified as such either because of ongoing detection of cases, an outbreak, the prevalence of COVID-19 in the surrounding community, or a combination of all three.

We will be following how the province’s new approach to rapid antigen testing in schools unfolds, and also wondering why this layer of protection took so long to be introduced and also wondering if only introducing rapid testing to high-risk schools is sufficient.

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.

 

 

A Professional Perspective on Data and Measuring Outcomes

August 26, 2021

Today, we are grateful to have Stanton Wong, President of RESET (www.reset.build/) share his professional views on the criticality of using data to inform good decision-making, and the importance of measuring outcomes to gauge success. As we head towards a return to in-person learning in Ontario this September, this seems a good reminder. We absolutely must apply data to inform a safe return to school, and we absolutely must measure outcomes to gauge success.  

COVID-19 has certainly highlighted that if we do not have the knowledge and the supporting data, good decision-making is difficult. COVID-19 has also highlighted that when resources are limited, they must be used as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Speaking of ensuring we use our limited resources effectively and efficiently, by now, we should know that the coronavirus is airborne, so we could redirect some resources away from disinfecting everything to instead focus on decreasing the potential of airborne transmission. 

One way to decrease airborne transmission is to ensure indoor air quality is optimized, which requires measuring. Given that indoor air quality is constantly fluctuating due to things such as airflow and number of people in a room at any given time, the prospect of measuring air quality effectively can seem daunting. However, there are solutions available and companies that offer standards for data collection in buildings, monitoring devices for continuous measurement, and expertise for understanding indoor quality.

By collecting and measuring air quality data for indoor spaces such as schools, it is possible to understand the indoor air quality in classrooms so that it is optimized for the best learning environment for our kids and for the safest classrooms in terms of airborne viral transmissions. Additional measurements to track the impact of temperature, humidity, PM2.5, and CO2 on the potential of airborne viral transmission in real time is also possible.

Essentially, we cannot manage or optimize what we cannot measure. Therefore, measurements, data, and standards are necessary if we want to make the best decisions possible with the limited resources available to optimize indoor air quality in schools and classrooms. When it comes to measuring the complex issues that arise in built environments, it is important to have robust information delivered with accuracy.

Stanton Wong is the President of RESET (www.reset.build/). RESET is a set of standards and assessment tools & services to develop actionable, long term strategies towards health and sustainability for the built environment. The RESET Air Standard defines the rules and structure for collecting air quality data for indoor spaces by leveraging continuous monitoring. In addition to the RESET Air Standard, RESET has been working on the RESET Viral Index, which could help schools understand and set clear targets for indoor air quality. The RESET Standard provides quality control over data, which leads to improved system analytics, accelerated problem-solving, and informed optimization strategies.

Ventilation in Ontario’s Schools: Update

August 17, 2021

Ventilation is a key aspect of keeping people safe during the COVID-pandemic. With schools opening soon for in-person learning for the first time in many months, amidst what has been confirmed to be the fourth wave of the COVID-pandemic in Ontario, ventilation in schools is understandably a hot topic.

The August 13, 2021 Toronto Star article by Sarah Mojtehedzadeh and May Warren entitled, “Many major school ventilation upgrades won’t be ready by September. Here’s what you need to know about the precautions in place” does an outstanding job of providing details on what to expect at schools in various school boards across the province relative to ventilation this September. The Toronto Star team contacted all 72 Ontario school boards to ask for details on ventilation improvements and upgrades in their schools, and heard back from 30 school boards.

We applaud the transparency and candour of these 30 school boards who responded to the Toronto Star. Fix Our Schools has also been so appreciative of school boards such as the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB)  and the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), that are being transparent on a school-by-school basis about ventilation, and also endeavouring to educate us about the complexities of ventilation.

If you do not see your local school board’s ventilation details in the Toronto Star report, nor are you able to find ventilation details on your school board’s website, please contact your local Trustee and Chair to let them know you expect transparency on the safety of classrooms, and that you want to know details on ventilation improvements, upgrades, and, ideally, data on indoor air quality in your local classrooms and schools. Students, teachers, and education workers deserve transparency as they head back to classrooms. In elementary classrooms, where most students are too young to get vaccinated, ventilation is even more critically relied upon as a measure to reduce the spread of COVID in classrooms.

The August 13th Toronto Star article also shares that, while some ventilation upgrades will not be ready in time for the first day back at school, Ontario’s 72 school boards will be installing air-purifying HEPA filters in all classrooms without mechanical ventilation, as per this Ministry of Education memo 2021:B14 on school ventilation, dated August 4.

Jeffrey Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto, calls this an “enormously important” step. Engineer David Elfstrom cautions that careful monitoring and oversight is required to ensure the HEPA filters are used correctly. He notes that if these air-purifying units are, for instance, run on too low a speed, the space “won’t be much better than what they had to start with.” Elfstrom also suggests that many non-mechanically ventilated classrooms may require more than one air purifier to be effective.

Therefore,  even though Mr. Elfstrom sees many positive aspects to the provincial government’s back-to-school plan, he suggests that it would be much stronger if the Province also included specific target metrics.

Elfstrom’s main concern is for the schools that do not yet have mechanical ventilation. “I am worried about the classrooms that have either zero mechanical ventilation or only just an exhaust fan type of ventilation. Those are the ones that the ministry is asking to put a HEPA filter in, but not specifying what the target should be,” said Elfstrom. He goes on to say that without clear provincial targets in place for the indoor air quality to be achieved through having these HEPA filters in classrooms, it is highly possible that classrooms without mechanical ventilation and only one HEPA filter may not achieve the same minimum level of ventilation of classrooms with mechanical ventilation, resulting in ventilation inequity across classrooms.

“If you set a target, then you actually have something to work towards. And so far, nothing from even the latest memo from the Ministry of Education has any targets,” Elfstrom notes. Jessica Lyons of the Ontario Parent Action Network is also cited in the August 13 Toronto Star article. Lyons expresses concern about the lack of any transparency on the metrics that are trying to be achieved with ventilation improvements, and wonders who will monitor the outcome of the myriad of ventilation upgrades and improvements.

David Elfstrom suggests that the use of carbon dioxide monitors in classrooms could serve as a proxy for air quality, even though CO2 levels don’t correlate with COVID-19 transmission risks. However, the Ministry of Education is leaving it to school boards to decide whether to use CO2 monitors. Knowing that $600-million is being invested in school ventilation improvements and upgrades, Fix Our Schools cannot fathom why our provincial government is not willing to actually measure indoor air quality and ensure that the money invested has yielded desired outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly brought an urgency to the importance of proper ventilation and good indoor air quality that Fix Our Schools has not seen since we began our advocacy in 2014. Clearly, in the coming months, the obvious and urgent main goal of ventilation improvements is to lower COVID transmission in classrooms. However, going forward, improved ventilation and better indoor air quality in classrooms and schools can lead to better learning environments with better academic results, better attendance, and better health for students, teachers and education workers. With so many reasons to get this right, Fix Our Schools looks to Premier Ford to fund metrics, targets and systems immediately so that good ventilation and indoor air quality are forevermore embedded as key aspects of any public learning environment. 

Jeffrey Siegel, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Toronto, sums the situation up nicely, stating that “ultimately, greater focus on ventilation issues is crucial — and should have started earlier”. Katharine Smart, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association also summed things up nicely, stating in her opinion piece in the Globe & Mail on August 16, 2021, “with the knowledge that the virus is airborne, why are we not addressing school ventilation urgently?”.

Ontario’s Directives for Return to School

August 10, 2021

On August 3, 2021, Ford’s government released a 26-page document outlining its directives for elementary and secondary students returning to school five days per week for the first time in months. As Robin Ureck noted in this Globe and Mail opinion piece from August 5, 2021 entitled, “Ontario’s COVID-19 back-to-school plan: hoping, praying and replaying”,  “one would think the Ford government would throw absolutely everything in its arsenal at this last vulnerable space: a comprehensive rapid testing program, ventilation overhauls with monitoring, windows that actually open in all classrooms, vaccination requirements for teachers and older students, and so forth. Instead, it seems to have merely recycled last year’s plan, tweaked a few details and added in some questionable new permissions.”

 

Opposition parties have universally lambasted the Ford government’s directives on back to school for September 2021:

 

Education advocates have also expressed concerns about Ford’s back-to-school directives. Annie Kidder, Executive Director of People for Education, has noted how surprising it is that there was hardly anything about vaccinations or about what would happen if there is an outbreak in schools outlined in the Ford government’s back-to-school directives.

 

Wendy Goodes took the Ontario Science Table’s recommendations and compared those to what was actually released by the Ford government, to highlight many shortcomings of Ontario’s directives for back-to-school this September.

And the Ontario Parent Action Network (OPAN) expressed its disappointment to the Ford government’s directives for September immediately following the announcement.

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1422922051262767105

 

And folks such as Amy Greer, who was a co-author on the Ontario Science Table school document expressed outrage about the Ford government’s return to school directives.

Much like last year’s directives on back-to-school from the Ford government, this year’s directives appear to rely heavily on low community spread of COVID-19 and its Delta variant in order for schools to be safe. With Ontario’s reproduction rate at 1.38 and daily counts rising, Ford’s “plan” seems like anything but a good one for our children’s safe return to in-person learning five days a week this September.

It’s Time to Remind Lecce and Ford that September is Approaching Fast

July 30, 2021

Time to Take Some Action

September is approaching fast. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have yet to release a plan and associated funding for a safe and supportive return to school for Ontario’s 2-million students. Time is running out. Let’s remind our provincial government that we expect our children to be a priority and to have:

  • safe, healthy, well-maintained schools that provide environments conducive to learning
  • all the supports in place to recover, learn and thrive

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1420135298298642437

Check out this action toolkit created by the Ontario Parent Action Network (OPAN) for easy-to-use resources developed by parents and education workers at a recent public Town Hall. Fix Our Schools is working with OPAN to prioritize Ontario’s children and ensure a safe return to school this fall. In this action toolkit, you will find: 

👉A FLYER to print out, and a PETITION

👉 A helpful outreach HOW-TO and tip sheet

👉Action listings to see if an outreach action is already being organized near you

👉Support for creating & registering an action! Invite others to join using our action form!

All of these great resources are ready to go whenever you are! Outreach can happen any day that works best for you – and no action is too small. If you are heading out to the baseball diamond or soccer pitch, that is a great opportunity to take copies of this flyer to hand out to other families. Or, if you are heading to the park or splash-pad or local market or to your workplace, these are also great opportunities to share this flyer. Consider printing some flyers and dropping them off to your neighbours. Remember to encourage others to contact Premier Ford, Minister Lecce and their local MPP to let them know their expectations. 

Ventilation, ventilation, ventilation…

September is approaching quickly and we know very little about the indoor air quality in our children’s classrooms.

Time is running out and we do need action as soon as possible.

Indoor air quality (IAQ) not only can prevent transmission of COVID-19 but also can impact people’s health, emotional well-being, learning and performance. So what is needed?

  • We need standards for IAQ and ventilation in Ontario’s schools and classrooms.
  • We need to measure IAQ and ventilation regularly against those standards.
  • We need transparency and clear, regular communication about these measurements and how they compare to those standards.
  • We need expertise from engineers and industrial/occupational hygienists
  • We need improvements to mechanical HVAC systems, windows, and portable fan/filtration systems

And to achieve this, we need provincial funding and leadership.

Ventilation is a key to safe, healthy schools and classrooms as we continue to face the COVID-19 challenge and as we move forward beyond the pandemic. To everyone working in the provincial government, and especially to Premier Ford and Minister Lecce:  Ontario’s children need your leadership and your commitment to providing adequate, stable funding for schools and education.