Tag Archives: Fix Our Schools

Catching Up Together: A Plan for Ontario’s Schools

February 23, 2022

Earlier in February, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) released a thoughtful report entitled, “Catching Up Together: A Plan for Ontario’s Schools“, written by Ricardo Tranjan, a CCPA Ontario political economist and senior researcher; Tania Oliveira, an assistant economist with the office for the writing of this report; and Randy Robinson, the CCPA Ontario Director. The report presents an analysis of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the 2-million children who attend publicly funded schools in Ontario, considering both pre-pandemic and pandemic educational inequality. The authors note that, “the pandemic has been hard on all students, but not all students have had the same experience. Households with higher incomes and more resources have, on the whole, managed to manage. Households with lower incomes and fewer resources have had a much more difficult time. Socioeconomic status has always affected educational outcomes, but COVID-19 has magnified differences.”

CCPA RECOMMENDATIONS

The CCPA report goes on to outline recommendations for how our provincial government should approach schools and education in the coming years to address these impacts. A 13-point plan is presented that would help students catch up during, and after, the COVID-19 pandemic. This proposed plan includes the following recommendations, which would directly impact school infrastructure, and so are of particular interest to the Fix Our Schools campaign:

1. Create a transparent state-of-good-repair criteria for assessing schools, and make the information publicly available on an ongoing basis

The CCPA report emphasizes that portables and schoolyards are not assessed and, therefore, the conditions of these aspects of school infrastructure are not included in the overall $16.8-B repair backlog in Ontario’s schools. The report cites the Fix Our Schools campaign when noting that many other aspects of school infrastructure are not included in the $16.8-B repair backlog, and therefore not measured or addressed, including:

  • indoor air quality and ventilation
  • quality of drinking water due to old lead pipes
  • asbestos
  • dampness/mold
  • classroom temperatures, which are often too hot to learn in in the spring and fall and too cold to learn in in the winter months

2. Increase provincial funding for school maintenance from $1.4-B/year to $2 billion/year, an annual increase in provincial funding of $640-M

According to industry standards, funding for ongoing renewal of school infrastructure should be between 2% and 4% of the replacement value of the physical assets, and Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) has estimated the replacement value of schools to be $68.1-B in 2020. Indeed, this industry-accepted standard was key to Fix Our Schools achieving an increase in provincial funding for school maintenance from $150-M/year in 2014 to $1.4-B/year in 2016. The $1.4-B represented an annual investment in Ontario’s schools of 2% of the replacement value of the schools, the absolute minimum requirement.

Since the time that our provincial government increased funding for school repair and renewal to this new $1.4-B level in 2016, we have continued to see yearly increases in the repair backlog in Ontario’s schools. This suggests that more annual funding is needed for school boards to reasonably be able to keep schools in good condition.

The CCPA report suggests that increasing annual investments in school maintenance to 3% of the replacement value of Ontario’s school would be a reasonable mid-point of the industry standard. This would mean the province should be spending $2-B/year on ongoing maintenance. “At current levels of provincial funding, the school repair backlog of $16.8 billion will  continue grow, putting at risk the health of students and education workers, and creating ever-growing financial liabilities for school boards.”

3. Address the $16.8 billion repair backlog within the next 10 years by investing an additional $1.7-B/year in school infrastructure

Using the low-end of the industry standard for determining annual investment in maintenance of Ontario’s school infrastructure was clearly inadequate. Furthermore, our provincial government never acknowledged or made up for the almost 20 years of chronic and gross provincial underfunding that had allowed for $15-B of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s schools as of 2016. So, at the time that our provincial government increased annual funding for school maintenance to the lowest end of the industry-accepted standard, Fix Our Schools predicted that, without additional funding to address the $15-B of disrepair, Ontario would never dig its schools out of the pit of disrepair.

The recent CCPA report supports this prediction, and suggests that an additional $1.7-B/year in provincial funding is needed to address the $16.8-B repair backlog that exists in Ontario’s schools as of June, 2021.

“In 2002, the Education Equality Task Force estimated the repair backlog of Ontario schools to be $5.6-B. In June 2021, it stood at $16.8-B. How did that happen? The short answer: year after year, provincial governments decided not to take care of the buildings in which two million children and youth and hundreds of thousands of education workers spend most of their day. Poorly maintained infrastructure deteriorates faster and it becomes more expensive to repair.”

To create a state-of-good-repair that includes portables, schoolyards and aspects of school buildings currently not considered such as indoor air quality and classroom temperatures; to do the work to ensure those standards are met; and to collect data to ensure those standards are actually being met, it is essential that our provincial government deliver stable, adequate funding to school boards. The total annual cost of the solutions proposed by this most recent CCPA report to improve school infrastructure in Ontario is $2.3-B/year. Interestingly, a 2017 CCPA report proposed many similiar ideas to improve Ontario’s school infrastructure and estimated that an additional $1.7-B/year provincial investment in school infrastructure was needed. It seems that the longer we wait to invest what is actually needed to ensure that Ontario’s publicly-funded schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained environments – the more and more expensive it will become to address this large and growing problem. So, without a doubt, as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with a new realization of the criticality of schools and public education, the time is now to make the investments needed in Ontario’s school infrastructure.

HOW TO FUND RECOMMENDATIONS

The provincial government is responsible for funding schools and education in Ontario. The total annual cost of implementing all 13 measures outlined in the CCPA report is $4.3 billion, a 13% increase in total education spending over the amount budgeted in the province’s November 2021 fall economic statement. As noted above, the total cost for those CCPA recommendations pertaining to school infrastructure total $2.3-B/year. The natural questions are, “Where does this money come from? Can Ontario afford to make these investments in schools and education?”.

Fix Our Schools agrees with the view of Tranjan, Oliviera, and Robinson that, with political will to prioritize schools and education, our provincial government could easily afford to invest an additional $4.3-billion/year. As stated in the CCPA report, “when it comes to public education, we can afford to care: Ontario is a rich province in a rich country. The provincial government has the authority and the mechanisms to raise revenues to pay for the policies and programs proposed here, and more, if it so desires. Ontario spends less per capita on public programs than any other province in Canada. There’s room for improvement, for all of the right reasons: the students of today are the workers of tomorrow. The time to invest resources to help them catch up is now.”

Specifically, the CCPA report proposes that to fund further investment in Ontario’s schools and education system, the Province could:

  • Review and undo some, or all, of the government’s recent tax changes, which would free up hundreds of millions of dollars for other priorities
  • Increase the Personal Income Tax rate in a way that makes the overall system more progressive and increases taxes for those who are most able to pay.
  • Reallocate dollars within the existing provincial infrastructure budget, for example by cancelling the proposed Highway 413, which the Globe and Mail has called “a $6 billion sprawl accelerator.”

IDEAS WORTHY OF DIALOGUE

Many thought-provoking ideas are considered throughout this report that deserve our thought, our debate, and our consideration. With less than four months until we head to the polls in Ontario to elect our next provincial government, Fix Our Schools hopes that all citizens will consider the criticality of publicly-funded schools and education to the future of this province and discuss, debate and consider the following ideas:

  • “The people of Ontario have built one of the best education systems in the world. Ontario students have traditionally scored near the top in national and international rankings. Each generation leaves a better education system for the next. That’s the vision. That’s how it is supposed to work.”
  • “Our schools are providing top-quality education while also fulfilling one of their fundamental roles: mitigating socio-economic inequality. The underlying rationale and expectation for public education systems is that they can serve as socio-economic equalizers, mitigating the inequities that follow students into the classroom. This is a core function of Ontario’s public schools, and one that is all the more relevant in the context of a global pandemic that affected—and continues to affect—lower- and higher-income families differently.”
  • “Canada doesn’t perform as well in all spheres of learning and development. Among 38 wealthy nations, Canada ranks higher in children’s academic performance (18th), but lower in children’s mental health (31st) and physical health (30th). The 2020 UNICEF report card observed that “Canada’s public policies are not bold enough to turn our higher wealth into higher child well-being.”
  • “At present, Ontario’s post-pandemic plan for public schools is to provide less money, bigger classes, and fewer resources to support children coming out of the pandemic. This plan will not equip schools to facilitate an equitable recovery, nor will it provide assistance to children and families who need it most. Ontario can do better. Much better.“
  • “The benefits of quality education are widely recognized. For individual children, school opens doors to new worlds and new chances to be all that they can be. For society as a whole, school gives tomorrow’s workers the insight, skills, and creativity they will need to help us face the challenges of a future that grows more complex every day. Finally, education is the foundation of a productive, prosperous economy.”
  • “The more we are able to provide quality education to all children—not just some of them—the better off we will all be. Public education is an investment that always pays off. Shoring up education spending should be a top priority for any provincial government, especially during this chaotic time.“
  • “Underfunding education undermines the public system and widens the gap between haves and have-nots. It is biased public policy and if it continues, its unfortunate impacts will be felt for decades. Ontario can afford to do much, much better.”
  • “Ontario is a rich province in a rich country. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, Ontario’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita—a standard measure of general prosperity—hit a record level. In income terms, we were richer than ever in 2019, on average, than we had ever been before. What this means is that everything that Ontarians have built together in the past—from medicare to the community college system to the 400-series highways—was built at a time when we had less income, as a province, than we do now.“
  • “COVID-19 or not, Ontario’s strong and diverse economy has the capacity to make significant new investments in the public school system and the well-being of our two million school children. The pandemic has had a surprisingly muted impact on provincial government revenues. While Ontario’s economy contracted sharply in 2020, massive federal spending to support individuals and businesses resulted in provincial revenues going up, not down. Despite pandemic lockdowns, combined revenues from Personal Income Tax (PIT) and Corporate Income actually rose by $5 billion from 2019–20 to 2020–21.”
  • “There appears to be the political viewpoint that individuals are better placed to spend their money than governments. “The worst place you can give your money is to the government,” the premier said in October 2021. This may be true when it comes to buying shoes, but when it comes to paying for schools it is nonsensical. Public education is a social good and a social endeavour that falls squarely under provincial jurisdiction. The province needs to fund it, and fund it properly. The way to do that is to raise revenues through the tax system.“
  • “The current government’s track record, and its campaign promises, are based on reducing revenues available to fund public services. When it comes to public education, such an approach hurts the long-term productivity of Ontario’s economy, increases inequality across socio-economic groups, and robs two million children of opportunities whose absence may be felt for a lifetime.“
  • “If there is great wealth in Ontario—and there is—it is because decades of public investment have made it possible. Those who have benefited most from this investment have the greatest responsibility to repay it, for the good of all Ontarians and their children. Enhancing equity by revamping Ontario’s income tax regime is a fundamental step in funding public services to the standard that Ontarians expect.”
  • “Given that in-class instruction is central to quality education, increased revenue to put Ontario’s schools in a state of good repair must be a central part of any plan to help Ontario students get their education back on track.“
  • “In the last four decades, economies around the world have gone through a revolution, as business leaders and like-minded politicians have pushed market solutions to virtually every policy problem. There is no market-based solution to the problem of educational inequality. After the disruptions of COVID-19, Ontario’s public school system offers the only feasible route to getting learning back on track for all two million public school students.”

Education Stakeholders Agree

February 8, 2022

Ontario’s Finance Minister Bethlenfalvy has until March 31st to table a new provincial budget. Accordingly, the Ford government has been running its pre-budget consultation process in recent weeks. However, the approach being used to this pre-budget consultation is different to that of previous governments in this province. The former Liberal government, for instance, held town hall-style consultations that were open to members of the public and to journalists; and ensured that all submissions and presentations were delivered to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs so that all input was on the public record.

In stark contrast, the Ford government’s approach to this consultation seems to lack transparency, and does not include members of the public. According to NDP Finance critic Catherine Fife, “the PC members are promoting these consultations as public consultations, but they are not.” Instead, Michael Parsa, parliamentary assistant to the Finance Minister, has been hosting invite-only “conversations with community members” attended by cabinet ministers, local PC MPPs, CEO’s and finance ministry officials. In lieu of a formal public record, Parsa has been sharing screenshots on social media. 

Apparently, “copious notes” are also taken from the Zoom presentations, but these are not shared as a matter of public record, and all members of the legislature do not appear to receive these notes or have access to pre-budget submissions from all stakeholders. Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner wants all pre-budget submissions to be made available to every member of the legislature, stating that, “We need transparency and collaboration to ensure this year’s budget will adequately address the multiple crises facing all Ontarians”.

Fix Our Schools agrees wholeheartedly with the concerns about the lack of transparency in this pre-budget consultation by the Ford government. Indeed, we believe that an effective and efficient provincial government would embrace: accountability and responsibility; effective and timely communication; authentic stakeholder engagement; and transparency.

As top priorities, Fix Our Schools’ pre-budget submission called on the provincial government to:

As we looked at the input from other education stakeholders, we found that many echoed our calls to action. For instance, the Ontario Catholic Teachers’ Association’s (OECTA) pre-budget submission noted the $16.8-B repair backlog that continues to grow each year in Ontario’s publicly funded schools and called upon the provincial government to “provide immediate, stable, and sufficient annual funding for infrastructure and repairs“. Noting how the COVID pandemic has revealed the criticality of indoor air quality and ventilation to public health, OECTA also called upon the Province to, “act proactively and make the necessary investments to ensure that all schools have ventilation systems that meet the health and safety standards set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), effectively reducing the airborne spread of COVID-19. To ensure that this process is transparent, the government must also institute a provincial standard for air quality measurements in schools, with publicly available metrics to indicate whether standards are being met.”

Similarly, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) emphasized in their pre-budget submission that students and education workers need safer, healthier, and accessible schools. OSSTF highlighted the $16.8 billion repair backlog in Ontario’s schools and stated that, “the government must address the repair backlog with additional funding by increasing the out-of-date benchmarks for pupil accommodation. The School Operations Grant must be funded to a level that will maintain the good repair of buildings so that Ontario’s backlog stops growing. As well, further funding is necessary to enhance the accessibility of schools to meet the 2025 deadline of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act.”

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario’s (ETFO) pre-budget submission also included asks on improving school infrastructure, noting how the pandemic has exacerbated concerns and how the provincial government has failed to provide appropriate funding to meet the needs of all students. Noting the massive school repair backlog in Ontario, ETFO’s pre-budget submission stated that “the pandemic has highlighted the poor physical condition of many public schools and the impact physical infrastructure can have on the learning conditions for students and the working conditions for teachers and education workers.” ETFO’s submission also emphasized the need for additional funding to improve ventilation and air quality in schools, the importance of ASHRAE guidelines for minimum ventilation standards, and the need for additional funding to ensure that data is collected on indoor air quality in classrooms and compared against a standard. 

The pre-budget submission by the Ontario School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) stated clearly that “school boards require strong, predictable and equitable education funding in order to set the conditions that promote and sustain improved student achievement and well-being”, and included a designated section on capital and facilities funding. OPSBA suggested that provincial funding for heating, ventilation, and air condition (HVAC) systems was even more critical during the COVID pandemic and asked for more transparency, and increased capital funding benchmarks.

Clearly, other education stakeholders also recognize the need for:

  • adequate, stable provincial funding for schools and education
  • standards and data to ensure those standards are being met
  • a focus on indoor air quality and ventilation in schools

Sadly, with regard to standards for indoor air quality, we noted that the scant “standards” the Ford government had put in place around HEPA filters has been diluted so that the Ministry’s expectation is that HEPA Filters would only be needed in kindergarten classrooms and occupied learning spaces without mechanical ventilation.

This weak “standard” for HEPA filter placement in learning spaces would explain why we have heard from so many across the province without a HEPA filter in their classroom:

And, quite frankly, without any measurement and data collection to understand the actual quality of the indoor air in classrooms, standards are not particularly effective anyways.

We need a provincial government that is committed to standards, data collection to compare against those standards, and adequate, stable provincial funding for Ontario schools. Currently, we do not have such a government. The next provincial election is approaching quickly and with it, comes an opportunity to demand more for Ontario’s 2-million children who spend their days at school.

Back to School in Ontario: HEPA Filters and What Better Leadership Looks Like

January 25, 2022

With the return to in-person learning in Ontario amidst the Omicron wave of the pandemic, the state of indoor air quality and ventilation in Ontario classrooms is extremely relevant. In fact, Peter Juni, scientific director of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, was interviewed on January 13 on CBC’s “Ontario Today” program and stated that the Ontario Science Table wants to hear from any teacher who does not have a HEPA filter in their classroom.

If you know of classrooms without a HEPA filter, please email info@covid19-sciencetable.ca to let them know the name of the school, the school board, and the classroom, and please copy us at info@fixourschools.ca.

We’ve already seen some school’s ventilation reality on social media:

And we are grateful for the information compiled by Alison @errolenv on Twitter about HEPA filters in Ontario’s schools and classrooms. She has used data from various school board websites, noting that “a much better comparison would be if there was data on air quality for each classroom, but that information is not readily available”. However, with the more readily available data about HEPA filter distribution, she has noted the inequity in distribution, “where at least 6 boards have one HEPA per classroom, while others have 1 per school.”

 

In-person learning in Ontario schools has resumed. Students interviewed by CP24 shared their experiences to date, and expressed a range of concerns:

  • Low attendance in classes
  • Teachers provided with N95 masks, but not students
  • COVID-19 cases are not going to be properly tracked in schools so there will be no data available to assess the state of COVID-19 in schools
  • No proper test-to-return strategy after students are exposed to, or sick with COVID-19
  • Lunches at school remain a concern for spreading COVID-19

It is safe to say that parents, teachers, and education workers share these concerns, and are frustrated that schools and education have not been prioritized by the Ford government during the pandemic. Despite ongoing calls for additional safety measures to return to in-person learning more safely amidst the Omicron wave of the pandemic, the only additional measure announced by Stephen Lecce and Kieran Moore on January 12 was the provision of two rapid test kits to staff, then to children in daycares and students in public elementary schools, followed by high school students “pending availability”.

At the January 12 official announcement, Moore said that the distribution of two rapid tests would be “empowering” for parents and students due to their convenience. But we don’t empower others by removing information and resources. For many, a mere two rapid tests (with unclear instructions for how this action would serve students) felt like a download of accountability and responsibility.

Given that the rapid test kits come from the manufacturer in packages of FIVE and not TWO,  this policy decision also meant the downloading of the work to “de-kit” the rapid tests to school-based staff. The province either did not foresee this problem, or refused to fund the solution.

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1483996153150644224

As we’ve noted time and again, with great power comes responsibility. Ontario’s provincial government has the power over all the funding for schools and education in this province – including the safety protocols needed amidst the pandemic. And yet our provincial government continues to refuse to acknowledge that they possess this power, let alone assume the responsibility that comes with that power.

We believe in a government that embraces not only accountability and responsibility, but also:

  • effective and timely communication,
  • authentic stakeholder engagement,
  • transparency

The Ford government’s track record for effective and timely communication is poor. The latest official announcement on the return to in-person learning on January 17 took place the afternoon of Wednesday, January 12th, but was first reported unofficially by the media on the evening of Monday, January 10. This untimely communication has consequences, especially for school boards. As Halton District School Board Trustee Andrea Grebenc notes, school boards can only move forward with plans and allocating resources once an official announcement is made by the provincial government. Therefore, this poor communication by the Ford government not only reduced planning time for school board staff but also eroded public confidence in our education system because as soon as the general public heard a media report, they assumed that school boards would have all the information and the official go ahead to move forward.

Why would the Ford government operate this way when it is clearly not in the best interest of children? Perhaps because it shifts the blame about incompetence from the provincial government to school boards since the school boards deal more directly with the general public. When the provincial government withholds information and fails to give timely authority to school boards, the school boards end up looking incompetent and being less prepared and capable.

In a complex, rapidly evolving scenario such as a global pandemic, we would also expect a government to work with all stakeholders in an authentic, consultative manner. Instead, the Ford government routinely ignores school boards and consistently fails to acknowledge the important role they play in actually make things happen in Ontario schools.

Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board sent the following letter to Education Minister Lecce, outlining their concerns about a total lack of consultation, lack of transparency, and inadequate provincial funding .

As school boards try to follow provincial direction while at the same time effectively work with their stakeholders, they find themselves consistently being placed in challenging, near impossible, situations. Ontarians need a provincial government that values and strives for accountability and responsibility; effective and timely communication; authentic stakeholder engagement; and transparency.

Safe, Healthy Schools: Not a Left or Right Issue – an Ontario issue

January 11, 2022

First, a message to Premier Ford and Education Minister Lecce:

A trial balloon is defined as “information sent out to the media in order to observe the reaction of an audience. It can be used by politicians who deliberately leak information on a policy change under consideration.” Premier Ford and Minister Lecce (wherever you may be amidst this crisis in public education) – is this a trial balloon or a formal announcement that Ontario’s children will return to school in-person on January 17?

If it is the latter – a formal announcement – then we look forward to a press conference very soon where you both provide a detailed explanation of what has been done/will be done to ensure that schools are in a safer and healthier position than they would have been had our children returned to school, as planned, last Monday, January 3. This announcement would include numbers and data that give us a level of confidence that your government has been tracking key indicators (community spread, reproduction rate, vaccination rates, hospitalization rates, hospital and ICU capacity, and the possible list goes on). This announcement would demonstrate how positive changes in these key indicators actually address the primary concerns that led you to announce the latest pivot to online learning – namely hospital system capacity and teacher “absenteeism“.

Ontarians deserve to understand how you are making decisions about our children’s lives and education. Transparency is necessary for any democracy to work effectively and efficiently, and Ontarians are looking through a frosted glass window covered with mud at this point. At various times during the pandemic, the Ford government seems to have relied on the Science Table, SickKids, local public health units, small businesses, large businesses, and popular opinion to inform decisions about Ontario’s children, schools and education. So, if this is, indeed, an announcement – we look forward to a transparent explanation.

If it is the former – a trial balloon – then shame on you for behaving in the most disrespectful of ways to Ontario’s children, parents, families, teachers, education workers, and employers. Anxiety, confusion, fear – these are the emotions your government perpetuates among its citizens by throwing out trial balloons. Ontarians deserve and need leadership – not to be a part of some marketing or polling exercise for the provincial election in June. 

Fix Our Schools wrote the following blog just prior to the news being released that Ontario’s children would be returning to in-person learning on January 17. The facts below remain so we are publishing this blog today, regardless of the latest news. Should this news end up being the trial balloon that we suspect that it is, we are guessing we will receive an actual formal announcement in about four days.

And now, the blog, as written prior to the news that Ontario’s schools will reopen January 17 (notice how the facts remain the same?)

Ontario’s students are now in their 28th week of online learning since the COVID-19 pandemic began almost two years ago. Ontario children have missed the most in-person school days of any jurisdiction in North America, despite the fact that our premier has disingenuously stated time and again throughout the pandemic that Ontario schools would be “first to open and last to close”.

This latest pivot to online learning was announced last Monday – the day that Ontario students were meant to be starting back to school after winter holidays – and has enraged Ontarians.

In a January 7, 2002 article in the Star entitled, “It’s disrespect”, says Toronto school advocate of latest school closures, Fix Our Schools supported People for Education’s calls to: resume school COVID case reporting; add COVID-19 vaccinations to list of mandatory vaccines to attend school; provide N95 masks to all educators and students and secure sufficient rapid tests; audit classroom HEPA filters; provide boards promised funding to enable smaller classes and physical distancing; and convene a COVID education advisory task force with health and education representatives.

Fix Our Schools also linked school closures to our economy. “Productivity in our economy is very much linked to schools and education. Somehow, that seems to be lost on the Ford government,” states Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fix Our Schools. She goes on to say that, “The Ford government time and again seem to view money spent on education as an expense rather than the investment that it is.”

In the same Star article, ETFO’s president Karen Jordan stated that “this shift to remote learning is frustrating because we know it could have been avoided had the province funded and implemented safety measures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and not half-measures.” And OECTA president Barb Dobrowolski said that this latest Ford government decision was  “yet another reactionary measure in a long list that stems from this government’s abdication of leadership, which has repeatedly failed students, parents, teachers, education workers, and all Ontarians.”

Shawn Micallef adds to the discussion in his excellent opinion piece from January 8, 2022 entitled, “Doug Ford isn’t the first premier to drop the ball on making schools safe. Omicron highlight’s a decades-old problem”. He validates the current frustration among Ontarians by acknowledging that, “we’re coming up on two years of this pandemic and two years of the Ford government telling us everything is being done to make schools safe. We were told that during the break last summer, and the pandemic summer before that. And now we’re told two more weeks should be enough. How many times can they say this?” He then reflects how successive provincial governments of different political stripes have allowed Ontario’s publicly funded schools to deteriorate. “Inadequate and not-yet-upgraded HVAC systems, crowded classrooms and the poor state of repair have been endemic to Ontario’s school system. Public schools are one of our civic backbones and so many of them were built solidly, to last, as a statement that they and what they represent matter. All buildings age and need repairs and renovations to keep up with current standards of accessibility and safety. Ventilation upgrades, especially with climate change (pandemic notwithstanding) are a critical part of this.” 

Fix Our Schools echoes Micallef’s sentiments and agrees that current the state of Ontario’s schools is the result of over two decades of provincial governments failing to prioritize schools as critical infrastructure. As we stated back in August, 2020, when we wrote the blog entitled, “Our Provincial Government Cannot Continue to Rely on Miracles“, “it isn’t realistic to starve a system for over two decades and then expect that it is in tip-top shape for you in a pandemic.” Let this be a lesson for all provincial parties that schools are critical infrastructure. Full stop. Regardless of whether Ontario’s governing party is right-leaning or left-leaning, Ontario schools must be adequately funded to ensure they are safe, healthy, well-maintained places that provide environments conducive to learning and working – even amidst a pandemic. Had children, schools, and education been prioritized throughout the pandemic, much more in-person learning could have been possible. 

Dr. Picard’s January 9 opinion piece in the Globe & Mail entitled, “Of course schools should remain open. It’s the “how” that matters” aligned with this sentiment. He started by acknowledging that the debate over whether schools should be open or closed is “one of the most fiercely debated questions across Canada and around the world as we enter year three of the pandemic.” However, Picard then suggested that this was actually the wrong question, stating that “Of course schools should remain open. At the very least, they should be the last thing to close, because they are as essential as grocery stores and hospitals. Children need to learn, to socialize, to play, for the sake of their development, and their physical and mental health. Their parents need to work. How dare we tolerate school closings while still allowing in-person dining, nail salon manicures, professional sporting events and so much more? (Depending on the province, of course.) We need to get our priorities straight.” Instead, he recommended that we should be asking ourselves, “How can we best protect children from the ravages of the pandemic? Trying to prevent children from being infected is important, even if they do appear to have less severe outcomes. So too is protecting kids from collateral damage, like the mental health effects of isolation.”

New Hamburg mother Shannon Syder echoed Dr. Picard’s concern over the negative mental health impacts of school closures in the Toronto Star piece of January 9, 2022 entitled, “Is it up to our kids to sacrifice their education and mental health to save our hospitals?” Snyder wonders, “if everyone can agree on something, it should be that we should be prioritizing our kids and their education and their mental health. For me it comes down to this — is it up to our kids to sacrifice their education and mental health to save our hospitals? That just doesn’t make sense to me, and I think we need to have a real conversation about what these long-term effects are going to be if we stay on this path.”

However, perhaps this one letter from an Ontario parent to Premier Ford and Minister Lecce that we were copied on this past week says it best:

“I want you to know that ALL parents are talking about this week is how your government has completely failed us and our children. This wave has exposed your shortcomings, all the things that you said you were going to do to make schools safe, but that you haven’t fully followed through on.

My question is this – what are you doing RIGHT NOW to improve the safety at schools so that our kids can return on January 17? Testing plan, vaccination plan, masks, ventilation, etc. etc. I cannot believe that my kids can go to the mall but cannot go to school right now. You are making our children bear the brunt of this pandemic, so that you can keep your business constituents happy.

You said that schools would be the first to open, and the last to close, and you have failed on that promise. You will not get re-elected if you do not SAFELY open schools in a couple of weeks. Your time is up… Please take concrete actions today to make the schools safer to that they can re-open.”

Fix Our Schools has been urging the Ford government to prioritize safe, in-person learning for Ontario children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic since Spring of 2020, and we are not alone. The Ontario Science Table’s briefing from back in July, 2021 entitled, “School Operation for the 2021- 2022 Academic Year in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic” emphasized that education was “children’s essential work”, that schools are of critical importance to students’ learning and overall well-being, and that in-person schooling is optimal for the vast majority of students. Amy Greer, an infectious disease epidemiologist and math modeller, was one of the co-authors of this report and reminds us this week that this detailed plan existed back in July, 2021, and was ignored by Premier Ford and Minister Lecce. As a result of the Ford government’s “back to school plan”, which really simply relied on low community spread, Ontario’s children, families, employers, teachers, and education workers are all paying a high price now as we face another round of online learning.

 

Students, families, employers, teachers and education workers are all eager to know what exactly is being done to ensure a safe return to in-person learning as quickly as possible. We are also eager to understand what exactly needs to be in place for the Ford government to decide that children may safely return to school in-person? What indicators are being tracked that will tell us that in-person learning can safely resume?  Premier Ford and Minister Lecce – over to you! 

Ford Has Failed Ontario’s Children … Again

January 3, 2022

Premier Ford’s behaviour, policies, funding allocations, decisions, and lack of leadership have failed students, parents, families, teachers, and education workers time and again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A quick overview of the past few weeks in Ontario’s public education:

  • After a press conference on Friday, December 17th announcing an initial plan to handle the challenge of Omicron, Premier Ford was absent from the public eye over the holiday season. During that time, the Omicron variant was wreaking havoc in Ontario, causing fear, and raising many questions and concerns.
  • On December 28, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer was meant to make an announcement, but this announcement was delayed.
  • On December 30, Ford’s government announced a two-day delay in school starting, suggesting that schools would somehow be safe for in-person learning by Wednesday, January 5th, as the Omicron variant continued to wreak havoc in Ontario.

Ottawa Citizen columnist Brigitte Pellerin raised many excellent points after this December 30th announcement in her piece entitled, “Doug Ford’s absence on school re-opening is an abdication of leadership: It’s not too much to ask for a government that treats school children and the people who teach them as a priority”. She notes that this government is not making kids the priority they need to be and that “the worst part is the silence”. She goes on to paint a picture of what leadership in this province could look like if Doug Ford had the courage to actually lead:

He would look us in the eye and say something like, “There are no easy answers. Omicron is worrying everyone. We are watching the following indicators to tell us whether we need to delay going back to school but either way we will make a decision by Dec. 27 so everyone has at least one week to prepare. And on top of buying N95 masks for every teacher and school staff not working alone in an office, we are sending truckloads of rapid antigen tests to school boards everywhere. I’ll be back here tomorrow to update you again, even if the situation hasn’t changed. And I will do my best to answer questions.”

  • Following Ford’s December 30th announcement, grave concerns immediately began surfacing from many experts, parents, teachers, education workers, politicians, and education advocates about the wisdom of the proposal to have 2-million children return to in-person learning on January 5th.
  • On December 31st, we learned that the memo sent by our Ministry of Education to school boards following the December 30th announcement outlined that Ontario would stop collecting COVID-19 numbers from schools, and suspend reporting of cases, continuing a longstanding Ford government tradition of lack of data and transparency.
  • Early on Sunday, January 2, the general public heard rumours of a 4 pm Cabinet Meeting.
  • As the day progressed on January 2, we continued to hear rumours about the Cabinet Meeting – and that a possible outcome was a switch to online learning for Ontario’s students.
  • We awoke on Monday, January 3rd only to continued speculation, and news of a press conference at 10 am by the Ford government.
  • The 10 am press conference was delayed to 11 am, and Education Minister Lecce was not going to be in attendance.
  • The 11 am press conference started almost 30 minutes late, and confirmed rumours that Ontario’s public education sector would, once again, have to pivot to online learning until at least January 17. Despite numerous questions from the press about what specific steps the Ford government would be taking in the coming two weeks to ensure that students could return to in-person learning after January 17th, no clear steps were outlined by the Ford government.

We agree with epidemiologist and advocate Colin Furness that online learning is dreadful and also a massive burden to so many families without the flexibility and/or resources to support at-home learning. We also agree that this decision was needed to help with infection control and child hospitalization.

Fix Our Schools recognizes that the past two years have been challenging for all governments. Governments, after all, are comprised of mere humans, and we have compassion that all humans have found the past two years challenging at times. However, with a more proactive, respectful, collaborative, and competent provincial government, we do believe that Ontario’s children and families would have been better served to date during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To that end, we look forward for a moment to June, 2022 when we have the opportunity to vote in a more proactive, respectful, collaborative, competent provincial government. Follow closely each of the parties that could govern our province, and demand platforms from each of these parties that reflect your priorities, and demand behaviour from these parties that reflects your values.

In the shorter-term, the Ford government is in charge of public education in this province for at least the next few months. With this in mind, now is the time to demand that Premier Ford start prioritizing students, schools and education. Ontario Parent Action Network (OPAN) is making it easy for all of us to take action so please take the time to call Premier Ford’s office in the coming days to let them know what you expect of his government.

https://twitter.com/parentaction4ed/status/1478073559532584960

Ontario’s students have always deserved safe, healthy, well-maintained schools that provide environments conducive to learning. After being an afterthought by the Ford government since March, 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Ontario’s students deserve this even more today.

Standards, Data and Funding Needed for Ontario’s Schools: Accessibility

December 21, 2021

If we prioritized children in Ontario, we would have standards in place for the spaces where they spend their days – school buildings, portables and schoolyards that would include and address:

  • The $16.8-billion of disrepair in school buildings
  • A program to assess current repair backlogs in portables and schoolyards
  • Air quality and ventilation
  • Classroom temperatures
  • Accessibility
  • Environmental efficiency & durability
  • Job site safety for school construction projects and maintenance work
  • Drinking water
  • Asbestos
  • Cleanliness – did we have new wording for this?? Check notes at home 
  • Classroom space
  • Vermin, mold
  • Fire and electrical code

If we prioritized children in Ontario, we would collect data regularly to ensure that these standards were being met; and we would insist upon transparent release of this data to ensure accountability. Our provincial government must be held accountable for implementing these standards for school buildings, portables and schoolyards; and our provincial government must also be held accountable for providing sufficient funding to achieve these standards and to be able to collect the data that demonstrates these standards are being met. Ontario’s school boards, were they provided adequate, stable levels of funding, must be held accountable for actually doing the work to meet these standards, and for collecting the data that proves the standards are, indeed, being met.

If we prioritized children in Ontario, we would acknowledge that school buildings, portables and schoolyards have been chronically and grossly underfunded by successive provincial governments for decades; and that a complete rethink of provincial funding for schools and education is desperately needed. Adequate, stable funding is urgently needed to achieve the safe, healthy, well-maintained learning environments that Ontario’s children deserve in their public schools.

In this blog, we will focus on the need for accessibility of the built form of school buildings, portables and schoolyards. We are defining full accessibility as school buildings, portables, and schoolyards that allow independent access into and throughout; and that provide a barrier-free washroom.

Inaccessible schools impact students, teachers, and the community

In a CBC news story published on August 21, 2021 entitled, “Toronto teacher who now uses wheelchair prompts TDSB to make school more accessible“, Talia Ricci reported that more than 50% of schools in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the largest school board in the country, have barriers to people with disabilities. Ricci highlights the story of Karyn Bugelli, a teacher and guidance counsellor at Malvern Collegiate Institute, who became paralyzed from the waist down after an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from her spine. Having been a member of the Malvern CI community for 15 years, she contacted her principal, Sandy Kaskens, to see how she could continue to do her job in a wheelchair. Kaskens’ first thought was, “Okay, what do I need to do to make sure she can return to Malvern.”‘

For Bugelli to get into her office, an exterior ramp and stair-lift would need to be installed, as well as an accessible washroom. While a process has begun to make these changes, both Bugelli and Kaskens realize that accessibility in Ontario’s schools is a massive project, and an issue that impacts countless students, teachers, and community members. They recollected one former Malvern student who was forced to transfer schools to one that was accessible after a spine issue meant he had to use a wheelchair. Bugelli remembers thinking, “What a terrible thing that a Grade 9 student would have to move away from his friends and move to a new school in this day and age.”

What a terrible thing, indeed. Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) the many barriers that impede Ontario students with disabilities between Kindergarten and Grade 12 (K-12) from fully participating in and fully benefiting from Ontario’s education system should be removed by 2025. A promised new law, to be called the “Education Accessibility Standard”, is meant to be enacted so that Ontario’s school system becomes barrier-free for students with disabilities by 2025.

What should be included in the Education Accessibility Standard law?

The provincial government appointed a committee comprised of members of the disability community and school system called the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee to make recommendations on what ought to be included in the “Education Accessibility Standard”. The non-partisan AODA Alliance prepared this summary of the latest recommendations from the K-12 Education Standards Committee. Fix Our Schools would like to highlight and wholeheartedly support the following portion of the summary that pertains to addressing physical and architectural barriers in schools:

“Too often, the built environment where K-12 education programming is offered, have physical barriers that can impede some students with disabilities from being able to enter or independently move around. These barriers also impede parents, teachers and other staff and volunteers with disabilities.

The Ontario Ministry of Education does not effectively survey all school buildings to ensure that they are accessible, or to catalogue needed accessibility improvements. Ministry of Education’s specifications for new school construction do not ensure that news schools are accessible.

The Standards Development Committee recommends that the Education Accessibility Standard should include specific requirements to be included in a new school, requirements to be included in a renovation of or an addition to an existing school, and retrofit requirements for an existing school not slated for a major renovation. Its detailed recommendations, beyond what the Ontario Building Code and existing AODA standards minimally require, are set out in full in the June 16, 2021 AODA Alliance Update. They do not only include the needs of people with mobility disabilities. They include people with other disabilities such as (but not limited to) people with vision and/or hearing loss, autism, intellectual or developmental disabilities, learning disabilities or mental health disorders.

Each school board should develop a plan to ensure that the built environment of its schools and other educational facilities becomes fully accessible to persons with disabilities as soon as reasonably possible, and in any event, no later than 2025. As a first step, each school board should develop a plan for making as many of its schools’ disability-accessible within its current financial context. They should identify which existing schools can be more easily made accessible. An interim plan should be developed to show what progress towards full physical accessibility can be made by first addressing schools that would require less money to be made physically more accessible.

When a school board seeks to hire design professionals, such as architects, interior designers or landscape architects, for a school project the school board should include in any Request for Proposal a mandatory requirement that the design professional must have sufficient demonstrated expertise in accessibility design. This includes accessibility needs of people with all kinds of disabilities, and not just those with mobility impairments. A properly qualified and experienced accessibility consultant should be retained by the school board (and not necessarily by a private architecture firm) to advise on the project from the outset, with their advice being transmitted directly to the school board.

Where possible, a school board should not renovate an existing school that lacks disability accessibility, unless the school board has a plan to make that school accessible. For example, a school board should not spend public money to renovate the second storey of a school which lacks accessibility to the second storey, if the school board does not have a plan to make that second storey disability accessible. Very pressing health and safety concerns should be the only reason for any exception to this.

When a school board decides which schools to close due to reduced enrolment, a priority should be placed on keeping open schools with more physical accessibility, while a priority should be given to closing schools that are the most lacking in accessibility, or for which retrofitting is the most costly.

Each school board should take an inventory of the accessibility of its existing indoor and outdoor play spaces and gym and playground equipment, and make this public. Each board should adopt a plan to remediate the accessibility of new gym or playground equipment.“

Provincial funding is needed to implement these recommendations and meet the 2025 deadline under AODA

The Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA) provided input to the K-12 Education Standards Development Committee’s development of proposed K-12 education standards. Fix Our Schools would like to highlight and wholeheartedly support the following portion of OPSBA’s recommendations, which pertains to addressing physical and architectural barriers in schools, and which candidly outlines the need for new, designated provincial funding in order to realize any of the proposed K-12 education standards:

“The intent/rationale of these recommendations is to ensure that as soon as possible, and no later than January 1, 2025, the built environment in the education system, such as schools themselves, their yards, playgrounds, etc., and the equipment on those premises (such as gym and playground equipment) would all be fully accessible to persons with disabilities and would be designed based on the principle of universal design. Where school programs or trips take place outside the school, these will be held at locations that are disability accessible. The intent/rationale is also to ensure that no public money is used to create new barriers or perpetuate existing barriers in the school system.

These recommendations are supported but school boards will need additional funding to meet all the requirements that are being recommended under this section, as well as a commitment from government to include accessibility requirements as part of the business cases when planning and designing new facilities. It was suggested that the Ministry of Education could hire accessibility consultants when reviewing business and infrastructure plans.

There are significant legislative and regulatory barriers that impact the Physical and Architectural Barrier recommendations. Specifically, the Building Code requirements are primarily designed for adults, which can create challenges for K-12 students or those with other needs that do not fit “normal” ergonomics. The Building Code also doesn’t take into consideration some specific requirements relating to school functions (i.e. lockdown requirements, etc.). A specific example is requiring electric strikes in fire separations to be Fail-Safe (remain unlocked during power interruptions), which creates issues and contradict school lockdown procedures. There are also significant financial challenges as accessibility alterations and upgrades to existing buildings are expensive and pose a significant strain on renewal budgets. There is (currently) no separate funding from the government allocated to address these needs. Also, current funding levels for new schools and facilities is not sufficient to incorporate all accessibility features and address all barriers.”

TDSB Chair, Alexander Brown echoed OPSBA when he wrote this letter to Education Minister Lecce on November 30, 2021 requesting additional and dedicated funding to support the accessibility of all existing schools. The TDSB estimates that to make all 570 of its schools fully accessible would cost approximately $1-billion, which would be in addition to the provincial funding required to address $3.7-B maintenance repair backlog currently faced by the TDSB. 

Fix Our Schools has also included a call for additional funding specific to ensuring accessibility in public schools in each of its last three pre-budget submissions to the provincial government. In our most recent pre-budget submission, we stated, “clearly, when the current provincial levels of funding don’t even allow for school boards to proactively address disrepair in their school buildings, without specific funding for AODA repair and renewal items in schools, school boards cannot reasonably meet the 2025 deadline for full accessibility in schools”.

Let’s start truly prioritizing children in this province. We must implement standards for school buildings, portables and schoolyards; collect the data that demonstrates these standards are being met; publish this data at regular intervals to ensure accountability; and provide the funding that is actually needed to achieve these standards and level of transparency. We expect results Premier Ford and Minister Lecce – and to get those results, standards, data and funding are absolute precursors.

More Proof that School Conditions Matter; and Solutions to Improve Ontario’s School Conditions

December 7, 2021

More Proof that School Conditions Matter

Fix Our Schools began is a parent-led, non-partisan, Ontario-wide campaign focused on ensuring all publicly funded school buildings, portables and schoolyards are safe, healthy, well-maintained, and provide environments conducive to learning and working. Since we launched in 2014, we have always believed that school conditions matter. Taking care of the capital assets we call public schools makes good financial sense, and has also been shown to improve the health, learning, attendance and performance of the learners and workers who spend their days at school. 

A September, 2021 study led by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that, “the air quality within an office can have significant impacts on employees’ cognitive function, including response times and ability to focus, and it may also affect their productivity“. In fact, cognitive function test were 61%-101% higher in buildings with higher ventilation than in conventional buildings. Clearly, indoor air quality in schools could have a significant impact on students’ cognitive function, and their ability to learn. Not much of a stretch to extrapolate this conclusion! 

The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the urgency of ensuring good ventilation and indoor air quality. Joseph Allen, Associate Professor of Exposure Assessment Science and senior author on the Harvard study mentioned above, noted that “the value proposition of these strategies extends to cognitive function and productivity of workers, making healthy buildings foundational to public health and business strategy moving forward.”

How Do We Ensure Excellent School Conditions in Ontario? 

If we accept that school conditions matter, then we must take the following steps:

1. Develop and implement a Standard of Good Repair for Ontario’s publicly funded schools, including transparent metrics for school buildings, portables and schoolyards. These standards and associated metrics would include and address:

    • The $16.8-billion of disrepair in school buildings
    • A program to assess current repair backlogs in portables and schoolyards
    • Air quality and ventilation
    • Classroom temperatures
    • Accessibility
    • Environmental efficiency & durability
    • Job site safety for school construction projects and maintenance work
    • Drinking water
    • Asbestos
    • Cleanliness
    • Classroom space
    • Vermin, mold
    • Fire and electrical code

2. Provide Ontario’s publicly funded schools with adequate, stable, equitable funding that ensures these standards are met; and publicly demonstrate positive outcomes by collecting and releasing associated metrics at regular intervals.

Fix Our Schools provided these recommendations to the Ministry of Education as part of its 2022-23 Education Funding consultation process, highlighting that, at a minimum, an additional $1.6-B/year is required (on top of the current $1.4-B/year provincial funding for school repair and renewal) to start to turn the tide on the ever-growing backlog of disrepair in Ontario’s schools. This level of increased funding is a recommendation that we have been making to since 2017 and, with each year that successive governments have failed to heed this call to action, the repair backlog in Ontario’s schools has grown.

In fact, the repair backlog in Ontario’s schools has grown from $15.9-B in November, 2017 (the last time that full disrepair data was released by the provincial government) to $16.8-B. And, as we’ve noted previously, this $16.8-B number does not even begin to include many important aspects of school infrastructure.

Fix Our Schools has always been open to exploring all ideas for funding solutions that could result in safe, healthy, well-maintained schools. We would welcome further exploration of the following ideas as well:

  1. Separating the assets we happen to call “public schools ” today (but that could become community hubs serving seniors in two decades time) from the education that is delivered in these buildings could be a powerful shift that could unlock new revenue streams. Education is engrained in the Canadian constitution as a provincial responsibility so when we include school infrastructure as part of “education”, our provincial governments in Canada are then solely responsible for funding both public education and public school infrastructure (school buildings, portables and schoolyards). However, if we delineate school infrastructure from education, then municipal, provincial, and federal governments could (and should!) contribute to funding safe, healthy, well-maintained school infrastructure.  
  2. Similarly, if the capital assets we call schools were considered to be separate and distinct from the education delivered in schools, perhaps school infrastructure would be better managed by an entity with power over the funding and policies, and accountability over the outcomes. As economist Hugh Mackenzie has  noted, “The (Provincial) government is fully responsible for the level of funding provided but local school boards bear the consequences and are accountable for the results. Despite the government’s complete control over funding, there is no provincial accountability mechanism for the performance of and funding for the system as a whole.” As Fix Our Schools has noted time and again, Ontario’s school boards are at the mercy of the provincial funding model, and the provincial government of the day blames school boards for substandard school conditions, even though the provincial funding to maintain, repair and build schools has been chronically and grossly inadequate. This is the dynamic that has led to a large and growing repair backlog in Ontario’s public schools that now sits at a gob-smacking $16.8-billion, and therefore is a dynamic that must be examined and changed. School infrastructure could, perhaps, become the responsibility of the provincial government rather than the responsibility of school boards. Or, school boards could, perhaps, be given back the power of taxation. Or, perhaps if Municipalities and the Federal government were also involved in the funding of maintenance, repair and building of school infrastructure, there are other models to be considered.
  3. The Toronto District School Board and its subsidiary the Toronto Lands Corporation (TLC) have proposed selling off non-instructional sites to fix the TDSB’s crumbling schools, as outlined in the November 26 CBC article by Angelina King entitled, “The TDSB is ‘land rich and cash poor’ – could $1-B in real estate help fix crumbling schools?“. This is a proposed solution that would demand many changes to provincial policies and approaches to actually be realized, and one that would only assist the TDSB, which is one of 72 school boards in the province, all of which face large and growing repair backlogs. However, the concept proposed by the TDSB and TLC is an interesting one that warrants examination and discussion. In essence, it is a question of how society can best use and derive value from public buildings over time, and changing demographics.

As a parent-led campaign, we certainly do not have all the policy answers. However, we do know, unequivocally, that the current provincial funding model and approach to policies that inform school conditions is one that is broken. New solutions are needed now, and we need a provincial government that listens, works with stakeholders, and has a culture of learning.

All Parties Must Prioritize Publicly Funded Schools and Education

November 22, 2021

With a provincial election approaching in June, 2022, Fix Our Schools continues to be a non-partisan, parent-led, Ontario-wide campaign working to ensure that:

1.Every publicly funded school in Ontario is safe, well-maintained, healthy and provides an environment conducive to learning and working; a goal that has taken on increased significance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. A Standard of Good Repair for Ontario’s publicly funded schools is developed and implemented, which would include transparent metrics for school buildings, portables and schoolyards. These standards and associated metrics must include and address:

    • The $16.8-billion of disrepair in school buildings
    • A program to assess current repair backlogs in portables and schoolyards
    • Air quality and ventilation
    • Classroom temperatures
    • Accessibility
    • Environmental efficiency & durability
    • Job site safety for school construction projects and maintenance work
    • Drinking water
    • Asbestos
    • Cleanliness
    • Classroom space
    • Vermin, mold
    • Fire and electrical code

3. Publicly funded schools receive adequate, stable, equitable provincial funding that enables school boards to meet these provincial standards and publicly demonstrate positive outcomes by collecting and releasing associated metrics at regular intervals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how critical school buildings and education are to Ontario’s children, their families, and our economy. With this in mind, we provided this input to the Ministry of Education as part of its 2022-23 Education Funding consultation process. Our sincere hope is that the Ford government will accept and act upon our feedback.

In the coming months, we will work to ensure that all political parties in this province prioritize safe, healthy, well-maintained school buildings, portables and schoolyards, and reflect this prioritization by including the following in their education platforms:

  • A Standard of Good Repair and associated metrics for school buildings, portables and schoolyards
  • Adequate, stable, and equitable provincial funding to achieve these standards and to collect and release the associated metrics publicly at regular intervals

Standards, Metrics, and Funding – Oh My!

November 9, 2021

Provincial Funding: What School Boards Rely Upon to Maintain School Infrastructure

Sadly, in the Fall Economic Statement from the Ford government this past week, we learned that base funding for education was being cut by $460-million. Minister Lecce defended his government’s actions, stating that “if you account for everything all other ministries are spending to help schools, the kids and teachers are still ahead.” 

Perhaps this provincial funding cut is a matter of reporting. Perhaps not. The Ford government seems to intentionally create confusion when it releases numbers and data,  and it consistently avoids transparency. Therefore, comparing year over year numbers and data is increasingly challenging, if not downright impossible. Thus, Fix Our Schools is not overly interested in debating the minutiae of this cut to education funding. We are, however, extremely interested in rebutting Minister Lecce’s statement and belief that “if you account for everything all other ministries are spending to help schools, the kids and teachers are still ahead”.

We believe that if the Ford government were to actually engage with education stakeholders, they would learn that the kids and teachers are absolutely not “ahead” by any measure these days. In fact, should our provincial government pursue authentic engagement with its stakeholders, they may even hear that this flippant and vague explanation of a cut to education funding is offensive, and that Ontario students, teachers, and education workers are struggling to catch up from the ongoing pandemic challenges. In the lead-up to a provincial election, Minister Lecce’s disregard and casual dismissal of the real needs of public schools and education is frustrating and, indeed, disturbing.

Fix Our Schools also believes that a complete rethink of provincial funding for schools and education is imperative, and that any new funding approach to school infrastructure must begin with a commitment to providing the funding actually needed to achieve the goals and outcomes we envision for school infrastructure. Additionally, any responsible funding model would also include:

  • Standards of good repair that include not only the outstanding repairs currently collected, but also items such as: portables; ventilation and indoor air quality; drinking water quality; asbestos remediation; accessibility; schoolyards, classroom temperatures; and cleanliness.
  • Metrics that must be collected at given time intervals and compared against the set standards in order to confirm that investments and funding provided are achieving the desired outcomes

Standards & Metrics: During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Moving Forward

Without a set of standards in place for school infrastructure, no metrics are being collected and assessed to confirm that desired outcomes are being achieved. Without a set of standards there is no way to determine if an adequate level of funding is being provided to reasonably be able to achieve these outcomes. In the long-term, we know that school conditions matter. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, good school conditions can reduce absenteeism, improve test scores, and improve teacher retention. It is clear that in the long-term, Ontario absolutely needs a comprehensive set of standards for school infrastructure; and metrics in place to ensure those standards are being met and properly funded. Is this the government to do that?

In the short-term, as we move through this tenuous time towards the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, let’s consider standards and metrics as they relate to ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ).  Ontario’s science table believes that provincial case counts will remain stable, even as social contacts increase, so long as public health measures such as masking, vaccine certificates, ventilation/filtration and symptom screening remain in place.

While the Ford government has provided funding for school boards to “improve  ventilation”, they have not instituted any standards for what IAQ is required to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and to improve health outcomes for students, teachers, and education workers during this pandemic. Furthermore, the Ford government has not provided any direction or funding to school boards to collect metrics on ventilation and IAQ, so we have no sense of whether the investments that school boards have made in ventilation improvements have yielded desired outcomes. This is simply fiscally irresponsible.

In the short-term, standards, metrics and ongoing funding are urgently needed for ventilation and indoor air quality in Ontario’s schools. And, in the longer-term, standards for all facets of school infrastructure, metrics to assess these standards, and adequate, stable provincial funding to ensure meeting these standards is possible are all absolute imperatives for Ontario’s schools.

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.