Tag Archives: NDP

Imperative: Prioritizing Schools and Education in Party Platforms

March 16, 2021

Political parties in Ontario are already beginning to think about their platforms for the next provincial election. The Liberal party reached out to Fix Our Schools to provide input to the Education Platform they are building for the next provincial election, and have been seeking input from all citizens using a campaign called “Take the Mic” to solicit citizen’s opinions on a wide range of topics, including education. We hope that many of you in the Fix Our Schools network will provide input in the coming days. And, as a non-partisan campaign, Fix Our Schools hopes that you will take every opportunity in the coming days, weeks, and months to provide input to all political parties about what you believe is important to include in a strong education platform.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the criticality of schools that are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning. In 2020/2021 amidst a global pandemic, the gross and chronic underfunding of Ontario’s schools by successive provincial governments over 23 years came back to haunt us. We learned that we cannot underfund and neglect critical infrastructure for decades, and then expect that infrastructure to provide what is needed during an emergency situation. So, the time is now to learn from the hard lessons of this past year, and embed this learning into the education platforms being developed by our provincial parties.

With this in mind, we urge all provincial parties to prioritize investing in schools, and to include in their education platforms these recommendations, originally submitted to the government in our pre-budget submission in January 2021. Here is an overview of the detailed recommendations provided in our pre-budget submission:

1. A commonly understood and measurable standard of good repair must be developed and implemented for Ontario schools, that takes into consideration not only disrepair but also things such as air quality/ventilation, water quality, and temperature of classrooms.

These same standards must also be applied to all First Nations schools. Furthermore, these standards must be applied not only to permanent school buildings but also to portables, which often end up being on a school site for over a decade, instead of as a temporary measure, as originally intended. Integral to this new Standard of Good repair is a commitment to transparency into the state of all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools and portables, and First Nations schools.

 

2. A thoughtful, detailed review and revision of the education funding formula, which has allowed for $16.3-billion of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s publicly funded schools. Given the Ministry of Education is the sole funder of our publicly funded schools and education system, the Ministry holds responsibility for ensuring the funding formula provides adequate, stable funding for school infrastructure.

Therefore, we continue to call for an education funding formula that will include the following additional renewal and capital funding, and operational funding:

    • Keep special School Condition Improvement (SCI) funding at $1 billion per year until the repair backlog is gone, in conjunction with the following funding steps:
    • Increase annual School Renewal Allocation (SRA) funding from the current $357 million per year to $1.7 billion per year, and maintain that funding at 3% of the replacement value of Ontario’s schools to conform to the generally accepted level of renewal funding required to keep schools in a state of good repair. 
    • Create a new and separate capital stream of funding to replace the 346 school buildings across the province determined to be too expensive to repair as of the most recent provincial review cycle; estimated $3.9 billion one-time capital injection amortized over 40 years would result in a new budgetary expense of $100 million per year
    • Increase the current operational maintenance budget by $165 million per year (an 8.7% increase from current levels, based on industry averages) and ensure that the formula used to determine this annual figure explicitly recognizes the underlying drivers of differences in operating costs for schools in the province including: labour costs in the community, heating costs in given climates, age & design of school buildings.

3. An updated provincial regulation that guides the collection and use of Education Development Charges must be developed and implemented, such that developers contribute to the local school infrastructure from which they ultimately profit. Of note is that back in 2018, Canada’s largest school board, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) challenged the Ontario government on the equity of its EDC regulations. This hearing is now set to take place on March 25, 2021 at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In the hearing, the TDSB seeks to have the court declare certain provisions of the Education Act regulations invalid and permit TDSB to charge Educational Development Charges. Fix Our Schools has been pushing for these changes since our inception in 2014, and recently co-authored a paper called The Missing Money Our Schools Need Now, so we will be watching this court decision closely.

4. An approach to school closures must be developed and implements, that is not focused on utilization rates but, instead, determines the importance of a school to its surrounding community and considers the implications for student access to programs and commute times. If a school is open, then its capital costs and operational maintenance costs must be fully funded by the provincial government, regardless of the utilization of that school.

5. Provide additional funding for school boards to reasonably meet the 2025 deadline for compliance with Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA) Act. The goal for Ontario is to be fully accessible by 2025, including publicly funded schools. Clearly, when the current provincial levels of funding don’t even allow for school boards to proactively address disrepair, without specific funding for AODA repair and renewal items in schools, school boards cannot reasonably meet the 2025 deadline for full accessibility in schools.

So to recap, Fix Our Schools urges every provincial party to prioritize safe, healthy, well-maintained schools that provide environments conducive to learning and working. We believe the recommendations we have made ought to be an integral part of each party’s education platform for the next provincial election. We know that our recommended platform for schools requires a lot of new money to be invested in publicly funded schools. We also know that:

  • Schools are a critical element of our public infrastructure, made even more evident during the COVID pandemic
  • 2 million Ontario children spend their days in school buildings and need safe, healthy, well-maintained places to learn.
  • Teachers, education workers, adult learners, and pre-schoolers who attend childcare facilities in local public schools also need safe, healthy, well-maintained environments in which to work and learn.
  • Repairs in Ontario’s schools are only going to get more expensive if we do not fully address the $16.3 billion repair backlog as soon as possible.

Therefore, if we collectively agree that we value our children and we value their education then we will start to do what it takes to truly fix Ontario’s schools and fix the broken provincial funding approach to education that has allowed $16.3 billion of disrepair to accumulate in Ontario’s schools.

NDP Education Critic calls for Wynne government to fully address $15-B repair backlog in schools

September 16, 2016

During question period at Queen’s Park on September 14, 2016, Education Critic Lisa Gretzky called upon Premier Wynne to account for the $15-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s schools, citing classrooms that are too hot in spring and fall … and too cold in the winter for students to learn:

From the official hansard:

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: My question is to the Premier. Schools across the province are crumbling and they have reached a tipping point. There is a $15-billion repair backlog, $3.4 billion in Toronto alone. Students and education workers have been in sweltering hot classrooms and will have to wear winter jackets in the classroom in the winter.

To make matters worse, Ontario’s teachers are being forced to load French and music lessons onto carts and transport them from classroom to classroom because of Liberal cuts to education. The Premier can shake her head all she wants, but the boards are even speaking out. Will the Premier admit that her misplaced priorities are forcing our young people to pay the price?

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: I was only shaking my head because it is the reality that core French teachers and music teachers for many, many years in this province—itinerant music teachers—have not necessarily had a dedicated classroom. It has worked very, very well that teachers have moved from classroom to classroom. Certainly, my three children who went through the publicly funded education system in Toronto had exactly that situation, and it’s not unusual.

I think sometimes what happens is when there has been a school where there has been a dedicated classroom, and then enrolment may go up or there may be a change and then that changes so that the core French teacher is moving from classroom to classroom, that can cause an adjustment in the school. But it’s not an unusual practice and the kids get very, very good education in that way.

The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary?

Mrs. Lisa Gretzky: Back to the Premier. Premier, there are classrooms that are being closed and the teachers are being moved out of those classrooms. If you think it’s working, maybe you should actually talk to the education workers delivering the curriculum.

Recently, a school in Thames Valley had to close because of health concerns related to a lack of air conditioning. Our schools are in crisis. A teacher in Toronto was forced to spend $500 of her own money to install an air conditioner in her classroom because students were feeling faint and lethargic and she felt the environment was unsafe. Our children should not be trying to learn in classrooms without windows. I’m sure the Premier has windows in her office. They should not be in classrooms with poor air quality. Will the Premier immediately ensure that the repair backlog for schools across the province is remedied? And I’m talking about $15 billion.

Hon. Kathleen O. Wynne: Mr. Speaker, we acknowledge that there needed to be an increase in funding in terms of the repair and renewal of schools. We added a historic $1.1 billion on top of an existing $1.6 billion. We have acknowledged that there is a need to continue to fund the renewal of schools. We will continue to work with school boards. The $1.1 billion that we put in on top of the $1.6 billion is funding projects around the province—did over the summer and continues to.

School boards make the decisions about how they use those funds. School boards have priorities. They take those funds and they apply them to the priorities.

We understand that there’s a need, Mr. Speaker, that’s why we put in over $1 billion on top of the billion dollars that was already there.

Letter to all federal parties: What will you invest in repairing & rebuilding Canadian public schools?

September 14, 2015

Fix Our Schools is sending the following letter to the Green, Liberal, NDP, and PC Parties of Canada; and to all Ontario federal candidates. Print it out to review with any federal canvassers that come knocking on your door or take it with you to a federal candidates debate.

To: The Green, Liberal, NDP and Conservative Parties of Canada

My son wore his winter coat at school this past winter because his classroom was twelve degrees Celsius.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident of disrepair in Canadian public schools:

  • In Vancouver, schools need approximately $1-billion of seismic upgrades to prevent collapse in case of earthquakes; and across British Columbia there are hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding maintenance in public schools.
  • In Ontario, all 72 public school boards have repair backlogs, for a total of over $15-billion of outstanding repairs – many of which are deemed “urgent” by the Province.
  • In Montreal, almost 40% of the 226 schools in one board were recently deemed to be in either an “excessive [or] advanced state of decay”.
  • In New Brunswick, two public schools had to be closed in 2010 because they were unsafe, forcing that provincial government to invest more in school buildings.

The 5-million children who attend Canadian public schools deserve better – as do the countless Canadian children who attend childcare programs in these same schools. Voters across the country consider their local public schools to be community hubs, and expect these buildings to be safe, well-maintained, and funded as critical social infrastructure.

Federal infrastructure money has been used for hockey arenas, curling rinks and gazebos. Surely, Canadians would agree that federal investment in school buildings is equally important? So, our question to the Federal parties is this:

How much federal infrastructure money would your party invest in repairing and rebuilding Canadian public school buildings – a critical part of our country’s infrastructure?

Kind regards,

Krista Wylie – Co-Founder, Fix Our Schools

www.fixourschools.ca: grassroots, non-partisan advocates for safe, well-maintained schools

NDP and PC education critics agree we need to fix our schools

May 4, 2015

Fix Our Schools met with both NDP Education Critic Lisa Gretzky and PC Education Critic Garfield Dunlop in recent weeks. Both education critics agreed the $14.7-billion issue of disrepair in public schools affects students and families across the province and must be addressed.

Lisa Gretzky recollected a school’s gym ceiling falling in during her tenure as a School Board Trustee in Windsor. Luckily, no students were injured in this incident but it underscores the importance of keeping public schools in a state of good repair.

The health, safety and achievement of students is impacted by the outstanding repairs and maintenance plaguing Ontario’s public schools.