Tag Archives: Province

Disappointing response from Province

December 15, 2015

While Fix Our Schools appreciates a response from the Minister of Education to the letter we sent on October 27, 2015, we were disappointed in its content. Click here to see formal response letter from  Minister Liz Sandals.

The tone is dismissive, placating and lacks any urgency to fix our schools. The content is surprising given the recently released 2015 Auditor-General’s report confirmed $1.4-billion/year is needed simply to keep schools in a state of good repair (never mind the $15-billion repair backlog that has been allowed to accumulate under the provincial government’s funding model and watch!).

We found Minister Sandals’ response to be completely insufficient for the following reasons:

  • She points to a $1.25-billion investment in schools over 3 years via the School Condition Improvement grant as a positive accomplishment. However, the 2015 Auditor-General’s report confirmed that $1.4 billion per year is needed simply to keep schools in a state of good repair. Therefore, the amount that Minister Sandals is highlighting actually constitutes gross underfunding of buildings in which children spend 6 hours each day.
  • She says, “these historic investments have led to significant improvements in Ontario’s infrastructure.”  Minister Sandals fails to acknowledge that under this Liberal government’s watch, the total disrepair in Ontario’s schools has grown to a total of $15-billion – which is surely not a “significant improvement”?
  • The $11-billion committed over 10 years to school infrastructure is simply insufficient. This funding commitment is earmarked for not only addressing the $15-billion repair backlog but also for building brand new schools and building new additions. As noted in the 2015 Auditor-General’s report, “the province’s current 10-year capital plan for infrastructure spending proposed by the ministries has only about one-third of funding allocated to renewal, and the remaining two-thirds to new projects.” Therefore, only $3.7-billion over 10 years is really allocated to addressing disrepair in Ontario schools. Compare this amount to the existing $15-billion repair backlog and we have a situation where school conditions will continue to deteriorate in our public schools unless new funding solutions are found.
  • Finally, Minister Sandals doesn’t answer the one question asked in the letter: How much of the federal infrastructure money that is expected to flow to provincial coffers from our new Liberal Federal Government will you commit to repairing and rebuilding Ontario’s public schools?”

Overall, a huge disappointment. We have shared this disappointing response with media contacts, both provincial Education Critics and will be following up with the Province, highlighting the inadequacy of their response, urging them to take the Auditor-General’s report seriously and increase capital funding to school infrastructure in this province immediately.

Does sending another letter really have an impact?

November 24, 2015

Wondering if you should bother taking the time to participate in the latest Fix Our Schools letter-writing campaign? The answer is emphatically YES!

Have you heard the saying, “The squeaky wheel gets the oil”?

Well, the squeaking generated by the Fix Our Schools campaign due to your involvement and activism is getting louder with each week that passes…and that squeaking IS having an impact! Politicians and political staff now know about Fix Our Schools and have started to accept and request meetings with us. They know from the letters you send that we represent a large and growing number of voters.

Since launching in October 2014, we have built a network of over 1400 people in Ontario who all want safe, well-maintained public schools that are funded as important public infrastructure – and this network is growing every day. The real power of a campaign like Fix Our Schools comes when this large network of people all take action (like send a letter!) to ask for the same thing.

So what are you waiting for? Send a letter today to the provincial government and your local MPP. Ask them to increase capital funding to school boards for repairing and rebuilding public schools. We believe this is a reasonable request, given that new infrastructure money is going to start flowing to the Province from our new federal government.  Some of this new money must go towards school infrastructure. This will only happen if we all work together to ensure that we create a very squeaky wheel!

$498-million investment in new schools and renovations – not enough!

November 16, 2015

On November 9, 2015, Kathleen Wynne’s government announced that $498-million would go towards:

  • 30 new schools
  • 26 major additions and renovations
  • 122 safe, high-quality licensed child care rooms, resulting in 2,135 new licensed spaces for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers.

In the 2014 budget, the provincial government committed $11-billion in capital grants to school boards over 10 years. This $498-million investment is a part of that $11-billion commitment and is certainly great news for the communities who will benefit.

However, with $15-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s public schools, this recent announcement is really just a drop in a very large bucket. With this level of investment, the disrepair in our children’s schools will continue to worsen and the urgency of repair items will increase.

The Province must commit to ensuring that public schools benefit from the promised new federal infrastructure funding. If you agree, send this letter to Premier Wynne and your local MPP.

CTV features growing TDSB repair backlog

August 15, 2015

CTV featured August 14 as a “sad day for the TDSB” – the day when the repair backlog in its schools grew to exceed $3.5-billion.  Trustee Ken Lister has been tracking the growing repair backlog on his website and CTV felt it was important to highlight this issue (again!) for its viewers to mark this “dubious milestone”. CTV approached Fix Our Schools for photos of disrepair so you may see a photo that you sent to us in the TV clip.

What was not included in the TV clip above were a lot of the details below – which didn’t make it to air!

– The Province provides the funding for maintaining schools. Under their watch, $3.5-billion of disrepair has accumulated in TDSB schools and $15-billion of disrepair has accumulated in public schools across the province. Every single one of Ontario’s 72 school boards has a repair backlog.

– While many people blame Principals and Trustees for the disrepair in our schools, the funding for maintaining schools comes from our provincial government. School boards must strive to be as efficient and effective as possible with the money provided by the Province. However, over the past 20 years, there simply has not been sufficient money provided by our provincial government to ensure our public schools are kept in good repair.

– In 2014-15, the province provided only $2.27 to the TDSB for every $100 of repairs needed. No matter how efficient or effective a school board is, there is simply no way that $100 of disrepair can be fixed with $2.27!

– For 2015-16, the Province has substantially increased its funding to school boards for maintenance, acknowledging that the $15-billion of disrepair in Ontario’s public schools is a problem. However, even with this large increase in funding, TDSB Trustees and Staff will have to figure out how to fix $3.5-billion of repairs with about $156-million – the equivalent of less than $5 for every $100 of much-needed repairs. This is clearly an impossible task and so the repair backlog in our children’s schools will continue to grow.

– The time is now for the Province to acknowledge public schools as a critical part of our societal infrastructure and start working with school boards to find ongoing, sustainable sources of funding to ensure that children and communities benefit from public schools that are well-maintained.

New TDSB Chair sees collaboration as key

August 13, 2015

Robin Pilkey, a Professional Chartered Accountant, became Chair of Canada’s largest school board this week. She is optimistic about the TDSB’s ability to meet the challenges that lie ahead and sees collaboration – with TDSB Staff, with the Province, and with parents – as key.

In her acceptance speech on August 12, Pilkey noted that TDSB Trustees have a responsibility to work closely with TDSB Staff to deliver high quality education in a financially responsible manner. Pilkey also mentioned the importance of the TDSB’s relationship with the provincial government, noting that the Province must work with the TDSB to ensure a sustainable financial base for our public education system. The Ward 7 Trustee also noted the importance of parent advocacy, citing the parent-led Fix Our Schools campaign as having made an incredible contribution towards the improvement of provincial funding for school repairs.

Power and accountability are key

July 7, 2015

In 1997, Mike Harris introduced the provincial funding formula in Ontario, which gave the Province the power over the funding of public education. Economist Hugh Mackenzie has been studying this education funding formula since its inception. He has written several scathing reports on the formula.

In Mackenzie’s latest report, he emphasizes that students from across Ontario have been shortchanged by the Province for almost two decades. He also highlights the issue of accountability in the provincial funding formula, stating that while the Province holds power over the allocation of funds, the Province is not held accountable for the adequacy of the funding it provides to the education system as whole in Ontario. Mackenzie states, “Even Mike Harris recognized that provincial funding created an accountability gap, and committed to a five-year review cycle. Eighteen years later, the Eves government’s 2002 review is the only one we’ve had.”

With great power comes great responsibility…

Ten years hence, TDSB schools continue to deteriorate

July 3, 2015

In October 2005, TDSB Staff wrote and presented “Schools for the Future: A 10 Year Facility Infrastructure Plan for the TDSB”, which painted a dire picture of the state of disrepair in TDSB schools and even suggested that schools may need to close due to disrepair.

Sections 2.2.1 & 2.2.2 of this report, “Current and Forecast Conditions of TDSB Facilities”, read as follows: “Putting off necessary renewal projects, year in and year out, has created a growing and costly backlog. There’s an increasing demand for facility maintenance and repairs as a result of deteriorating facility conditions. The numbers of calls for emergencies and unanticipated breakdowns are increasing. Requests for repairs account for 80% of work orders, while preventive maintenance now represents only 20% of work orders. The normal average wait time for maintenance requests is seven weeks. The Ministry of Education recognized the need for additional funding to correct deficiencies in building conditions. Increased funding for building renewal was distributed through a Ministry program called ‘Good Places to Learn.’ This renewal funding only temporarily halted the trend of deteriorating facility conditions. At the current level (2005) of renewal funding of $44 million annually, the condition of TDSB buildings will continue to decline rapidly, making it increasingly difficult to keep schools open.”

Almost ten years have passed since this report was prepared and TDSB schools continue to deteriorate. Although provincial funding for school repairs has increased since 2005 to $75-million/year for 2014/15 and will increase to $156-million in the 2015/16 school year, the money received by the TDSB to address the $3.3-billion of disrepair in its schools is still insufficient. To date, no TDSB schools have closed due to safety issues but one wonders what the next ten years will hold.

Would you go to the washroom if it looked like this?

June 19, 2015

Fix Our Schools often hears from both parents and students about how disgusting the washrooms can be at TDSB schools. Some parents say their children actually refuse to go to the washroom while at school. Looking at these photos, one can understand why!  Would you go to the washroom if it looked like this?
2015_06_16_WT Washroom mold dirt

Despite excellent efforts by caretakers to keep these washrooms clean and useable, with the current funding allocations by the provincial government, the photos you see here are the end result.

Consider a 100-year old school that is also overcapacity by 200 students (there are 146 TDSB schools that are overcapacity). No extra funds are allocated for caretakers at that school to deal with the extra mess created by those 200 extra students. No additional funds are provided to account for the fact that old buildings are harder to clean than new ones (the 2015_06_16_WT Washroom Sinkcaretakers at Runnymede P.S. painstakingly polish the 99-year old linoleum floors and, although we know they are the cleaner for their efforts, the floors really don’t look much different than they did before!)  So this blog post is certainly not intended to point fingers at caretakers who work hard and take pride in the important role they play in our children’s schools.

This blog post is meant to highlight the fact that these washrooms are, indeed, disgusting and surely to goodness our children deserve to have washrooms in their place of learning that are well-maintained, clean and USEABLE!

The work that would need to be done to bring these washrooms to a USEABLE state is not 2015_06_16_WT_Washroom mold dirt cornerincluded in the TDSB’s $3.3-billion repair backlog we hear about all the time. The shocking $3.3-billion repair backlog only includes really serious work to be done on our children’s schools – such as fixing leaking roofs, replacing broken boilers and addressing structural concerns. So unless Kathleen Wynne’s provincial government works with school boards to find new funding solutions for public schools, many washrooms will continue to be disgusting.

 

“Ontarians are quick to catch on”

June 9, 2015

On May 26, 2015 in the Ontario Legislature, Education Critic MPP Lisa Gretzky noted that while the provincial government sets the priorities for education in Ontario, this same government is quick to limit its accountability whenever issues arise.

The TDSB Governance Panel was cited as a perfect example of how the provincial government refuses to take responsibility for the delivery of quality education in this province. This panel was formed by the Province to examine governance issues at the TDSB, yet failed to include the provincial government’s critical role in the overall governance and funding of the TDSB.

After citing the TDSB Governance Panel example, MPP Gretzky says, “Well, Speaker, Ontarians are quick to catch on. A letter to the minister from an organization called Fix Our Schools,…, reads as follows—it was dated April 13, 2015.”  She then proceeds to read to the Ontario Legislature the letter that close to 100 Fix Our Schools subscribers have sent to Premier Wynne, Minister Sandals and Deputy Minister Zegarac. She tells her colleagues at the Legislature that every week she is copied on similar letters to the Premier demanding that her government take responsibility for the chaos they are creating in Ontario schools. See page 3 of the official report of debates to see where the Fix Our Schools campaign is cited.

Principals are curriculum leaders – not boiler specialists!

May 22, 2015

Disrepair in public schools means that Principals and Vice Principals spend time and energy on repair issues that ought to be spent leading their schools. Principals and Vice Principals at many public schools end up spending several hours each week managing repairs at their schools and fielding complaints from parents about the disrepair. These are hours that could be much better spent. Principals ought to be curriculum leaders – not boiler specialists!

Unfortunately, most people blame Principals and Trustees for disrepair in their child’s school. However, the Province has only allocated $74.9-million to the TDSB this school year to address a $3.3-billion repair backlog. Even the most efficient and functional school board in the world couldn’t address a $3.3-billion problem when given an amount that equals only 2.3% of the amount required to address the problem. So by all means let your Principal and Trustee know about disrepair in your child’s school but direct your call to action to your MPP, Premier Wynne and Education Minister Sandals. Let them know that: