Tag Archives: Province

What funding is needed to maintain our schools?

May 12, 2015

In October 2014, a report studying the impact of deferred maintenance in American schools found that, “…school districts, financially squeezed over long periods of time, made economic decisions that reduced the most cost-effective types of maintenance work. The results of those decisions to ‘save money’ will, in the long term, actually increase the amount of frequency of much more expensive breakdown repair and replacement work.”

The TDSB is living this reality at the moment, as is evidenced by a May 2015 Staff Report on the TDSB’s Renewal Needs Backlog. With a current repair backlog of $3.3-billion and provincial funding totalling only $74.9-million in 2014-15 and $156-million in 2015-16, the repair backlog is expected to grow to $4.36-billion by 2017. In an environment where the TDSB is receiving a fraction of the money needed to address its repair backlog, TDSB Facilities Services staff is unable to carry out much preventative maintenance because it is consumed with reacting to emergency repairs as these occur. The report referenced above, entitled, “Reversing the Cycle of Deterioration in the Nation’s Public School Buildings”, (RCD) found that reactive work orders cost approximately 173% more to implement than preventative maintenance work orders.

The RCD report suggests that between 2-4% of the total replacement value of all schools needs to be allocated annually for maintenance, if buildings are to be kept in a good state of repair. The replacement value of TDSB schools is estimated to be $7.4-billion, as calculated by the Ministry of Education. If an amount totalling 3% of this total replacement value were allocated annually to take care of maintaining TDSB buildings, that amount would be $222-million. Keep in mind, that this amount does not address any existing repair backlog due to deferred maintenance – only year-to-year routine maintenance.

So at the TDSB, we have a situation where funding must be found to address the $3-3-billion repair backlog that is expected to grow to $4.36-billion by 2017. As well, additional funding must be found to simply take care of the routine maintenance associated with taking care of TDSB school buildings each year. Given the Provincial allocation of $74.9-million this year is $147.1-million short of what is required and that amount is also meant to take care of the repair backlog, we have a big problem on our hands.

TDSB allowed to submit same eight proposals as all school boards

May 12, 2015

The intent of the provincial funding formula for public education is to ensure all students in Ontario are treated equitably. However, sometimes treating school boards and students the same doesn’t translate into treating them equitably.

For instance, consider how the Province determines approval and funding of building new schools and building additions on existing schools. Each of Ontario’s 72 school boards, regardless of size, is permitted to submit to the Ministry of Education eight proposals for new building projects. The TDSB is the largest school board in Canada, with 246,000 students and 588 school buildings. Almost one-quarter of its buildings operate at 100% utilization or greater, meaning that 146 TDSB schools are crowded and provide sub-optimal learning environments. However, with a process that treats the TDSB the exact same as Peel DSB, the second largest school board in Ontario with 246 schools and 154,000 students, and Huron-Perth CDSB, the smallest school board in Ontario with 18 schools and 4,000 students, it begs the question whether all students and school boards are treated equitably if they are treated the same.

Selling under-utilized schools to generate funding is a long, complicated process

May 5, 2015

A year ago, the TDSB declared Bloor Collegiate Institute and Kent Senior Public School, both located on three hectares of land at the corner of Bloor and Dufferin, to be surplus. The Toronto Catholic District School Board made an offer last April, 2014 to buy these two TDSB properties. However, as of April 2015, Kathleen Wynne’s provincial government had not yet instructed the TDSB whether to accept or reject the Catholic school board’s offer. Odd that when the Province is pressuring the TDSB to sell under-utilized properties to generate funding, the Province’s response wouldn’t be more timely?

Meanwhile, in March 2015, Kathleen Wynne launched a Community Hubs Advisory Group, led by Karen Pitre. By April 2015, in the absence of direction from Province, the TDSB placed a hold on plans to sell the two schools and is, instead, going to investigate using these schools to create a community hub. The hope is that partners come with funding and that this scenario can be used as a model for the the Province, City and school boards to develop additional community hubs. While this decision to pursue using these schools as community hubs seems to align with Kathleen Wynne’s stated mandate to create community hubs, there appears to be no firm statement of support for this decision from the Minister of Education, with spokesperson Nilani Logeswaran saying only that, “the ministry is aware of the conversation the board has started and is awaiting the outcome“. And, even as the TDSB pursues a solution that aligns with Kathleen Wynne’s mandate of community hubs – you can bet that no exception in the utilization rate calculations has been extended to the TDSB for these properties and so, Bloor Collegiate Institute and Kent Senior Public School continue to count against the TDSB as “empty space”.

All this to say that the Province’s suggested solution that the TDSB must sell under-utilized schools to generate money to repair schools is fairly complicated and takes a long time! Meanwhile, a $3.3-billion repair backlog is getting larger with each day that passes.

246,000 TDSB students don’t need a governance panel

April 13, 2015

The provincially led TDSB Governance Panel is simply a distraction from the more urgent issue of inadequate funding and will not address the issues that actually matter to parents such as:

the $3.3-billion TDSB repair backlog
potential school closures
cuts to special education
overcrowding at 146 TDSB schools (although you never hear about this in the media, there are actually more overutilzed TDSB schools (operating at 100%+) than “underutilized” TDSB schools.

What would address these issues is if Kathleen Wynne’s government were to take responsibility, as the sole funder of public education in this province, and start working with the TDSB to find funding solutions to these massive problems. Instead, this provincial panel seems to place all blame on the TDSB, which only serves to undermine public confidence in Canada’s largest school board and does nothing to help 246,000 TDSB students and their families.

Fix Our Schools sent a Letter to Premier Wynne and Minister Sandals urging their government to stop blaming the TDSB and start working with the TDSB (and the City!) to find funding solutions to resolve the issues that actually matter to people in Toronto.

Over 20 years to fix our schools at this rate

March 31, 2015

The provincial government has allocated more money to the TDSB to fix its schools than it has in previous years and Fix Our Schools has been given some credit for this move! The TDSB will receive $112-million for “school condition renewal” in 2015-16. This represents a significant increase from the $29-million the TDSB received from Kathleen Wynne’s government this school year and, perhaps, is a small acknowledgment of past underfunding.

So, funding for fixing TDSB schools is heading in the right direction. If we take the $112-million being provided via the Grant for School Condition Improvement and add this to the expected $45.5-million being provided via the annual grant for school renewal, we are looking at a total of $157.5-million/year for the TDSB to fix its schools.

However, at this new level of funding, the current $3.3-billion repair backlog (recently revised from $3-billion based on provincial data) plaguing TDSB schools would take almost 21 years to address. And this, of course, assumes that nothing else goes wrong in a TDSB school for the next two decades. The truth, of course, is that the longer we take to address these repairs, the more complicated and costly they become so we seem to be in a conundrum of never getting ahead of this massive repair backlog.

So while we are thrilled that the provincial government has allocated more money this coming year for the TDSB to fix its schools, we are disappointed that Kathleen Wynne’s government refuses to take accountability for finding a complete funding solution to this massive issue that impacts 247,000 students.

Buildings continue to deteriorate as TDSB governance reviewed

March 26, 2015

Back in March 2008, when Kathleen Wynne was Minister of Education, she gave the TDSB Trustees two months to figure out a better governance structure for the TDSB. Wynne said that in the 10 years since the provincial government had mandated the amalgamation of six school boards to create Canada’s largest school board, the TDSB hadn’t managed to “come together properly”. Seven years later, this same provincial government apparently still hasn’t figured out a governance solution that works for Canada’s largest school board.

On March 16, 2015, Kathleen Wynne’s government announced that it had appointed a seven member advisory panel to make recommendations on how to improve the governance structure at the TDSB. This advisory panel is to conduct public consultations from March-May 2015 and, based on these consultations, make recommendations on governance changes by Summer 2015.

So for the last seven years, this Liberal provincial government has failed to make the governance changes required for the TDSB to “come together properly”, has continued to ignore funding as a potential root cause of many TDSB issues, and has allowed the repair backlog in TDSB schools to accumulate to $3.3-billion. In failing to take accountability for finding funding solutions to address the $3.3-billion repair backlog that plagues TDSB schools, this provincial government has ignored the safety and well-being of the 246,000 students who attend school at the TDSB.

This Liberal provincial government has been in power since 2003. They are the sole funder of public education in this province and also hold power over all major policy decisions. Enough is enough – the almost 13% of Ontario’s students who attend school at the TDSB deserve to learn in safe, well-maintained buildings. When is this provincial government going to take the accountability that is commensurate with the power they currently have over public education and make decisions that enable fixing our schools?

Why does public transit trump public schools?

March 16, 2015

Public transit is a hot topic in urban centres across the nation. Sadly, public education is not.

In Ontario, public transit in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) was a key issue in both the provincial election in June and Toronto’s municipal election in October. There was much discussion on transit solutions that ought to be pursued and how those solutions should be funded.

In B.C., public transit has also been in the spotlight. Mayors in the Greater Vancouver Area (GVQ) have been working together to raise awareness of the need for transit improvements in the GVA. They’ve been actively encouraging citizens to vote yes in the upcoming special plebiscite vote asking citizens if they would pay 0.5% more in provincial sales tax to fund better transit in the region.

Despite the fact that public schools in both Toronto and Vancouver are in need of billions of dollars of repairs, this issue has received scant attention in Ontario’s recent elections and no plebiscite vote is in the works to decide how to fund public school repairs in Vancouver.

Toronto’s public schools need over $3-billion of repairs, many of which are urgent, including: fire suppression and alarm systems; electrical systems; heating/cooling systems; and structural issues. If these types of items fail before repairs can be done, there is a risk to student safety. Kathleen Wynne’s provincial government blames the TDSB for this unacceptable repair backlog, even though the Province is the sole funder of public schools in Ontario and the repair backlog has accumulated under the watch of the Province.

Vancouver’s public schools need $2.2-billion* of seismic upgrades to prevent collapse in the case of earthquakes. Christy Clark’s provincial government has delayed funding these repairs, but blames the Vancouver School Board for the delay even though the Province is the sole funder of public schools in B.C.

So we have a situation where public schools in two major Canadian cities are in need of massive repairs that could, potentially, impact the safety of students. Neither provincial governments seem interested in finding funding solutions to fix these problems and, instead, blame local school boards for the disrepair even though these school boards have no power over funding. Students are being penalized by the inability of the grown-ups in charge to take accountability and find solutions. As citizens and voters, we must start making the issue of public schools a hot topic and demanding more from our provincial governments. Students deserve to learn in safe, well-maintained buildings and, since they can’t vote yet, we need to demand that for them.

*According to VSB Trustees, the number as at September 2015 is closer to $1-billion in seismic upgrades.

New funding solutions needed for public schools

March 12, 2015

The TDSB will receive only $74.9-million from the Province this year to take care of its buildings; an amount that would pay for only 2.3% of the $3.3-billion of repairs plaguing TDSB schools. To take care of the entire $3.3-billion repair backlog in TDSB schools, $13,414 of funding must be found for each of the 246,000 TDSB students.

The Province insists the TDSB must fund the repair backlog by selling schools. However, the Province’s math doesn’t add up! Even if the TDSB immediately sells all 130 “empty” schools, there would still be over $1-billion of repairs in the remaining 458 schools.

Kathleen Wynne’s government must start working with the TDSB and the City to secure other funding solutions to address the unacceptable state of disrepair in TDSB schools.

The Province is exploring issuing equity in Hydro One to raise billions of dollars for new transit. The City approved a property tax increase, including a special 0.5% levy to pay for the Scarborough subway. At the City budget meeting on March 11, a motion was also made to explore reinstating the $60 car registration tax. Unfortunately, the TDSB has no power to pursue funding solutions such as these.

Surely, the Province and City believe that public schools are as integral to our public infrastructure as transit and will help secure the required funding to ensure TDSB students attend school in safe, well-maintained buildings?

Humber Journalism covers Fix Our Schools

March 4, 2015

Humber journalism student Alex Karageorgos contacted Fix Our Schools to discuss the Province’s proposal to sell TDSB schools to fund over $3-billion of repairs. Here is an excerpt of what appeared in Skedline.com, a breaking news website that features the works of Humber journalism students. Click here for the whole, entitled: “Board Review Looming Over Public Secondary Schools”:

The parent perspective

Between schoolyard provincial regulations and municipal amendments, parents are usually stuck in the middle, playing possum.

The Board has been facing an estimated $3.5-billion repair backlog and this property sale is an attempt to raise funds for the shortfall. Due to the capital project the Ontario government placed upon the TDSB, local trustees have already agreed to sell 20 closed locations. This included former high school Sir Sanford Fleming, which could later be occupied by childcare facilities and private schools.

This TDSB deficit, which goes beyond secondary schools, jumpstarted a grassroots parent advocacy group that was created solely on the premise of bringing awareness to poor public school building conditions.

“We were heartened by the province getting more involved,” says Krista Wylie, Fix Our Schools. “We feel like the province and the TDSB have been at loggerheads for over a decade, where one just blames the other.”

Wylie, a parent of two students enrolled at TDSB schools, is aware of the trials and tribulations that come with lobbying various levels of government for educational reform. The constant back-and-forth amongst the two parties has come with a price: seldom does any task get completed.

“The government can find money if there is a political will to do so and for too long its been under-funding public education,” says Wylie. “We think our kids are going to school in buildings that are falling apart and are, in many cases, in such a state of disrepair that they are becoming unsafe.”

Community Hubs are tricky business – Province needs a proper plan

March 3, 2015

At Queen’s Park on Feb. 19, Garfield Dunlop, Progressive Conservative MPP for Simcoe North asserted that the “Liberal Provincial government has watched enrolment decline for the last decade, and instead of having a proper plan to make sure schools flourish as community hubs, they will now force boards to close schools and try to balance the Liberal budget on the backs of students.”

Community Hubs are tricky business as is evidenced by this thoughtful series of essays about The School as Community Hub, edited by David Clandfield and George Martell. Creating Community Hubs requires both an overarching plan and an ability for many Ministries to work effectively together and with school boards and municipal governments. A tall order… but one worthy of pursuit by our Provincial government.