Tag Archives: Schools

Disrepair in Etobicoke Schools Hits $611.8-M

May 26, 2022

Government data show $611.8 Million of Disrepair Etobicoke Schools

Etobicoke schools are still waiting for provincial funding for over half a billion in outstanding repairs — impacting HVAC systems, roofs, foundations & drinking water— despite many Ontario MPP’s signing a pledge to address this issue in the last election.

The province’s own data is compelling — Wedgewood Junior Public School needs $4.7-M in repairs, Park Lawn Junior Middle School clocks in at $6.6-M, and Braeburn Junior School $4-M.

Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fix Our Schools, a non-partisan school advocacy group, warns of the impact on the health of Ontario students during a critical period when well-maintained schools are essential. Wylie’s example is compelling: “Braeburn Junior School has so many outstanding repairs that their cost would fund 61% of a brand new school. They include 15 urgent repairs such as HVAC ventilation, heat, wiring & washrooms. Children spend 6+ hours a day in these schools.”

Fix Our Schools, an Ontario-wide campaign, approached every candidate running in the 2018 provincial election with a pledge request. They asked candidates to “make a commitment to ensure that our schools are safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings that provide environments conducive to learning and working.” This included creating a State of Good Repair Standard by 2022 that would put standards, measurements & metrics in place for school buildings and fund them.

Hundreds of candidates signed the pledge and a full 58 of those signatories became Members of Provincial Parliament. Twenty-three Progressive Conservative MPP’s were signatories. In Etobicoke, both MPP Christine Hogarth and MPP Kinga Surma had committed to improve school conditions by bringing them up to an accepted standard by 2022.

Despite the power of a PC majority government, no action has been taken on the development of this standard to date. Schools in Premier Ford’s riding need a whopping $178.4-Million in repairs.

Fix Our Schools has routinely called on the province to fund schools wisely. “Taxpayer dollars are wasted because the government has refused to fund proactive repairs. Every building manager knows that reactive repairs cost more than regular maintenance.”

Why is a Standard of Good Repair so vital?

  • Increased academic performance and decreased absenteeism
  • Increased ventilation because Covid is airborne
  • Removing health issues related to aging buildings will improve the health of students
  • Schools are valuable assets owned by taxpayers that need to be maintained to keep their value
  • The lack of crucial technology and stable wi-fi is related to the disrepair backlog
  • School building conditions impact Ontario’s economy

What does a typical school repair list look like?

Lists of urgent repairs typically include all the basics: ventilation (HVAC), heat (hot water boilers), power (electricity transformers), drinking water, structural issues, leaking roofs, and emergency exits. The vast majority of repairs are large, vital systems, but small items can still be dangerous

Wedgewood Junior Public School needs 30 high or urgent repairs. However, there is a lot missing from this list. These long repair lists do NOT include repairing portables, filtering or monitoring classroom air, removing lead in drinking water (63% of schools), remediating asbestos (70% of schools), solving poor classroom temperatures (no A/C in schools and poorly heated classrooms), or accessibility retrofits (AODA deadline is 2025). The province does not track these repair, remediation or renovation needs.

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.”

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.

Has the Ford Government Invested Sufficiently in its COVID-response?

September 16, 2021

The Ford Government Spent $2.6-B Less than Planned in First Quarter

On September 15, the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) for Ontario released its latest report, stating that Premier Ford’s government has spent $2.6 billion less than planned during the fiscal first quarter (April 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021).

This independent report by the FAO states that, “in the health sector, the province did not spend any of the $2.7 billion COVID-19 Response transfer payment (from the federal government).” Clearly, these findings have raised concerns among critics about whether Doug Ford’s government has truly done all that it could have done to invest in its COVID-19 response.

A spokesperson for Ontario’s Health Minister Christine Elliot took issue with the concerns brought forward by the latest FAO report and said, “the FAO reports on spending as recorded in IFIS at a point in time, which does not necessarily reflect when services/goods were received, the spending plan for the entire fiscal year, or the spending position that will occur at the end of the fiscal year.”

However, when the FAO released its annual report back in mid-July, CBC reported at that time that the Ford government spent approximately $10 billion less than had been planned for the entire 2020-21 fiscal year. At that time, there was also much criticism of the Ford government for not investing those funds in more pandemic supports. This criticism seems well-founded, given Ontario’s relatively poor performance throughout the pandemic compared to other provinces. A Globe and Mail opinion piece from entitled, Doug Ford’s pandemic response has been the worst of Canada’s Premiers, noted that,

“nowhere else in Canada have children been out of school so long, have seniors been hit with two equally devastating waves, have outdoor activities been so restricted for months, have personal service workers been forced into such prolonged shutdown and have retailers and other businesses faced such extended restrictions. And in exchange for these sacrifices, the province can boast … average case numbers, and above-average deaths.”   

Investing in Testing to Keep Ontario’s Schools Open

NDP Education Critic Marit Stiles has certainly expressed concerns over insufficient investments in schools as part of the COVID-19 response of our provincial government.

And, despite claims by Ontario’s new chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore, that “there’s no additional value” to implementing asymptomatic rapid antigen testing at schools, given generally low community infection rates, many others are wondering if rapid testing could be the way forward.

Dr. Suvendrini Lena, a neurologist and the senior medical adviser to pandemic programs at Women’s College Hospital, and Michelle Joseph CEO of Unison Health and Community Services, wrote this September 14 opinion piece for the Toronto Star entitled, “How COVID-19 testing must be conducted to prevent school closures.” They summed up their position with these thoughts, “The bottom line is that we need surveillance testing in high-risk elementary public schools. In the 2020-21 school year, outbreaks and closures in Toronto were predominantly in racialized and low-income schools. These outbreaks caused fear and anxiety among students and parents and ultimately tipped the balance toward system closure. Supporting these schools with special measures will support the system as a whole.”

 

Investing in Ventilation and Standards to Keep Schools Open

Significant provincial funding has gone towards investing in improving ventilation in Ontario schools and classrooms.

However, even with upgrades and extra filters, a September 13 CBC piece examines the issue of ventilation inequity across Ontario’s classrooms. Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist, worries about the inequity in ventilation between classrooms and believes that air quality audits ought to have been done in every classroom in the province during the summer so that we had data from which to ensure an equitable approach to ventilation. 

“Some classrooms may have more than what they need. And many, of course, may not have what they need,” Furness said. For instance, if a HEPA filter is put in a classroom that is naturally ventilated and one filter is put in a mechanically-ventilated classroom, the ventilation in each of these classrooms clearly not the same. David Elfstrom, an Energy Engineer and school ventilation advocate, has been calling for a uniform air quality standard for all Ontario’s schools.

Fix Our Schools wholeheartedly supports Elfstrom’s call for standards and, in fact, has been calling for a standard of good repair since the 2018 provincial election. At that time, 58 newly elected MPPs had made a personal commitment to ensuring that a standard of good repair was developed for Ontario’s schools, and that funding would be provided to ensure that these standards could be met. Interested in seeing if your local MPP made this personal commitment by signing the Fix Our Schools Pledge? CLICK HERE

And if your local MPP did, indeed, make a personal commitment to developing a standard of good repair for schools (which would, of course, include a ventilation and indoor air quality standard) – then we encourage you to reach out to them to remind them of the ongoing need.

Will Ford Make a Decision or Simply Let the Clock Run Out?

May 29, 2021

We’ve said it before and we will say it again. Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have consistently failed to prioritize Ontario’s children, their schools and education, and their mental health. Full stop.

Last week, when Premier Ford announced metrics for a plan to re-open Ontario. One glaring omission was a re-opening plan for Ontario’s schools. A week later, there is still no plan in place, nor are there any metrics identified for when schools might safely re-open. Instead, Premier Ford has opted for a “consultative approach” to decision-making.

This change in approach was surprising from someone who, until recently, did not even take the advice of a Science Table put together specifically to provide consult on COVID decisions. It begs the question whether Premier Ford is truly concerned with making a good decision, or whether this is a technique to:

a) ensure he is not held accountable for any decision on re-opening schools?

b) run the clock so long that he avoids having to make any decision, and simply allows Ontario’s students and their families to continue to be mired in uncertainty?

And so, here we are heading into June, coming down from a third wave that, had Premier Ford adopted this more consultative approach earlier, could have been far less devastating. And so, here we are heading into June, and Ontario’s children and families continue to struggle to manage the challenges of both online learning and ongoing uncertainty. Premier Ford’s inaction and failure to prioritize Ontario’s students has been a constant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Fix Our Schools always endeavours to be forward-thinking and solution-oriented, this brief review of recent history in Ontario clearly shows that our provincial government has consistently opted for inaction, the wrong actions, lack of transparency, and downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19 instead of taking actions based on research, data, and the recommendations of its own Science Table and experts. Recent history also shows us that the Ford government has never truly prioritized the importance of publicly funded schools and education; and that our provincial government has never truly prioritized the health and well-being of Ontario’s students, families, teachers, and education workers.

Aside from bringing clarity on metrics and a plan for the remainder of the 2020/21 school year, the Ford government must also be looking ahead to the 2021/22 school year. When Ontario’s students head back to school this coming September, wouldn’t it be thrilling if schools were filled with fully vaccinated people? Prioritizing Ontario’s students, their teachers and education workers to be fully vaccinated by August 24 (First Day of School Minus 14 days!) seems like one step towards a safe September. Already, at a local level, we are seeing certain Ontario regions move ahead with a focus on full vaccination of students.

While we’re on the topic of September, wouldn’t it be thrilling if every classroom was properly ventilated and metrics were in place for indoor air quality for our students to ensure not only their health but also an optimum learning environment? Wouldn’t it be thrilling if the Ford government actually started investing in schools to eliminate the $16.3-B disrepair that existed in these buildings even before COVID?

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that huge change is possible in very short-order when there is the political will for that change.

How Much Lead is in Your Water?

November 5, 2019

In the November 4, 2019 edition of the Toronto Star, an article entitled, “Is there lead in your tap water? Canada-wide investigation exposes dangerous levels of toxic metal” started off by stating, “that hundreds of thousands of Canadians are consuming tap water laced with high levels of lead leaching from aging and deteriorating infrastructure”.

This article is the culmination of a year-long investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and ten media organizations. This investigation revealed that 33% of water tests exceeded the national safety guideline of five parts per billion. The article suggests that “government oversight is often lax and secretive” when it comes to lead in our water, stating that “lead testing data in Canada is rarely made public and some municipalities aren’t required to test”.

In Ontario, where the Fix Our Schools campaign is focused, government data shows 919 lead exceedances over the past two years:

  • In London, Ontario, 50% of tests conducted last year exceeded federal safety guidelines for lead in drinking water.
  • Windsor had the highest number of lead exceedances over the past two years.
  • Many water systems across Ontario did not test for lead in water at all over the past two years.
  • Out of Ontario’s 660 municipal water systems, only 123 of them posted results of tests taken at homes during the past two years and of those 123, 42% of these municipalities showed lead exceedances.

Health Canada and the World Health Organization both agree that there is no safe level of lead in drinking water. In fact, a single glass of water highly tainted with lead can elevate a child’s blood lead level to require hospitalization. Reduction in IQ can occur even at the 5 parts per billion – the level of lead deemed safe in Canada. At high levels of exposure, lead can cause damage to the prefrontal cortext of the brain and contribute to anti-social behaviour and behavioural problems in children.

 

According Bruce Lamphear, a leading Canadian drinking water researcher, lead in our tap water is “clearly a major public health problem, even if it’s an insidious one.

According to a new report from the Canadian Environmental Law Association to be published this coming week, “the current state of drinking water delivery in Ontario means that Ontario residents, their children, pregnant women, and their unborn fetuses, may still be at risk of lead exposure and lead poisoning from the lead plumbing components of their homes, schools, daycares, and workplaces.” This report calls on Ontario to change legislation to require a minimum of 75% of municipal lead service lines be replaced within three to five years.

However, funding is cited as a limiting factor. Water officials across Ontario told reporters that municipalities are many years – or decades – away from being able to pay for replacing all lead service lines; and that municipalities would need funding assistance from both federal and provincial levels of government. Another challenge of addressing lead in our tap water is that there is no provincial or federal inventory of lead lines so even with funding, municipalities may not even know where to start replacing lines.

 

Given that in 2013, Health Canada predicted an economic benefit of $9-billion per year if the exposure  of Canadian children could be eliminated, there appears to be not only a moral imperative to address lead in our drinking water but also an economic one. Fix Our Schools has been calling for a Standard of Good Repair in Ontario’s publicly funded schools for years now – one that would include a standard for our children’s drinking water in schools. Lead in our drinking water is an insidious public health issue – and one that, indeed, must be addressed sooner than later. More transparency on data is needed and more advocacy and more oversight.

 

Behind every school fun fair, magazine drive and dance-a-thon…

April 26, 2018

Behind every school fun fair, magazine drive and dance-a-thon is a group of parents who want the best education possible for their children and who are willing to put in both volunteer time and/or money to fill a gap that provincial education funding has left in their children’s school experience. In Kerry Clare’s Today’s Parent article entitled, “Another school fundraiser? Rethinking funding for education”  Clare mentions that at her daughter’s publicly funded school, a litany of fundraising initiatives have been introduced over the years to each fund specific programs.

“Scrap the magazine sale and say goodbye to new classroom literacy materials. The dance-a-thon came about one year when the board had no funding for new computers. This year, an enterprising parent organized the sale of school-branded hoodies to finance the replacement of decades-old gym mats. These campaigns—and the parent volunteers who run them—are filling a massive gap in education funding, and teachers and students have come to count on them.”

Many reports about school fundraising over the years have examined the inequity in school fundraising, depending on the socioeconomic demographics of a given school community. For instance, the March 1, 2018 article in the Toronto Star, entitled, “Fundraising widens gap between have and have-not students, report finds”, citing the latest research by People for Education. However, these reports seldom question why school fundraising, beyond the odd community-building event, exists in the first place.

As one parent, who chairs the fundraising committee at her school, noted in her letter to the editor in response to the Toronto Star article, “I believe the media does a disservice to the children of Ontario by repeatedly writing stories about “have” and “have-not” schools. The provincial government and the media have divided parents with these kinds of stories, when the real reason for inequity in Ontario’s schools is completely inadequate education funding from the Province for all schools.“

Sadly, our provincial government, which has held all the power over education and school funding for over two decades has underfunded education and schools for over two decades. Until we address this root cause and, as citizens, demand that our provincial government rethink how they fund schools and education in Ontario, there will continue to be year over year growth in school fundraising.

Cookie dough anyone?

More than 640 Ontario schools and daycares fail lead tests

October 9, 2017

After the Toronto Star newspaper spent a year trying to obtain data from Ontario’s Environment Ministry on which schools failed lead tests, the Province finally decided to publish information online this past Friday, October 6, 2017. Coincidentally, this same day, the Toronto Star published an article entitled, “More than 640 Ontario schools and daycares failed lead tests in the past two years”. Continue reading →

Are Canadian schools ready for a natural disaster?

October 2, 2017

We’ve seen shocking examples of unprecedented natural disasters this fall. Scientists seem to be confident we’ll continue to see record-breaking weather events. 

While we consider how to best help the victims of recent hurricanes and devastating earthquakes, many Canadians are wondering about our country’s emergency-response capabilities. How would we fair with a Category 5 hurricane? Or a major earthquake like the one that devasted Mexico’s Oaxaca region?

Most Canadians know that British Columbians live in an area that is geologically active. B.C. has had 75 earthquakes in the last month alone. This week, B.C. experienced an earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale. An earthquake of 5+ can cause damage to buildings.

But do Canadians know that many children in schools in B.C. won’t be in buildings that are earthquake retrofitted? What would they say if they knew that the provincial government in B.C., regardless of the party in power, still can’t decide when to fully fund this retrofit?

B.C. has very similar tectonic plate setup to Mexico’s, and school boards are very concerned with the safety of the schools. The timeline to retrofit these schools continues to be pushed back.  Do Canadians have time to waste?

Canadians from coast-to-coast share a common problem: provincial governments are not ensuring children go to school in safe, well maintained buildings. Ask your local MP what they are doing to Fix Our Schools. Our children matter and they deserve better than we are currently delivering to them. 

Send a letter asking what the plan is to improve school conditions for Ontario’s children

October 9, 2016

On September 19, 2016, Fix Our Schools sent this letter to Premier Wynne and Education Minister asking the their government please:

  • Explore and implement funding solutions such as issuing provincial bonds to immediately address the $15-billion repair backlog in schools.
  • Work with school boards to develop measurable goals for what school conditions in Ontario ought to be; and plans/timelines for how those goals will be achieved.
  • Release disrepair data at regular intervals to ensure that the $15-billion repair backlog is decreasing; and not continuing to increase.
  • Include school conditions as a key part of your party’s provincial campaign platform.

We requested a response to these requests by October 3, 2016.

As of Monday, October 10 – no response has been received.

If school conditions are important to you and you share our concerns, we encourage you to please send this letter to Premier Wynne & Minister Hunter also! Please ensure you include your MPP; and include your name and address at the bottom of the letter.

Here is the letter below, should you wish to copy and paste instead:

To: Premier Wynne, Education Minister Hunter, Minister of Infrastructure Chiarelli & Deputy Minister Zegarac,

I am engaged with the Fix Our Schools campaign, which represents thousands of Ontario parents. Today, I ask your government to improve school conditions for all students in this province by immediately addressing the $15-billion of disrepair that has accumulated in our children’s schools.

While I commend the government’s increase in annual funding for school repairs to an industry-accepted standard, this new level of $1.4-billion/year for school repairs does little to address the $15-billion repair backlog that was allowed to accumulate in Ontario’s publicly funded schools over the past 20 years. In September of this year, an unacceptable number of Ontario’s students headed back to aging schools with hot classrooms, leaky ceilings, and myriad other issues.

Therefore, I call upon your government to improve school conditions for all Ontario students and find funding solutions to immediately address the $15-billion of disrepair in our children’s schools. I ask that your government please:

  • Explore and implement funding solutions such as issuing provincial bonds to immediately address the $15-billion repair backlog in schools.
  • Work with school boards to develop measurable goals for what school conditions in Ontario ought to be; and plans/timelines for how those goals will be achieved.
  • Release disrepair data at regular intervals to ensure that the $15-billion repair backlog is decreasing; and not continuing to increase.
  • Include school conditions as a key part of your party’s provincial campaign platform.

Kind regards,

YOUR NAME

YOUR ADDRESS