Can we talk a minute about the state of public schools in Ontario? I've been lucky to be taught by some incredible teachers growing up, and my daughter has also had some incredible teachers in the public school system. However, the physical condition of public schools has been degrading severely. After successive failures of governments to maintain schools - there is now a $16.8 BILLION backlog of maintenance that now has to occur in Ontario. When we consider how old some schools are in Toronto, and that weather is only going to get more extreme - schools will get hotter in the spring/summer months, face poor air quality, experience heavier rainfall, etc. - schools desperately need upgrades.
This week, there were two days of severe rainstorms. Parkdale-High Park MPP Bhutila Karpoche chronicled her visit to Humberside Collegiate for a talk with grade 10 students, and was met with dripping ceilings and basement flooding - a huge health and safety risk and a regular occurrence at the school by the sounds of it. https://lnkd.in/gkx_v7Zu Another example - my daughter's school, in a century-old building, constantly has fire alarm malfunctions whenever there's a large rainstorm. What does this look like? A few months ago during colder weather, a new student who had recently immigrated to Canada heard the fire alarm and in his confusion, ran outside with no shoes on, and was soaked literally head to toe. Thankfully, another classmate gave him one of her shoes to stand on. While her actions were heartwarming - the kids would not need to run outside in the freezing rain if this equipment was not malfunctioning in the first place. There are consequences to this lack of maintenance, I'm sure many other examples that are even more severe than that.
The local school board prohibits fundraising for capital improvements (which I understand from an equity perspective), yet the provincial government starves the school boards of funding to make these capital improvements. What can parents and school boards do?
I recently learned about the Los Angeles Unified School District's $7 billion bond issue to support upgrades to school infrastructure, which by the sounds of it, has been a smashing success and has helped them reverse the decline in the physical condition of their schools. Where is the imagination and initiative to do this? Where are the municipal bond issuers at in Canada who can make this happen? When we have governments who are more concerned about expanding booze sales rather than working on important issues like healthcare and education and housing, we need to get active and we need to get creative.
