hereIn the wake of the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Ontario is earmarking $10 million for front door locks, entry buzzers and security cameras.“It’s an appropriate and a reasonable response,” Premier Dalton McGuinty said Thursday at a Catholic school near Keele St. and Highway 401.
About 850 of Ontario’s 4,000 elementary schools got $3 million in funding for similar safety measures in 2005 but the Newtown tragedy has raised questions as to whether Ontario has taken “all reasonable measures,” he added.
Applications from schools will be taken in January with hopes of having all schools finished by the time school resumes next September.
McGuinty said he doesn’t know how many schools don’t have a secure door-lock system to screen visitors, but the $10 million allocated should “cover the waterfront” in getting all schools upgraded.
McGuinty made the announcement at St. Fedelis Catholic Elementary School, avoiding any tangles with the public school system where the Elementary Teachers Federation has been holding daily, rotating strikes to protest Bill 115, which freezes teacher pay and limits their collective bargaining rights as the province struggles to axe a $14.4 million deficit.
The Catholic teachers’ union has already agreed to a new contract, leaving McGuinty’s minority Liberal government to grapple with ETFO and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, which has joined the elementary union in asking members to drop extracurricular activities like coaching and clubs with students.
With a Toronto Star poll in Thursday’s paper suggesting the Liberals are losing in the court of public opinion on their stance with teachers, McGuinty insisted educators have enjoyed boom times since he came to power in 2003.
The number of teachers is up 10 per cent despite a 6 per cent decline in the number of students, as 13,400 more teachers were hired, resulting in smaller class sizes, improved test scores and graduation rates, McGuinty told reporters in the school library.
Also since 2003, teacher pay is up 24 per cent at the top end of the scale while young teachers moving up from the bottom of the salary grid have seen their wages increase 80 per cent, to $75,000, McGuinty added.
He took issue with teacher unions insisting the Bill 115 dispute is not about wage freezes, saying the Catholic deal already reached allows younger teachers to progress through the salary grid.
“When somebody says it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”
New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto—Danforth) hailed the new money for school safety as “a small step most parents will support” but troubled children still need more help and the turmoil in classrooms over Bill 115 has been a disaster for a man who touted himself as the “education premier.”
“Unfortunately what he’s done in poisoning the atmosphere in the education community has undermined years of work.”
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Rob Ferguson
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