The 91-year-old building is painted in bright blues and yellows on the inside, and though the letters spelling out the school’s name on the outside are a little faded from the sun, the building looks all right.
But the exterior belies the problems hidden beneath the walls. The boilers are so old repair technicians aren’t trained to service them anymore. The roof needs to be replaced, and a few cracks and warps in the library ceiling show where the water pours through when it rains, though the librarian usually puts down a bucket so the books and floor aren’t damaged.
It’s a story repeated throughout the Toronto District School Board, where a quarter of schools are in critical condition, according to documents obtained by the Star.
A recent report by the Auditor General of Ontario says at least $1.4 billion needs to be spent across the province every year to keep our schools in good repair — far more than the roughly $150 million to $500 million a year that’s been shelled out over the last five years.
That leaves a shortfall of roughly $1 billion per year, and advocates say schools are crumbling because of it. Meanwhile, a TDSB presentation showed over 60 per cent are either in poor or critical condition.
Now, advocates are asking the Province to help fix the funding gap.
“The 2-million children who attend Ontario public schools deserve to have safe, well-maintained buildings,” a letter sent from the Fix Our Schools campaign to Premier Kathleen Wynne on January 18 said.
In her recent annual report, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk noted a five-year survey that has so far looked at 80 per cent of Ontario schools had found $14 billion in renewal needs. The $1.4 billion number highlighted is the annual cost of those repairs spread out over a decade.
Lysyk also said in her report that since the survey had started five years ago, the conditions of the schools surveyed in 2011 had most likely deteriorated, which wouldn’t be captured until the next survey.
Krista Wylie, co-founder of Fix Our Schools, said she’s not surprised by the number, but happy to see it spelled out by the auditor general, as her report gets more attention than the numbers put forward by her own organization.
“(The report is) not a political document. There’s no political intention,” she said.
Wylie, through Fix Our Schools, has been campaigning for more money to fix schools in the Toronto District School Board since the organization’s inception in October 2014. She said problems like those at George R. Gauld are not uncommon, and she’s heard stories from her own children about boilers breaking down, or water getting in through leaky roofs when it rains.
“My son was in school for over a week last winter wearing his winter coat, and his classroom was about 12 degrees Celsius . . . that’s not an uncommon incident,” she said.
These invisible concerns like structures, boilers and ceilings aren’t always immediately noticeable, Wylie said, but they’re often more important to fix than cosmetic damages.
“Those are the things that impact child safety,” she said. Problems impacting children’s safety are always fixed fast, she said, but not the underlying issues.
Those can’t be fixed, only kept under control, because the money to replace things is not there, said Pamela Gough, trustee for Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Usually, there’s just enough to keep the ship afloat.
“(We’re) running around fixing leaks instead of replacing the roof,” she said.
Ken Lister, trustee for Don Valley East, said the situation is similar in his ward, and patching up the problems is only making things worse. Eleven out of the 33 schools in his wards have received new roofs, but those that can’t be replaced might have to get additional repairs if they’re not fixed soon.
“If your roof is leaking, then the water goes into the electrical, and you need to repair (that), it gets behind a wall, and you end up having to . . . deal with mould,” he said.
“It leads to a lot of other costs.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Education said funding for the TDSB through the School Condition Improvement program had increased to $112 million for the 2015-2016 school year, and $44 million was going to the TDSB through the School Renewal Allocation program.
“The ministry is committed to supporting school boards, like TDSB, in providing safe and healthy learning environments for our students,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Wylie said the current funding isn’t enough, and it’s hard to get attention to the issue, because no principal wants to out their school as being in poor condition, because of the backlash it creates from parents.
“No parent wants to believe they drop their child off in a dump every day. That makes me feel like a bad parent,” she said.
It makes hearing about individual cases hard. Gough emphasized the great programming at George R. Gauld and cited the hard-working staff, but she admitted the school needs help.
“Our hands are tied. We’re in a terrifically difficult situation,” she said.
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Oliver Sachgau
No comments:
Post a Comment