$3.5 billion needed to repair Toronto’s crumbling schools

Thestar.com
Nov. 1, 2019
May Warren

Leaking roofs, dripping taps and 50-year-old boilers that need to be replaced are just some of the urgent fixes required at schools across Toronto, with a repair backlog of $3.5 billion that the Toronto District School Board warns is only going to get worse without more public funding.

“I think it should be concerning for most people,” said Robin Pilkey, chair of the TDSB, which released its annual snapshot on the condition of its public schools Thursday.

“Schools are part of our infrastructure and in past years were not funded enough to keep them in good repair.”

Without more and predictable funding from the province, the backlog could reach $5.2 billion by 2023, according to the board.

Despite an increase in money from the province over the past five years, the funding hasn’t kept pace with aging schools.

The TDSB has 246,000 students in 582 schools -- a few of which share buildings.

More than half of city schools are over 60 years old, and a handful have exceeded the century mark, added Pilkey. But they’re stuck using older and inefficient equipment because they have to prioritize.

“All that we end up with each year is to solve emergencies,” she said, stressing there’s no threat to the safety of students and staff.

“That also means that we are at risk that one day our 50-year-old boiler will suddenly go kaput and we will have to put a new boiler in and it will be considerably more expensive and disruptive to students.”

Krista Wylie, co-founder of the grassroots parents group Fix Our Schools, says their members “echo” what the board is saying.

“It’s almost like they can’t keep up,” she said. “They’re in reactive mode a lot of the time, which then isn’t a very efficient or effective use of money.”

Both of Wylie’s children go to schools that are over 100 years old -- Runnymede Junior and Senior Public School and Humberside Collegiate Institute.

Both are “lovely examples of beautiful architecture,” but aren’t being maintained.

“It’s so sad to see those buildings fall into a state of disrepair and sadder still as a parent to see that that disrepair has created conditions that are so ill-suited for learning and for working,” Wylie added.

Her group has heard stories of everything from kids wearing winter coats inside in January because of aging boilers, to students writing exams with “water dripping from the ceiling,” at schools across the city.

“It sends a message to our young people that, OK, the adults around me give lip service to how important my education is,” she said.

The exact figure for the repair backlog fluctuates based on the time of year that it’s calculated and what repairs have been done at that point, said board spokesperson Ryan Bird.

Each school gets an individual Facility Condition Index, an industry-standard term that measures the condition of a building. It’s calculated by taking the total cost of repairs, and dividing it by the replacement value of the building. The scores do not represent health and safety concerns.

According to a Star analysis of the scores, the school with the highest score is Glen Ames Senior Public School, a Grades 7 and 8 school in the Beaches, with a score of 137.67 per cent, followed by Secord Elementary School with 128.6 per cent and Elia Middle School with 123.9 per cent.

Glen Ames needs 17 high priority repairs, according to the TDSB’s website, including new paint and carpet.

Even though this school has the highest score, it doesn’t have any urgent repairs listed, as many schools do. Older schools have higher scores.

A score of over 100, Pilkey said, means it would actually be cheaper to tear down the school and rebuild than do all the necessary repairs, but the TDSB is not going to do that.

The TDSB was the first board in Ontario to report the backlog and individual scores, in 2016. The province later followed suit with information on all schools.

A spokesperson for Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s office said the ministry is currently reviewing and finalizing the repair index for schools across the province, and did not provide a date when it would be released.

Lecce said earlier in the day the government has committed to a 10-year, $13 billion investment in capital projects across the province.

“I think one of the challenges school boards faced is they didn’t have predictable funding,” he said at Queen’s Park.

“I reopened the funding intake, which is just over $550 million for this year -- for 2019-20 -- and projects are now due,” Lecce said, referring to the Oct. 31 deadline for proposals.

“I will be reviewing them on an expedited basis,” he added. “I have told my officials I want to see those immediately, as soon as possible, to start to get capital projects approved because I recognize that for many years under the Liberal government, there is a backlog.”

Many schools, he said, “require investments. Some of them are derelict, some of them are not in the state that they should be for learning.”

The government has also pledged an additional $1.2 billion in building renewal funding, Lecce said, “so we are doing our part to remediate the backlog. I recognize it’s real, and I think the province is putting money in the front lines to make sure that those school projects get done in short order.”

The board is also advocating for the government to allow it to collect Education Development Charges, which it says would allow the board to get some money from developers who benefit from good schools in the neighbourhood.