Who says Politics and Education don't mix!

When I ran for Mayor of Wasaga Beach, I met a few really nice and down to earth people. One of them was Robert North who's the school trustee for Adjala-Tosorontio, Essa, and CFB Borden. Below is a post that really got my attention, and I wanted to share it with you. As most people know I've been banging my head against the wall in trying to get the Ministry of Education, and the School Board to build a high school in Wasaga Beach. over 800 kids have to take a bus to schools in Elmvale, Stayner and Collingwood. The Ministry blames it on the school board and the school board blames the Ministry. However by reading Mr. North's post below and having spoke to him on this issue, it seems that a motion is being brought forth to have included in the capital budget request to the Ministry upgrades and an addition to the high school in Elmvale at a cost of close to 10 million dollars. Now the chances of this being approved by the Ministry is slim to none, the fact that yet again Wasaga Beach is being overlooked really pisses me off to no end. To councils credit, the Town of Wasaga Beach had prepared at a cost of $ 10,000 a study which was presented to the school board back in 2009. The town was also prepared to kick in 3 million dollars towards the cost of having a school built. Yet the past school board and even the new board pushes this aside and put together a motion for Elmvale. Anyway the fight continues and I hope everyone would take the time to write a letter or send an e-mail to their local school trustee in Simcoe to say that it's about time that Wasaga Beach gets their own high school.



“Step right up. Step right up. Place your bets. Lots of prizes to be won. New classrooms, new libraries, renovated gyms, joint municipal facilities, heck, you could even win an entire new school”, says the man at the carnival. Of course, what he doesn’t tell you is that what you are more likely looking at is diddly squat. Despite this, there seems to be a certain number of individuals out there, including some from around our own board table, that think we should step up to the man at the carnival, wager our students’ futures (at least their schools’ futures), on this game and hope to win big.
Simultaneously, they also seem to think that in a hangar somewhere at the Ministry of Education, there is a Superfortress bomber being loaded with loonies for a bombing run somewhere over various parts of Simcoe County.
This trifecta of belief in the money fairy became clear over the last few days. Firstly, on Saturday there was a gathering out at Duntroon Public School (population 97), of some local folks along with Jim Wilson, MPP for Simcoe-Grey. Also appearing in the photo for this ‘event’ was the local school board trustee. MPP Wilson now has a petition on his website in part ‘to suspend the ARC in Clearview Township…’. I like Jim Wilson. He’s a good MPP. But more money for ‘rural schools’ is not going to produce more kids for Duntroon – plain and simple. And we have to be careful with the rural school moniker. If 8.5 km from Duntroon into Stayner is rural, what does that make schools that are closer to North Bay, or New Liskeard, and so on?
Secondly, last night, in her inaugural address, our chairperson stated the following views. “It is not advisable to start‐up any new ARCs until following the upcoming provincial election in October and that pending ARC recommendations, i.e. ARC decisions not yet concluded, be postponed until such time that the Government of Ontario can demonstrate that there is in fact adequate financial resources to hopefully fund arc recommendations for new schools and additions. As trustees you may well wish to call for a special board meeting in order to bring forward motions and amendments to this table with respect to the SCDSB capital plan proposal.” And while she did state that these are her personal views, there seems to be enough of a power shift at our board that it could very well come to pass.
Thirdly, in the board credibility-crushing final act, a notice of motion was put forth to include renovations and additions to Elmvale District High School in our Capital Plan. This plan is due at the Ministry on January 28th yet this notice of motion will not even be dealt with until February. When asked by the Trustee for Innisfil about how this Johnny-come-lately motion would come to pass given the timeframe, staff indicated that we would send in correspondence to the Ministry mentioning the request.
So it would seem that our wager at the carnival is going to include literally thousands of hours of staff and volunteer time for both the Barrie and Clearview ARC, the needs of Alliston and area, and the future capital needs of almost every area of our County.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Sometimes you just need to grab people by the ears, give them a not so gentle shake, and check if they are connected to reality. This is not a political difference, this is not taking one of two ways to get to the same end, this is a full-blown reality check. Let’s review the facts…
Outside of the south end of Simcoe County, many of our schools have been experiencing a stomach-dropping plummet of population. You can’t for example go from a population of 170, which is a fairly small population to begin with, to under a hundred and not expect there to be serious ramifications. And you can try to find someone or some organization to blame, but the cold hard facts are that families, especially those in areas outside of larger centres, are not producing kids. It’s a pretty simple concept to understand. My great grandfather was one of eight, my grandfather was one of six, my father was one of four, and I am one of one. I don’t care where you live in this county, as you go forward each generation, you are yielding fewer kids. This is why we encourage immigration – because without it, we’d be in some serious trouble. And those who are immigrating here, are not settling in Elmvale and Creemore, and Wabushene – they’re settling in large urban centres.
The mature areas of our cities and small centres do not yield the kids that they once did. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about cities like Barrie, or smaller centres like Alliston. If you’re familiar with these areas, a few decades ago, these places would be teeming with students. The street that I live on was built around 1985. Young families moved in and raised their kids. Nowadays, the kids have grown up, moved out, and the parents remain. Neither my 75 year old neighbour on the left side of my house, or the 50 year old neighbour on my right, are likely to be having rug rats running around any time soon. Mature areas of cities and towns generally don’t produce kids. Eventually, some downtown areas are redeveloped, but this usually involves the types of housing that includes seniors, childless singles and couples. This makes for interesting little neighbourhoods with lots of boutiques – and very few kids.
In areas of the south, we have schools bursting at the seams. In downtown Barrie, we have extra space. In the central, west, and northern areas of our board, we have excess space. A number of places that made sense for schools 100, 50 and 20 years ago, simply do not make sense given current and future student needs. Populations shift. Demographics change. That’s not politics. That’s reality.
A number of our buildings are not in great shape. A combination of budgetary decisions in the medium and distant past is to blame for this – there’s no way around it. If a school board wants to try to satisfy taxpayers by keeping increases down, and doesn’t want to cut programs, where do they find the money? Deferred maintenance. And those decisions come back to haunt us all. We can blame previous boards to a degree on this one, but no matter how much we cackle about it, we do not have a time machine to revisit the decisions. It is what it is.
I cannot find a font that would bold the next point to make it stand out enough. No Virginia, the Money Fairy does not exist. The province of Ontario is in bad financial shape. Low double digit billion dollar deficits, a demographic shift that will see more and more seniors in need of health care dollars, and an economy that is sputtering at best are not really good signs that a large bag of money is about to drop in one’s lap. Dombrowsky herself said to a member of our board not eight weeks ago that we needed to get our house in order. Don’t count on more money. How much clearer does this need to be? Minister of Education – Very little money – connect the dots.
I’m hearing too that we should wait on all these decisions until after the provincial election. Let me be clear on this next point. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a red flag government under Dalton, a blue flag under Mr. Hudak, or something unexpected like a government of the orange coloured variety – there will be less money coming after October 6th, 2011, not more. Quite frankly, if I was Tim Hudak and the Tories at Queens Park, I’d be scared you-know-what that I might win this year. The provincial books are an epic disaster.
The time to make hard decisions, for the best long-term outcome of our communities is not next fall. It’s not in 3 months. It’s right now. As a matter of fact, it’s not really right now, it’s months ago. We need to move. If we have any hope of getting to a point where the government can allocate funds to capital projects that make sense, save money, serve student needs, and are in the best long-term interests of our students, we need to get our act together and show leadership.
If this board abdicates its responsibilities in addressing these issues, we might as well all pack up and go home, and let some bureaucrat in an office building in Toronto call all the shots. We do not elect governments to make easy decisions; we elect them to make difficult ones. Delaying decisions is not leadership – it is cowardice.