Ontario to pump extra $300M into education

Cash for school boards includes money earmarked for indigenous students

Ontario will spend almost $23 billion on education in the 2016-17 school year, a boost of $300 million — a move welcomed by school boards that nonetheless warned funding for areas like special education remains a concern.

“I think the overall increase in perpupil spending just barely hits inflation,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of research and advocacy group People for Education. “Which is fine, but still, as with last year, there are constraints in some areas.”

The per-pupil funding will increase by 1.4 per cent to $11,709.

Kidder was pleased to learn the government is providing $7 million to be shared among the 72 school boards to help with educating First Nation, Métis and Inuit youth in public schools “because that’s where the vast majority of (aboriginal) kids are . . . more than 80 per cent are in provincially funded schools, and this is a really important start.”

Another change the government will introduce will force school boards to pay fair market value when purchasing buildings from other school boards.

Currently, boards are obliged to offer closed schools and buildings to other public entities first, giving other school boards a discounted “replacement value” rate if the “fair market value” is higher.

Robin Pilkey, chair of the Toronto District School Board, said “based on our preliminary analysis, the ministry appears to have fully funded the recently negotiated labour settlements and recognized inflation in utilities and transportation costs. We are also pleased to see that future sales of property between boards will be at fair market value.”

But Toronto city councillor Josh Matlow (Ward 22, St. Paul’s) said the City-School Boards Advisory Committee had hoped the city would be exempt from paying fair market value, “to facilitate what the city and what many community members would like, to create new parks instead of townhouses … at a glance, it would make it far more difficult to protect public lands” because it makes them more expensive.

“The public already owns these lands and it is ridiculous to force these public entities to pay fair market value” to one another.

In announcing the education funding increases on Thursday, Education Minister Liz Sandals said the overall cash injection “reflects the commitment of our government and the entire education sector to take our publicly funded education system from great to excellent.”

NDP education critic Lisa Gretzky, the MPP for Windsor West, accused the Liberals of not properly investing in education.

“Over the past three years the government has simply ‘not spent’ more than $1 billion,” she said. “When it comes to actually investing in education, the Liberals are falling short leaving families and kids to pay the price.”

The Ontario Public School Boards’ Association said the government’s increase in funding “reinforces a strong school environment and the growth of student success” but president Michael Barrett warned “many of our member boards have already been absorbing reductions in other budget areas such as special education and this has had an impact on their flexibility.”