HomeMy WebLinkAboutOCDSB Letter to Premier Ford re Making School Boards WholeOffice of the Chair of the Board
September 25, 2020
The Honourable Doug Ford
Premier of Ontario
Premier’s Office, Room 281
Legislative Building, Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
The Honourable Stephen Lecce
Minister of Education
438 University Ave, 5th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M7A 1N3
Dear Premier Ford and Minister Lecce:
At its Board meeting on August 26, 2020, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
approved its budget for the school year 2020-2021 and directed me to write to you
and to Premier Ford to express our significant concerns about the need to ensure
that all extraordinary and unplanned costs associated with our response to the
COVID-19 pandemic would be covered from provincial coffers.
Specifically, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is asking you
1.to commit to making school boards whole with respect to their extraordinary
COVID-19 related use of reserves; and
2.to commit to making school boards whole with respect to any unplanned
COVID-19 related shortfalls arising directly from
(a)school districts’ Ministry-confirmed plans,
(b)further changes in Ministry direction, or
(c)unforeseen and unavoidable local COVID-19 related circumstances.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board further directed me to ask you to commit
to asking Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health to immediately review and publicly
respond, fully and directly, to the expert advice on COVID-19 risk reduction for
schools provided on August 19th 2020 by the Registered Nurses’ Association of
Ontario (RNAO), and following that review, to reassess Ontario’s financial support
and direction around COVID-19 risk reduction in its schools.
While the magnitude of the impact of COVID-19 on a school district may seem small
in comparison to the pandemic’s impact on the province, school districts are almost
entirely reliant on provincial grants to fulfill their responsibilities for delivering
effective educational programs and promoting student achievement and well-being.
To meet our responsibilities, we must have sufficient resources and maintain a
sound fiscal position. Since August, we have seen continuing pressures on our
budget for staffing, cleaning, PPE, school ventilation, and many other components,
and we have also seen rising rates of COVID-19 infections in Ottawa schools and in
the community at large. We look forward to hearing your commitment to make us
whole in this extraordinary emergency and to reassess how best to reduce the risk of
COVID-19 transmission in our schools.
Sincerely,
Lynn Scott
Chair, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
cc: ` Nancy Naylor, Deputy Minister of Education
Cathy Abraham, President, OPSBA
W.R. (Rusty) Hick, Executive Director, OPSBA
Trustees, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Senior Staff, Ottawa-Carleton District School Board
Corporate Records
/!-- This code was added to remove the metadata from document view in Weblink -->