NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese says the threatened closure of school pools and the proposed cuts to educational assistants at the Toronto District School Board are the direct result of the McGuinty government’s failure to properly fund Ontario’s school system.

Due to chronic underfunding, the Toronto District School Board is looking at drastically reducing its aquatic instructors and educational assistants. These staff reductions will eliminate needed in-classroom support in the early years and threaten the viability of community pools where many young children learn important water safety skills.

“Dalton McGuinty’s inaction on proper funding threatens to ravage the quality of our education system,” said Marchese. “If his aim was to raise the bar – he is still coming up way short. If this were a report card, he would earn an ‘F’.”

SWIMMING POOLS
School swimming pools were built and paid for by the local communities when school boards were able to collect a local levy. School boards no longer have access to the local levy to maintain and staff community pools, due to provincial legislation prohibiting them. McGuinty has not provided the funding to keep the pools staffed, maintained and open.

“McGuinty and his ministers like to talk about the importance of physical fitness but when they have the chance to promote it by maintaining and staffing pools, they look the other way and allow valuable community assets to go to waste,” said Marchese.

EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANTS
Educational assistants ensure student safety through supervision, provide help for special needs students that have not been identified yet and assist teachers in our multicultural and multiracial classrooms.

“With school safety a top-of-mind concern, the last thing we need to do is remove qualified adults from classrooms,” said Marchese. “While parents, educators and experts recommend more adults in Toronto schools, Dalton McGuinty is forcing school boards to cut Educational Assistants.”