Broken promises, broken process, broken priorities
This is one of those occasional posts I write which are just because I want to, and this is my blog, and I can. So, no writing, reading or book stuff here. Feel free to skip it if you want to.
It’s about the story in today’s Ottawa Citizen titled New elementary schools top Ottawa-Carleton school board list of capital priorities. This is an accurate story. This is a factual story. This is a pretty bland story.
But this is not the whole story.
This is a story of a broken system and broken promises. This is a story of 900 kids told they were a priority, and it was important that they be housed in a school without asbestos, and with enough facilities (computer lab, gym space and even basic bathroom space) to accommodate them. That when they broke or sprained a leg, or if they lived in the neighbourhood and were disabled, they could still go to their neighbourhood school.
You see, finally, after a long struggle, and after years (YEARS – since 1998) of almost no investment being put into our strained schools in the active core of Ottawa, we were FINALLY going to get a new school for students at Broadview Avenue Public School. Not right away, but soon enough that we were told “don’t worry about taking the $1.5 million you were promised to prepare for all-day kindergarten – there’s no point in spending it – you’re getting a new school.” So ADK has come to Broadview with some of the smallest kindergarten classrooms in the board, pushing multiple classes into portables in the yard, and without bathrooms in the kindergarten classes. When we asked if we could please, maybe, possibly at least get mixer taps in the common bathrooms slated to be used by the smallest students, we were told “Hmmm … that could be complicated and expensive.”
This might be a good opportunity to dispel some myths. We are not rich people living in big houses who want a gold-plated school.
My house is less than 1,500 sq.ft. I don’t have a main floor family room, or even a main floor powder room. I don’t have a speck of granite in my house. We don’t have an ensuite. And you should see our property tax bill. We live comfortably, happily, but not richly.
We don’t want a gold plated school. We want a comfortable, happy, but not rich school. We want a school without dangerous substances in the walls (and floors, and ceilings, and pipes). We want a school that allows children to get upstairs, even if they’re injured or disabled. We’d like to be able to use technology upstairs (where our intermediate classes are housed) but the stairs are a barrier to media carts, etc. We’d like there to be enough space for our kids to have computer and gym time (no kindergarten students get ANY gym time this year – their phys. ed. has to be done outside, when weather allows). We’d like screens on our windows and we’d like mixer taps in our bathrooms. MIXER TAPS. Not gold-plated ones – just ones that mix hot and cold water – it’s not a new technology and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for.
We want the new school we were promised. Our kids are disillusioned, disappointed and baffled. We thought we were in line for a new school. We were told 2015. Our children were excited. Our children felt supported.
And now? Well, now in the middle of fixing a process that is so broken the board admits it needs to have a framework built to define it, the board has randomly changed the list. Thrown new projects in front of Broadview.
I have a few questions:
(1) Since Broadview was deemed “prohibitive to repair” and determined to be worthy of a rebuild, and since that rebuild hasn’t happened, how has our priority lessened? How is it possible for a priority to become not a priority WHEN NOTHING IS DONE TO ADDRESS IT?
(2) Since our rebuild is no longer imminent, do we get the approx. $1.4 million back that was not spent on Broadview to help accommodate ADK? Where is that money? I’d like to know.
(3) How is it that “growth” areas are identified as priorities when our neighbourhood is bursting at the seams with new condos and our schools are over-capacity and growing each year, and why can’t we make use of the development charges paid by developers building on our streets?
And, finally, if we’re going to be stuck in this re-build limbo forever, and none of our children are ever going to get to go to the magically rebuilt Broadview, CAN WE AT LEAST GET MIXER TAPS?
