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EDITORIAL

Turning down the thermostat


November 18, 2002

The reaction of trustees, staff and even some parents to the local school board budget cuts of supervisor Paul Christie, is a textbook lesson in the sad state of public education.

A one-degree Celsius dip in temperature is the strategy behind a new cost-saving measure being imposed by Christie. The provincially appointed supervisor expects to save $2.6- million this year by the simple measure of reducing school temperature by one degree in winter, and to increase it by a single degree in summer.

One would think that turning down the thermostat by a single degree would get little, if any attention from anybody.

But nothing is so simple down at the heavily politicized local school board. Worried about "many of you who are stationary at your desks", the board’s building operator sent out an internal memorandum to employees, warning them they might be subjected to goosebumps. In bureaucratic code, desk-bound staff was advised to bring a sweater to work in order to avoid a "chill sensation".

The overreaction to a drop of one degree in temperature is indicative of how the administration of public education in Ontario has lost perspective.

How far we have come from the not so long ago little red school house, when children and parents walked for miles to get to school in any weather, without complaint.

Would the staff of schools in poverty-stricken countries likely complain about a drop of one degree in the thermostat?

Given the temperature of the rogue trustees in this heated battle, it’s not too difficult to understand that Christie faced contempt and unbridled hostility when he showed up for three hastily arranged public consultation meetings a week before the school thermostats were turned down.

Never mind that demon Christie did something trustees could not do. He balanced the board’s books with $90 million in cuts, and made those cuts while still preserving popular swimming pools and parenting centres.

Imagine an education system that puts such emphasis on luxury items while turning out children whose reading skills are less than ideal.

Have many Toronto trustees know the true suffering of the children of countless schools in poverty-stricken and war-torn countries? Parents of children in certain parts of Africa, for example, don’t have the luxury of worrying about which swimming pools their youngsters can swim in. No food for the dinner table is their harsh reality.

Although professing sympathy to the rancour and hostility aimed at the dreaded Christie, education activist Annie Kidder admits it’s largely misplaced.

"Crying at Christie is futile because all of this is the funding formula," Kidder told the media. "All he’s done is his job–put Toronto vaguely in the context of the funding formula," said Kidder, who is a spokesperson for People for Education.

In chopping $90 million from the board budget, Christie is including a nearly $11.5 million cut from central administrative, $10-million in deferred classroom computer expenses and $4.17-million in outdoor education. Then, of course, there is the $2.6-million to be saved by reducing the school temperature a single degree.

Notice no erstwhile trustee came up with this cost-saving idea.

The ongoing battle of the school board budget has become so raucous, some of us may have lost sight of how it all began.

Trustees refused to balance the books and turned in a budget with a whopping $90-million deficit.

When politicians representing the school board refused to budge, the province appointed Christie–who was ordered to balance the books.

No matter which government trustees choose as their political battleground, they are elected by the public to do a job. Turning in a balanced budget is part of that job.


Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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