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East York parents frustrated by school conditions
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Tara Hatherly thatherly@insidetoronto.com Parents from five East York schools took their frustration to the street this week, holding a rally accusing the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) of threatening students’ safety and learning by neglecting local schools. Parents from Secord, Parkside, George Webster, Crescent Town and D.A. Morrison schools protested at the afternoon rally, appealing for new facilities they say are desperately needed. “We will no longer tolerate TDSB neglect when our urgent appeals for essential, equitable and safe building projects are brought before it,” said Heather Tormey, a parent whose children attend Secord Public School. Portables at two of the schools, George Webster and Secord, are sometimes unusable, due to decay and raccoon infestations. Between them, the East York schools have 36 portables, some separate and some connected in “port-a-pacs.” With the schools already overflowing with children, Secord Public School is set to welcome scores of new students when full-day kindergarten debuts there in 2014. Over-population at George Webster Elementary School was exasperated by the introduction of new full-day kindergarten classes being held at Crescent Town Public >>>PARENTS, page 11
IN THE CITY Wynne’s win pleases Don Valley West residents LISA QUEEN lqueen@insidetoronto.com Pleased their MPP is about to become Ontario’s new premier, Don Valley West residents are urging Kathleen Wynne to make repairing the province’s standoff with teachers her top priority. “Whatever she needs to do to fix it with teachers will fix it with kids. The kids are the ones suffering,” Angela
Barnard, a Leaside mother of two elementary school children, said in a coffee shop at Eglinton Avenue and Laird Drive on Tuesday. “Our kids are losing out on everything (extra-curricular activities). I’m not a political person, I’m not a teacher, I just see how it affects the kids. The premier needs to fix it with the teachers, bottom line. Whatever you have to do, fix it.” Wynne won the Ontario Liberal
party leadership on the third ballot at a convention at the Mattamy Athletic Centre (formerly Maple Leaf Gardens) Saturday night, Jan. 26, which automatically made her the premier-designate. Yet to be sworn in as premier, Wynne has identified reducing gridlock as the “number one condition that we need to get right” for the Greater Toronto Area. Sitting at the table beside Barnard,
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Maggie Kanellakis also said she wants Wynne to repair the province’s fractured relationship with teachers. Teachers have staged protests and mounted labour disruptions after the government imposed Bill 115 in place of negotiated collective agreements. Pointing to a number of controversies that have plagued the >>>rebuild, page 11