Construction Update: While schools were closed over the summer, our facilities teams were hard at work across the TDSB, making the most out of the time students were not in the building. This was true in many Ward 11 schools as well. The following is an overview of the larger work projects accomplished in Ward 11 schools during the summer: 

Bedford Park PS - Retaining Wall & paving

Bennington Heights - small window replacement

Bessborough - Steam to Hot Water Boiler Conversion

Blythwood Ps - Repair Cluster Columns 

Dunlace PS - Repave Parking 

Harrison PS - Repave Parking Lot

Hodgson - Steam to Hot Water Conversion, internal work now underway in old part of school, while the school community itself has been moved to 529 Vaughn Road

John Fisher PS -  Paint Hallways, Roof Replacement, Repair and Pain West Side Ceiling

Leaside HS - Roof Replacement

Marc Garneau CI - replacement of skylights on first floor

Maurice Cody - Steam to Hot Water Boiler Conversion

Northern SS - Kiln Room HVAC, RM 147 Refurbishment to Work Out Room

Owen PS - Replace entrance carpet with Ceramic Tile, PA System Replacement

Park Lane PS- Replace Siporex Roof, Ceiling & Led Lighting upgrade, Repave Trail

Rippleton PS - Card Access

Rolph Road - parking lot replacement 

St Andrew's MS - Window Replacement

Sunny View - Steam to Hot water conversion, Replace Retaining Wall

Thorncliffe Park PS - General maintenance throughout entire school

529 Vaughn Road (currently housing Hodgson PS) - pool, gym and other work

Windfields MS - Re-tile first floor

York Mills CI - Refurbish library

Although summer is the ideal time for construction, repairs and upgrades, our maintenance backlog is so significant that you may notice more work happening year-round in our schools. The TDSB has decided that this is the best and only strategy if we are to truly deal with the repair backlog and focus on modernising our schools in a productive, efficient, and fiscally-responsable fashion. While we know this can sometimes be challenging for staff and students, our work teams will do their best to be as unobtrusive as possible and we thank everyone in advance for their patience.

While the kids have started back, our Board has also been busy! On August 30th we had our first board meeting of the 2023-2024 school year, where we had presentations from the Toronto Board of Health and SafeTO. Two advocacy motions came out of this meeting, leading to two letters being sent by our Board earlier this week. The first letter was sent to the Minister of Health, calling on them to work with the Ministry of Education to provide increased mental health and greater funding to reduce the backlog for  pyschoeducational assessments. The second letter focused on ventilation and creating healthy schools, calling on the Minister of Education to provide sustainable and predictable and continuing ventilation funding. We have made strong strides in ventilation upgrades throughout the pandemic, but there is still more work to be done and we want to ensure the province continues to invest so that students and staff stay healthy and stay in class!

Then, coming up on Wednesday, October 25, we will kick off the Ward 11 Coffee Mornings! This one will be held in person, upstairs at Longo's on Laird. Please see the flyer at the top of this newsletter and to attend, please RSVP. These coffee mornings alternate between in-person and virtual and are informal, roundtable mornings of casual conversation about all things education with our Ward 11 superintendents, Andrew Howard and Roni Felsen. I hope many of you can join us!