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Just when you thought all the chickens had come home to rest, new chickens appear…..
Ontario's former premier, Dalton McGuinty, was very fond of the grand and crowd-pleasing gesture - for example, mandating small class sizes in the primary grades and all-day junior and senior kindergarten. But as this article shows, it might have been prudent to think through the long-term implications of these policies.
The mandated cap of 20 primary students per class took up most of the available space in many schools, leaving no room for the mandated addition of full-day kindergarten classes - meaning that some schools would need to build expensive addiitions or bring in expensive (and not very desirable) portables in order to comply with the province's requirements.
In an not-unexpected turn of events, the cash-strapped provincial government can't afford the tens of billions of dollars it would cost to retrofit schools to bring them into compliance. So the government is now telling school boards to find low-cost options to solve their problems - for example, bussing kids to other schools or even off-site space. All of these options have major drawbacks, and so the school boards are having trouble deciding what to do - leaving parents in limbo.
Apres moi, le déluge, said Louis X, and so it was.
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