My kids aren't going to school today because there is no heat. Trevor Jones the school council president well describes the state of the school below. Surely this should not be the state of education infrastructure in 2011.
"On Monday our basement music room was flooded when water burst out of a corroded steam pipe. This is the 7th time our music room has been flooded. Then early Wednesday morning both our boilers went out of commission, and now we're waiting at home while the board does its best to patch them up.
Broadview has 775 students in grades K-8 and serves one of Ottawa's oldest suburbs. We are blessed with a hardworking and inspired staff who deliver outstanding programs. The building, however, dates back to the 30's and is inadequate. The washrooms are grotesque. Stairwells are narrow and the school is not accessible in the least. The steam boilers, when they're working, have two settings - on (in October) and off (in the spring). Most of the time it is ridiculously hot. We have fans to hot air from the roof of the intermediate wing. And since heat is radiated, the air does not get circulated and is incredibly fetid by the end of the day.
The Ottawa Carleton District School Board has, since amalgamation a decade ago, been focused on building new schools outside the greenbelt while letting its urban schools rot. Today's closure of Broadview Avenue Public School highlights the need to get serious about addressing this imbalance. "
