As southern Ontario wilts under intense heat, the provincial government says it's given billions to school boards to upgrade their classrooms, and that the lack of air conditioning is the boards' responsibility.
One education union, and Canada's largest school board, say that funding isn’t enough, given their multi-billion-dollar repair backlog.
"As you know, the Toronto District School Board and others across Ontario have put plans in place to make sure that, for example, their students are not out in the heat in the high-heat parts of the day," Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Monday.
Boards are "modifying" and changing the locations of some classrooms during the heat wave, she said.
"And I will leave it to the school boards to make sure that they put the pieces in place to keep their students protected, because each school is different and unique for what they are looking at in terms of where the students are best protected and where they can modify their learning environment," she said.
Temperatures in southern Ontario reached the mid-40s this weekend under the humidex, a measure of how hot the weather feels to the average person after combining the temperature and humidity. Actual daytime highs reached the mid-30s Sunday and Monday, and are expected to do the same on Tuesday.
On Sunday, Toronto and Hamilton broke their all-time humidex records for June, at 46.3 C and 46.6 C, respectively.
The education minister's office reiterated that school boards are responsible for heat management and noted the government's funding for upgrades, including A/C.
"School boards are required to have protocols in place as to how they deal with heat in schools and are responsible for ensuring that each individual school follows all appropriate provincial and municipal health and safety requirements," Emma Testani, a spokesperson for Education Minister Paul Calandra, said in a statement.
School boards get more than $1.4 billion annually for school improvements, which includes air conditioning, Testani said.
"Over the next 10 years, our government is investing $30 billion to support school construction, renewal and improvement," she said. "We will continue to monitor the impacts of the warm weather and work with school boards to help keep students safe."
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation said Ontario schools are facing a $17-billion repair backlog that has grown under the Ford government. That backlog "doesn’t get fixed with ice in water bottles or staying in the shade during recess," president Karen Littlewood said in a statement.
“In most schools across Ontario, classrooms are sweltering, windows don’t open, and there’s no air conditioning," she said.
"This isn’t about planning, it’s about political will. The province continues to underfund education and let our schools crumble, while students and education workers suffer.”
Adding air conditioning to schools that don't have it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, plus the increased maintenance and energy costs, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) said.
Doing so "is not financially possible — especially given that the TDSB currently faces a repair backlog of approximately $4.5 billion as of January 2025," the TDSB said in a statement
The board says just 177 of its 582 schools have central air conditioning. The rest have cooling centres, which are designated areas with air conditioning, such as gymnasiums or libraries.
The TDSB encourages students to drink water throughout the day, and staff use stopgap measures like fans, open windows and sending kids in and out of cooling centres.
It hasn't closed schools so far this heat wave, telling the Toronto Star it felt parents would struggle to find last-minute child care.
People should check in on their neighbours and loved ones during the heat wave, Jones said. She reminded Ontarians that they can call 2-1-1 for a non-emergency wellness check.
"We've got to look after each other for this," she said.
—With files from The Canadian Press
