Christmas Day!!

Hopefully, no matter what your circumstance in life,you will have time over the next few days to enjoy a good read. I mentioned in my previous post that it would be great to get a new High School for Christmas. The reality is that I think it is a given that we will soon get the funding approval to build our first High School in the Town of Wasaga Beach. I suspect the big announcement will come sometime in 2025.

I suspect as well, our Mayor, CAO and Council will take all credit for getting us past the finish line. The truth is, they can take 100% of the credit for the Catholic School Boards K-12 school that will be built one day beside the Twin Pad Arena Library. But where we stand today in regard to the Wasaga Beach High School is down to the dedicated, well planned efforts of the Simcoe County District School Board.

Regardless of who gets credit, the students and families of Wasaga Beach will come out of this as winners. Politically, it is just a shame our Council is playing games with carefully worded statements to make it appear that this imminent success is all due to them.

To understand this, let’s do an honest, candid review of the history of our quest for a high school and talk about where we hope to be in the VERY near future.

The talk about and the political quest to have the Province build us a High School goes back MANY Councils. I remember having interesting conversations about this with previous Mayors Borthwick and Patterson, so… this is not a new project.

During this term of office, Brian Smith committed to “getting a high school”. This meant he was going to pay consultants to help him plead his case and those consultants worked with some of Brian’s hand picked members of the newly formed “High School Task Force”.

Back then, (and still today) those on the BS team felt that the SCDSB was blocking our getting a high school by not putting us high on their funding request priorities. The SCDSB always considered statistics and the ever changing needs in compiling their list. Brian Smith disagreed and felt political pressure should be what influenced “the list”.

The Province of Ontario pays for new schools and these schools are requested to be built by local school boards. Now, that may sound pretty simple, but through the years, the Ministry of Education had developed policies and processes that had to be followed in order to get capital funding.

So, what happened during that first term (2014-18)? Smith and his task force felt the best approach was to force the Public School Board to bump Wasaga Beach to the top of their priority list. After all, if we were number one on a list, the Province would have to commit the funding right? Well, … maybe. But what if the task force trying to influence the local school board was using tainted numbers? Would the school board respond to such a request with the demanded top priority on their list? No.

But why not? After all, the task force had an example of another Ontario Community that had used political influence to pressure a similar bump in priority. But, the SCDSB was not playing that game!

They had criteria set down by the Province and statistical data that had been carefully compiled and THAT was what they would rely on. So, although we were added to a list, we certainly were not high ranked back then.

This displeased Brian Smith and his Task Force and the relationship between the School Board and the Town melted down to a point where the school board actually sent a letter to the Town insisting that future communications go through a lawyer. The statistics compiled by our task force included student counts that did NOT represent the true picture of our local needs and the Board had no intentions of using THOSE statistics.

Now, DESPITE this damaged relationship, the SCDSB did continue with prudent, well thought out planning. Even back then, they were still jockeying for a Wasaga Beach High School.

There were long established processes that had been in place to progress to a new build and an obvious step in this process would be to purchase property if the eventuality of a build was obvious. The numbers were growing and population projections (fueled by SEVERAL councils that encouraged growth) showed that a High School would soon be needed.

I dont recall if it was towards the very end of the 2014-18 term or the very beginning of the 2018-22 Bifolchi term, but the Province did make a commitment to the SCDSB to start the process of selecting a site and beginning the purchase process for that site.

This purchase of land was NOT something initiated by the Town, but instead it was all part of the detailed long term planning of the Simcoe County District School Board.

Despite this IMPORTANT step, Wasaga Beach would still not actually get the funding to build and operate the high school until the numbers said so. For that, the board would request the funding AND the Province would give the nod.

For the 2018-22 term of office, Mayor Bifolchi felt the important process of re-building relationships with the school board would be a priority.

Another important impediment to building any new schools was introduced during that term. We all had to endure the MASSIVE changes to our lives during a World Wide Pandemic. Nothing was being funded!

But despite this, an incredible thing was also happening in Wasaga Beach. Developers who had been sitting on land for 20 years had a new confidence in the Real Estate market. They also had a great working relationship with the existing Council and staff. This pushed the fast forward buttons on the Sunnidale Trails Sub-division.

Having the green light on this development meant the numbers we had all waited on for years were now a reality!

In fact, the new student count projections, combined with the new evolving sub-division meant that we DID get Capital funding for a new Elementary School in the Sunnidale Trails area.

This new school also provided the Town of Wasaga Beach an opportunity to partner with the School Board to facilitate the use of recreational space after school hours.

This takes us into the 2022-26 term of Council and before we reflect on the activities of our Council, we should look at a couple of important Provincial policies as well as the actions of the Simcoe County School Board.

First, it is important to understand that in order to have a new school be considered by the Province, School Boards were given specific criteria that had to be met in order for a capital funding submission to move forward. These criteria were now to be important considerations to eliminate the traditional long delays from time of approval to time of build.

These criteria and how two different school boards handled them are very important considerations when looking at the astounding announcements made by the Province to fund the Catholic Board K-12 school and the incredible, BRASH boasting by the WB Council.

One consideration was that School Boards had to demonstrate was a justified need for a facility. GREAT! After years of not quite having the “numbers”, the SCDSB now had the numbers to justify building a full “STEM” focused High School. UNDERSTANDING THIS ASPECT IS VITAL!

STEM stands for Science, Technology, English and Math. Ongoing funding for all schools is based on a few factors. One of those factors is numbers of students enrolled. In order to justify building STEM facilities that support education of various trades and a broad selection of educational choices, adequate student projections were required. The SCDSB had these numbers!

Another criteria set by the Province was to ensure that architectural design and planning was complete and ready to go. Because the SCDSB had built several schools in recent years, they could use previously used plans. This meant that planning was essentially complete with only site specific modifications required.

One other major criteria important to the Province was the actual ownership of the required property. Because the Province had approved the funding of this purchase years earlier, the SCDSB was almost complete the purchase of the site for our High School in the Sunnidale Trails Sub-Division. (It is NOW complete)I have not heard any announcements that the Catholic board has purchased land yet.

Finally, in order for a local Board to get funding the host municipality had to show their support. Yes, the SCDSB got a letter.

So, now that we have a good understanding of the bureaucratic environment our hopes for a High School have had to endure, let’s now look at recent history and discuss where we stand today.

First of all, let’s talk about Brian Smith lying about his opponents in the last municipal election. He said in one of his Campaign videos that Mayor Bifolchi and Deputy Mayor Bray sabotaged his Task Forces efforts to get a high school. That statement is 100% untrue. I challenge him PUBLICLY to back up his statement with facts.

If you listen to Brian Smiths different campaign videos on the topic, you can CLEARLY hear that it is he, who has a bias and he comes across as having actual distain for the SCDSB. It is important to recognize this, so I encourage you to listen to his soundbites. (Search for his videos on YouTube)

This attitude continued into this term of office. So, how did that shape the events that have unfolded recently? More importantly, how could this affect future results for Wasaga Beach.

In 2023, The Minister of Education put out a call for funding requests to the School Boards throughout Ontario.

The SCDSB had a list. A new High School for Wasaga Beach was on their list.

Wasaga Beach Council shared their complaints LOUD and CLEAR, that the SCDSB had placed us as number 12 on their list. However, have a look at the list shared on the Towns Website. You will see that a more accurate description was that we were actually number 2 in new “high school” builds.

For that round of funding, the top four schools on the SCDSB list were funded, which included the number one ranked high school back then. That meant that with even NO future changes, Wasaga Beach Secondary School would be the top priority high school in any future list!

While Council complained about placement on the SCDSB submission, let’s look at Councils actual support for this proposal. (Remember… municipal support is a requirement.) Two weeks AFTER the submissions were due, the Mayor forwarded a letter to the Minister of Education saying he supported their submission. That’s it. That was the extent of support for the SCDSB from Mayor Smith, a letter that was penned two weeks late!

Money- our Council has paid to conduct studies to establish what partnerships might be possible. There are also all kinds of unknown legal bills that appear on the cheque registers. All we are entitled to see is a dollar amount and a lawyers name. No details are available regarding how much money has been spent negotiating the mysterious 3 way partnership the Town has with the Developer and the Catholic School Board.

Lobbying- Our Council scheduled important “delegation” opportunities with the Ministry of Education staff at major Conferences and invited the Catholic School Board to tag along. They boasted about these lobbying efforts with media releases. This lobbying was not offered to the SCDSB.

Creative use of the phrase “Leverage”- Despite EVERY member of Council objecting to the TPAL build, they claimed to be “partnering” with the Catholic Board to leverage the recent investment of 60 Million Dollars. Exactly what leverage will be harnessed? Will the students be encouraged to walk across the parking lots to use the library next door if the Catholic School library is busy? Will the school use the walking track or add skating to their curriculum?

Shared facility- The Council claims there will be a shared use community theatre that the community can access after hours. They have further claimed that the only cost to the taxpayers may be some speakers or seating. By way of contrast, look at the agreement mentioned earlier where the Town is planning to use the gymnasium of the new Elementary School in Sunnidale Trails after hours. That agreement involved in excess of a Million Dollars and ongoing budgetary commitment. Where is the open and transparent discussion about the true cost of this community theatre to the tax-payers?

Strategic Partnerships- The Town is apparently going to bring College and University programs to this new “Hub”. Wow, but not really a wow is it? Couldn’t these part time courses be offered at any empty building without waiting 4 years? Is this just lip service to dress up the public image of their plans?

One of my final concerns is the use of the word “Hub”. Will it truly be a “hub”? Back when FRAM was first involved with the Main Street “Hub”, back in 2014/18 Council, even they wouldn’t commit to everything in one build. So they came up with a new phrase “campus style hub”. lol. I actually look forward to seeing drawings, plans and agreements that will actually make this Kindergarten to Grade 12 school a “hub” at little or no cost to the Community.

Finally, one last lobbying opportunity would be presented to the Town of Wasaga Beach to help bring their dream into reality. Weeks before the Minister of Education was to announce his funding decisions, the developer selling the land that would be used, hosted a well attended $1000 per person political party fundraiser. The Minister of Education would be the guest of honour and his political party would be the financial benefactors. Several members of our council and staff all attended as guests of the developer. They were given access to the Minister, to lobby their cause but did not actually pay to be there like most other attendees. (More on this event in a future discussion… much more!)

So…. All of the above efforts, went into the School Build submission by the School Board that the Town wanted to see succeed. That submission did not have a property purchase in place. That submission did not have architectural plans ready. That submission did not demonstrate the need with proper student projections.

Weeks later, the SCDSB submission (which hit almost every check box), despite the Mayors “two week late letter of support” was out of the running.

Instead of funding the SCDSB proposal, the Minister of Education took centre stage (our Mayor was on vacation again) and announced a $57,000,000.00* funding announcement for the Catholic School Board.

So, pause this story for a moment and congratulate Mayor Smith. Although I completely disagree with the means they employed, they did use political strategies to win their funding so that they could announce “a” K-12 school. But, the SCDSB still did not have funding for a fully funded, full STEM High School.

Does everything Council did, pass what many call a sniff test? I don’t think so and I certainly wouldn’t use it as an example to our students on how to win, but… it worked.

I shudder to think what this “hub” will eventually cost the tax payers of Wasaga Beach. I don’t simply mean financially, but… will we be giving away part of the TPAL parking lot?

Now, this is where it is critical for everyone to recognize the situation we face moving forward. WE STILL NEED A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL! Even “if” they purchase land, design and build this school, it will accept 500 students. We will require 1150 to be in desks! So, that’s right… 650 students a day will STILL be bussed out of Town. Will the “who goes where” be decided by lottery?

But wait! Recently, there has been another call for submissions by the Province. Wasaga Beach made it to the SCDSB list a this time our high School is number 2 on their list. However, like I mentioned earlier it is also the NUMBER ONE “high school” on their list.

This movement to the top of the list has NOTHING to do with political pressures. (As claimed in attached statement from the town website) It has everything to do with professional, ethical, evidence based statistics supporting the SCDSB wishes!

My personal hope is that the Ministey of Education doesn’t delay this approval because of the multi-million dollar K-12 school beside the TPAL that HAS been approved.

Remember, the new High School we await approval for will be a full sized STEM school serving a student enrollment of 1150 students. Students will be able to go on to Universities, Colleges or even jump right into various trades, similar to programming offered at most modern, full STEM service high schools.

So far the lobbying we have been made aware of to support the SCDSB request is another letter of support from the Mayor. This one might have even been penned on time!

If we are fortunate and this round of funding is successful, it will be GREAT news. For those of us who have followed the progress of our High School wishes so closely through the years, it is encouraging to see us at the top of the list. Now, we simply have to hope the Province of Ontario will approve the long term spending.

I suspect a very important “what if” that many are wondering about, is the question; “What if Collingwood Collegiate needs to be torn down and replaced?”

Maybe that is a great discussion for us to have in 2025. Let’s hope we get to have that discussion however, AFTER the SCDSB hosts the ground breaking ceremony for what could be Wasaga Beach’s first High School!