While children sit in class at the new Summerside Public School in London, Ont., there is a delivery truck unloading boxes of large materials outside the front door.
A global supply chain issue is causing delays for all industries, including schools.
“The board [Thames Valley District School Board] is experiencing that in furniture and equipment,” says Craig Smith, president of the Thames Valley Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario.
“It’s everything from portables to school desks, teacher's desks, to whiteboards that is a system-wide problem. They are particularly feeling it at Summerside where that school is already at capacity and they're still waiting on equipment to be delivered,” he says.
A spokesperson for TVDSB tells CTV News London, “all schools are equipped with the necessary equipment and supplies to create learning environments.”
Boxes of supplies are being delivered to Summerside Public School in London, Ont. on September 7, 2022. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)They add, “due to the supply chain issue, some upgraded materials aren’t arriving fast enough.”
Both TVDSB and the London District Catholic School Board (LDCSB) had to anticipate what they would need last year during the pandemic.
“We anticipated what the growth could look like,” says Vince Romeo, director of education at LDCSB.
“We erred on the cautious side and look for larger numbers rather than smaller, and I can say that will help us this year,” he adds.
Another potential contributing factor to the school boards supply issues is the increase in enrollment.
“That adds to the challenge as well,” says Smith. “More students means you need more supplies, which themselves are more difficult to get because of the backlog caused by the disruption of the pandemic.”
Craig Smith (R), president of the Thames Valley Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario speaks with CTV’s Brent Lale on September 7, 2022, the first day back to school. (Brent Lale/CTV News London)TVDSB says they had to add significant classrooms to meet their enrollment. They project a student increase of more than 2,000 over a year ago.
The LDCSB says they processed the equivalent of 13 new classrooms worth of students this summer.
“Last week, we had about 160 registrations over the course of four days,” says Romeo.
He adds, “Even with that growth, I can say that we have students today on the first day of school, in classrooms, at their own desks with all the supplies they need to get started, but we do anticipate for continued growth throughout this year.”
While Summerside has controversially opened its doors over capacity with 12 portables, LDCSB added 20 new portables around the region to accommodate its growth, and has six more planning to arrive in October.
“We did our very best and particularly with portables or large furniture and equipment,” says Romeo.
“That was something we decided last year. Some of the smaller items like basic school supplies, those are easy to order and easy to deploy into schools if in fact we need it needed to meet further demand. But we're in a very good place for the start of the school year,” he adds.
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