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Newsstand: August 28, 2015
It's almost school! The seasons come and go, don't they? In the news: the Catholic school board is building a new school, Toronto South Detention Centre is facing another problem, and former school board chair Chris Spence is under fire for professional misconduct.
The Toronto Catholic District School Board has voted to expropriate 17 homes near Bayview and Cummer in order to build a new school. The board was considering either that option, which will leave the school with a small outdoor play area; expropriating 30 homes, for a school and larger outdoor area; or starting from the beginning to find a new space for the school. The people living in the townhouses that are being expropriated “are going to be compensated and then some,” according to TCDSB chair Mike Del Grande. The homes are worth between $800,000 and $1 million right now, and people have one year to find somewhere else to live. The school, whose construction is set to begin next year, will house 850 students.
Toronto South Detention Centre, which was expected to be a standard-setting jail facility, has been plagued by problems since before it opened. The latest in that long line of issues is breaking windows, which the jail’s contractors apparently were not obligated to make unbreakable. The windows will be replaced with unbreakable polycarbonate sheets, but at the province’s expense as the company behind the jail’s construction appears to have upheld all its contractual requirements. Integrated Team Solutions, a consortium of construction and financial backers, has a 30-year contract for building and maintaining the jail. Other problems plaguing the jail are consistent low morale among staff (more than half the guards have applied for transfers) and frequent lockdowns due to understaffing.
Chris Spence, who resigned from the Toronto District School Board in 2013 after admitting to plagiarism and who is in a fight at the University of Toronto over allegedly plagiarizing some of his doctoral thesis, will now also be facing a disciplinary hearing by the Ontario College of Teachers. OCT is charging Spence with professional misconduct.