Advocacy
Oakwood Vaughan Community Organization

The Oakwood Vaughan Community Organization hosted a community talk and discussion on the future of the Vaughan Road Academy building and grounds on Wednesday evening, September 21 at the Verity Centre for Better Living at 449 Vaughan Road. 

At this time, the VRA building and grounds are designated as a “holding site” or “core holding” by the TDSB.  Students from other communities whose buildings are being renovated are able to use it for a limited period of time and are typically bussed there.  For example, Davisville Junior Public School and Spectrum Alternative School used the school building and grounds before the pandemic. 

No school used the premises this past school year.  

Moreover, it was difficult to gain use of any rooms in the school despite its remaining empty aside from the child care centre and Parks Forestry and Recreation programming.

Students from Hodgson Public School were scheduled to arrive this fall, but instead, their teachers are the only ones who will use classrooms in order to teach remotely.

It is unconscionable that decisions on the use of this important local facility are made by the TDSB year-to-year. We are unaware of any longer-term plans for its use.  Nothing has been communicated to our community.

Prior to the pandemic, OV community residents attending large community meetings organized by Oakwood Vaughan Neighbourhood Action Partnership (OV NAP) clearly expressed their wishes that the former VRA become a multi-purpose community centre/hub. 

Read the summary from the September 21, 2022 meeting HERE.

On March 9, 2020, OVCO partnered with Unison Health and Community Services, in collaboration with Hoodnet Academy Nonprofit, to host a community safety forum and dinner for the OV neighbourhood. The event was a great success with more than 70 people in attendance. Following community discussion, calls to action were generated and sent to elected officials. We are currently awaiting response. Read the report of the evening here🔗. 

OVCO knows that community safety is important to all of us. To contribute to the ongoing conversation on community safety, OVCO wrote a position paper that outlines outlines a proposal for working together to create a stronger and safer OV community. Read it here🔗.

In August 2016, the provincial government published “Enabling & Celebrating Community Hubs One-Year Progress Update on Community Hubs in Ontario: A Strategic Framework and Action Plan” (available here🔗) where they describe how to make surplus schools function as community hubs.

To date, the TDSB has not created a policy framework for such hubs.  In 2016/17, two motions were put forward and passed which essentially required the Board to do so.  In order to create such a framework, it is essential to have both a vision and a detailed plan.

Communities must understand that schools which are core holdings are under the management of the Board and that a degree of organization is required in order to partner effectively with the Board; the Board must understand that they are partners with their communities and be open to working with formal and informal community-based partnerships.  Together they can effectively safeguard publicly owned and managed spaces in communities and advocate for appropriate core funding to better enable the provincial vision.

This paper is the first step towards creating a policy. It was written by our sister organization, OV NAP, with significant input from OVCO's chair, Bill Worrell, and two of our directors, Lyba Spring and Sue Sneyd. Read the report here🔗.