ALL OF OUR CHILDREN ARE GOING TO SUFFER BECAUSE THE MINISTER WANTS TO TRY TO SAVE

0.0149625935%

FROM THE BUDGET THAT IS STILL PROJECTED TO GROW FROM $40.1 BILLION (2024-25) TO $43.2 BILLION (2027-2028)


We are losing some of the most important and consequential programs in our education system.

As a concerned parent and also a parent who has themselves experienced the benefits of the outdoor education programs in the city, during my time in school, I feel it is time we take a stand against these very draconian and very ill-conceived budget cuts. Outdoor education is integral to who we are as Canadians. We should teach our children to appreciate and understand the natural world around them. Our children have enough stimuli that are damaging their growth. Outdoor education is an opportunity that should be afforded to every single child in our province, so that they understand their connection to the natural world and all that it can give them, and what our children can do to preserve it.

The ministry is prioritizing the education demands of the families moving out of the city, and our families in the city are suffering because of it. I support greater funding for all of every single child in this province. I would even venture to say that we parents are all willing to stomach greater spending being dedicated towards the education and care of our children inside of our schools, even if it means we are having to make sacrifices in other parts of the government. This ministry has a budget in the multiple billions, and it's projected to grow. All of the cuts to the Toronto District School Board's Outdoor Education program have done nothing to curb the growth in the board's budget.

BUDGET IRREGULARITIES AND TERRIBLE MANAGEMENT

https://fao-on.org/en/report/estimates-2025-edu/

In the 2025 Ontario Budget, the Province projects that Ministry of Education spending will grow at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent, from $40.1 billion in 2024-25 to $43.2 billion in 2027-28.

TDSB OUTDOOR EDUCATION PROGRAM SHARE OF THE ONTARIO EDUCATION SPENDING BUDGET

$6 Million

Meaning the budget cuts would produce the following amount if they were to gut the program entirely

0.0149625935%

We aren't a poor province, or country, or city; this is just a failure of management and not understanding that the time it took to approve and push these cuts through (management level highly paid individuals having countless meetings, and discussing every minute detail) was itself a huge bill that we have to all pay now.

We write on behalf of the thousands of families, educators, and community members connected to the Toronto District School Board's Outdoor Education program. On May 14, 2026, we learned that seven of the TDSB's outdoor education centres are being closed or wound down at the end of this school year. Only Hillside (day) and Mono Cliffs (overnight) will remain. The centres being eliminated are Warren Park, the Toronto Urban Studies Centre, Forest Valley, Kearney, Sheldon, the Etobicoke Outdoor Education Centre, and the Island Natural Science School.

We are writing to ask you to intervene.

What is actually being lost

For most TDSB students, an outdoor education centre is the only time in their school career that the classroom is replaced by a forest, a shoreline, a wetland, or a meadow. For many, it is the first time in their lives. Toronto is one of the most densely urban environments in Canada. The children who attend our public schools live in apartments, in shelters, in newcomer households, in neighbourhoods without backyards, without cottages, without the family resources that allow some children to know what a frog sounds like at dusk or what soil smells like after rain. Outdoor education is, for those children, the one chance the public system gives them to stand inside the natural world and recognise themselves as part of it.

That encounter is not decorative. It is formational. The student who cannot sit still in a classroom can track a deer for an hour. The child who will not speak in a group will whisper to a chickadee on their hand. The teenager who has been written off finds, sometimes for the first time, that they are competent — that they can paddle a canoe, build a fire, name a tree, read a sky. These are not soft outcomes. They are the foundations of mental health, of belonging, of resilience.

The Island Natural Science School

Among the seven centres being eliminated, the Island Natural Science School warrants particular attention. It is the oldest outdoor education centre in North America, continuously operating since 1960. Located on Toronto Island, it has served TDSB students for over sixty-five years. It is not merely a programme; it is an institution of continental significance, woven into the educational history of this city and its waterfront. Once that site is gone from public education, it does not return. Closing it would be an irreversible act, permanently erasing a public asset that cannot be rebuilt — and doing so at a moment when the Island itself faces additional pressure from proposed airport expansion.

The equity argument

Wealthy families in this city will be fine. Their children already have cottages, summer camps, family cabins, weekend hikes. The children who will lose the most when these centres close are the children with the least access to nature in the first place — students in Toronto Community Housing, in low-income postal codes, newcomer students, racialized students, students whose families work two jobs and cannot drive them to a provincial park. For these children, the TDSB outdoor education centres are the equalizer. They are the public commitment that every Toronto child, regardless of income, gets to know the land they live on. Closing seven centres at once does not modernize outdoor education. It transfers a public good — built up over more than sixty years — into a private privilege available only to families who can afford to replace it.

The maintenance argument does not apply to most of these centres.

The TDSB has publicly justified these closures by citing tens of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance. That figure, on examination, applies only to a subset of the affected sites. Several of the centres being eliminated — including the Island Natural Science School, the Toronto Urban Studies Centre, Warren Park, and Sheldon — do not carry significant maintenance liabilities and can continue operating without major capital investment. They are being closed not because they are crumbling, but because they are being lumped into a single budget decision alongside sites that genuinely do require repair. This is not a maintenance problem. It is a policy choice — and one that is being presented to the public under a financial rationale that does not honestly describe what is happening.

The cost equation is incomplete

Even where real maintenance costs exist, outdoor education is preventative infrastructure. It reaches students struggling with anxiety, focus, attendance, and disengagement before they require far more expensive interventions through mental health systems, social services, or youth justice. With Ontario youth mental health referrals at record highs, these programs are among the most cost-effective tools available to public education. Every dollar withdrawn here will reappear, multiplied, elsewhere in the public ledger.

When these centres close, the Board loses decades of educator expertise that cannot be quickly rebuilt; curriculum-connected, interdisciplinary learning from Kindergarten through Grade 12; proven support for mental health, physical literacy, and truth and reconciliation outcomes; and irreplaceable access to Toronto's own natural environments as places of learning.

What we are asking

We are not asking for the status quo indefinitely. We are asking for three things:

An immediate pause on all seven closures pending a genuine, transparent community consultation process — one that includes parents, educators, students, Indigenous knowledge holders, and the wider Toronto community whose tax dollars built these programs.

A site-by-site review of the actual maintenance and operating costs of each centre, so that closure decisions are based on facts specific to each site rather than a single aggregate figure. Centres that can continue without significant capital investment — including the Island Natural Science School, the Toronto Urban Studies Centre, Warren Park, and Sheldon — should not be closed under a maintenance rationale that does not apply to them.

A provincial accounting of the true long-term cost of eliminating outdoor education access, measured against the rising costs of youth mental health services, school disengagement, and the loss of nature connection in a generation of urban children. This accounting should examine every funding pathway — including federal heritage and environmental education funding, conservation authority partnerships, and philanthropic support — before any closure is finalized.

The families of Toronto built these programs over generations. They trusted the public system to steward them. The decision announced on May 14 has shaken that trust deeply. There is still time to rebuild it, but the window is short. Once leases end and sites are repurposed, the loss is permanent.