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Ann Fitzpatrick and David Lee |
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Ann Fitzpatrick and David Lee
report
on the fight to regain free access to Ontario schools for sport
programs. There are lessons for all Canadians.
Ann
Fitzpatrick
What do the Coach of the Year (2001) of the Valley Hoopstars Youth
Basketball League in Renfrew County (Ontario) and a community worker
from the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto have in common? Although
geographically far apart, we both care deeply about development
opportunities for children and youth. We are both part of the SPACE
Coalition (Save Public Access to Community Space Everywhere), a network
working to resolve the crisis in Ontario where many groups are being
shut out of our schools because of permit fee hikes. SPACE is a diverse
network of community organizations, sport leagues, Boys and Girls
clubs, Guides and Scouts, social planning groups, children’s
organizations, and settlement agencies.
In 1997, Ontario introduced a new education funding formula, which for
the first time encouraged boards of education to collect permit fees
for community use of schools. In addition, school funding levels were
inadequate for capital repairs, maintenance, and utility costs. As a
result, some programs faced large fee hikes for the use of gyms and
fields and for caretaking fees. Some groups have had fees go up by over
1,000 per cent in a year. Others have gone from free access to gyms to
over $96,000 annually to run their programs.
As a result, too many community organizations, including sport leagues,
can no longer afford to use our school gyms and facilities for
programs. Schools are public facilities built and paid for by
taxpayers, and the community should have affordable access. There is
much evidence across Ontario of adverse impacts including closures or
reductions in programs, exhausted and demoralized coaches and
volunteers trying to raise funds to pay fees, and, in many cases, new
user fees passed through to the participants, creating barriers to
participation.
How can coaches run programs without gym space? How can Guides and
Scouts be accessible to communities without affordable space? How can
early childhood development programs, school literacy, and homework
clubs operate without free or affordable space? Without space to
function, the foundation to support the volunteers, coaches, parents,
and community groups across Ontario is beginning to crumble.
If we do not restore the historical access to schools that we have
enjoyed in Ontario, we all will lose. Keeping our schools open and
accessible to programs after school, on weekends, and in the summer is
a smart investment in our children and youth, supporting their healthy
growth and development. Numerous studies have shown that we invest now
or pay later. For example, Statistics Canada and Human Resource
Development Canada research (2002) found that children who participate
in after-school sport, art or club activities tend to perform better in
school. We need to offer children and youth high-quality sports and
recreation activities to reduce the national trend to higher rates of
childhood obesity and early-onset diabetes. Access to good after-school
programs is also recognized as a crime prevention initiative.
A number of surveys have documented the disturbing trends following the
rising of fees to use our schools, including the Basketball Ontario
Survey conducted by David Lee in 2002 and the Provincial Sport
Organization Council survey in 2003 (www.basketball.on.ca,
www.unitedwaytoronto.com, www.socialplanningtoronto.org,
www.peopleforeducation.com).
The only bright light on the horizon is the growing numbers of
volunteers, coaches, and community organizations across Ontario that
are standing up together to fight back to reclaim access to our
schools.
Before the recent provincial election, on behalf of the Liberal Party
of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty outlined his party’s commitment in a letter
to SPACE (September 18, 2003): “Schools are the hubs of their
communities and must be available for community use. The Eves
government has starved our public schools, forcing boards to look for
revenue sources wherever they can find them. We will properly fund
public education so schools can serve the needs of their communities. …
We will amend the funding formula so it reflects the true costs of
operating school facilities. We will work with stakeholder groups to
develop an appropriate strategy for funding the community use of
schools. The Ontario Liberal Plan for a healthy Ontario supports
community sport and recreation. We know that sport and recreation keep
us healthy and strengthen our communities. …The effects of inactive
living cost our health care system $1.1 billion every year. We will do
more to support active living.”
Join us in the weeks and months ahead to meet with and send letters to
local MPPs and key ministers in the new government to make these
promises a reality. When we solve this problem, we can put our energies
back where they belong: developing and sustaining social, cultural, and
recreational opportunities for children and youth across our province.
For more information on SPACE,
see www.socialplanning.org or e-mail amfitzpatrick@TorontoCAS.ca.
David Lee
As a community coach, I have benefited from professional coaches, and I
would like to add my own comments to those of Ann Fitzpatrick.
As most coaches are aware, ensuring that community sports have
affordable access to facilities is central to developing feeder
systems. Community-level sport is part of the continuum in sport
excellence that sparks early enthusiasm, provides basic skills, and
culminates in elite performance and lifelong interest.
When Valley Hoopstars began, we wanted to combine high-quality skill
development with exercise and fun for as many interested boys and girls
aged 10 to 15 as possible. In our mostly rural area of small towns and
villages, we thought a shared recreational club could make good things
happen. By forming a single club, we wanted to share limited resources
for insurance, coaching knowledge, and tournaments. We would keep the
individual cost below $10, excluding optional costs of jerseys and
rubber basketballs. No child would be turned away.
In two years, Valley Hoopstars grew to over 220 children. Teams formed
within a huge 2,500 sq km area where parent-coaches with access to
school gyms were located: Eganville, Barry's Bay, Pembroke, Deep River,
Petawawa, and Golden Lake. The success of our club was recognized with
my selection as Ontario Male Community Coach of the Year in 2001.
A key to our success was putting parent-coaches in contact with a
professional coach who shared their vision. John Scobie (Women’s
Basketball, Carleton University) provided a customized Level 1 NCCP
technical course. He told us that a coach had made all the difference
in his life. He ran us through teaching progressions in the gym and he
raised awareness of tapes and books that would to stimulate study and
preparation. He gave us the confidence to continue learning how to
coach.
However, no further expansion has occurred in the past year. The main
deterrent is access to gyms that are not being used. The Eganville team
had difficulty finding space and folded. In Deep River, where I
coached, 40 years of weekend access by community leaders ended when the
public school board decided that a custodian had to open and close the
school. For over 40 years, trusted leaders had booked gym time through
the town, picked up keys at the fire hall, operated the security alarm,
and taken responsibility for the gym wing of the high school. The
weekend custodian requirement drove costs from zero to $30/hr, with a
$120 minimum charge (equivalent to the emergency call-out fee for the
custodian). Our kids also lost a meaningful summer league program that
the town had run for years.
Unjustifiable fees now plague gym-based community sport activities in
Ontario. They hamper the development of youth activities, especially
cold-weather sports. It is a troubling legacy of the recently deposed
provincial government.
If fees are making it difficult to continue existing programs, they
make it even harder to start new ones. Without access, we could not
have started Valley Hoopstars; it would have been impossible to
organize a group, get trained and find big bucks for space.
Creating and expanding sports activity at the local level is pivotal.
In my opinion, professional and community coaches can work together
to
- make more broadly known the societal benefits that
derive from
sports participation: If the public consider amateur sport at all, they
sometimes think, "You are just in this for yourself." When high-profile
coaches put energy into supporting community-based sport, they make it
clearer that "We must to do what's best for children.”
- draw attention to programs that show the social values of
youth sport: The more inclusive these activities are, the
better.
- encourage the continuous training of
locally screened community
coaches: These people are already playing a significant role at the
grassroots level. There should be more of them, playing an even larger
role.
- lobby for affordable use of public
facilities that already exist
and partner with others who have a vision for youth, such as performing
arts leaders: Sport groups alone may not be able to rid our communities
of unreasonable fees that do nothing but marginalize low-to-mid-income
families. We need to broaden public awareness, first by establishing
access and then by helping community coaches.
- push
for a return to the pre-1997 situation in Ontario, where
community leaders were allowed to access existing, tax-paid gym
facilities: Let it be known that this access is workable and
cost-effective.
Coaches, we need your help. If you are not already involved in
activities that are prerequisite to sport, there may be nothing
stopping you from starting today. Your creativity and renewed efforts
in your own locale could really help to generate the growth of feeder
systems.
If we can solve the access problem, we will have played a valuable role
in improving citizenship and fitness and we will see positive results
at the elite level.
The SPACE coalition members
include
Boys and Girls Clubs of Ontario, Girl Guides of Canada, Ontario
Council, Scouts Canada – Greater Toronto Region, Parks and Recreation
Ontario, Ontario Special Olympics, Basketball Ontario, Provincial Sport
Organization Council, Erin Hoops, Valley Hoopstars, Collingwood
Trailblazer Basketball Youth Organization, Applegrove Community
Complex, Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Early Years Action Group –
North Quadrant, Toronto, Community Social Planning Council of Toronto,
Family Services Association, and Culturelink.
Ann Fitzpatrick
is a community worker with the Children's Aid Society of Toronto. Her
work at the CAS of Toronto is part of their commitment to the
prevention of circumstances leading to child abuse and neglect and to
building on community and children’s and families'
capacities.
David Lee
is an environmental scientist with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. He
served in the U.S. military in Vietnam in 1969–70 and then did
postgraduate work at the University of North Dakota, Virginia Tech and
the University of Waterloo, where he teaches each April as an adjunct
professor. He enjoys coaching youth basketball and staying fit by
jogging and skiing. He can be reached at drlee@magma.ca.
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COACHES OF CANADA
