Ministry of Education announces one-time funding to operate pools for one year

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Don’t pull the plug on the school pool issue just yet.

That appears to be the message as the provincial government has agreed to supply $4 million in one-time funding to keep the pools, which the Toronto District School Board has said it can’t continue to fund, operating for another year.

Michelle Despault, spokesperson in education minister Kathleen Wynne’s office, confirmed Thursday afternoon that the one-time funding will go toward the pools’ operation for a year to give time for a long-term solution to be found.

“The $4 million in funding is to operate the pools for one year while a longer term strategy is developed,” she said. “We’ve agreed that these are important community assets.”

Former Toronto mayor David Crombie, asked earlier this year to help find a solution by the TDSB, sent a letter to board chair John Campbell on Thursday, Aug. 7,  asking the board, the City of Toronto and the province to set up an aquatics working group.

“There is solid support for the development of a community-based, long-term strategy for the use of pools and a willingness to work together,” Crombie wrote.

Citing budgetary struggles, the Toronto board had decided to close 39 of its pools over a two-year period (23 this year and 16 next year) this past June.