Bobbing back to talk about schools and ‘economic reopening’. Schools are now the last thing to come back. Maybe. They’re an afterthought, despite the fact most adults have children, and childcare is the biggest barrier to economic re-engagement.

We’re bringing back gyms and nail salons before real childcare and schools. This is an utter failure of ambition. We have given up. We’re burying the fact that parents are at breaking point, and children have a legal right to education.

It was never tenable to give parents 40 hours of paid work, 30 hours of home school and 100 hours of parenting. But the fact that primarily women have miraculously been making the math work, leads politicians to think it’s OK

If we have one ambition as a country, one single big project we commit to, it should be safely re-opening schools. We should be inventive and invest hard

1) There is no economic recovery without schools. We cannot work while we parent and home school. These are three separate full time jobs. Never mind single parents.

2. Employers are pressing for return to the workplace. That’s fantasy for parents without school. What happens when employers make employment return upon contingent? They fire staff for failing to have lechrepauns care for their kids? Women will drop out of the workforce en masse

4. Most importantly, children have a universal right to quality education. It is an international obligation. I’m not sure why this hasn’t featured more. Maybe because we take it for granted? We don’t educate kids because it’s useful to adults, or an economic driver

5. We educate children because it's a universal right - it helps equalize disparate outcomes, it give disadvantaged kids a fairer shot at this rigged life, and provides socialization. Education is a United Nations right and we're depriving children currently

Kids’ experience of this pandemic without the safeguards of school make me upset. For many kids, this has been a traumatizing, frightening, hungry experience. The adult checkpoints they need disappeared. They’ve been left in abusive, neglectful and scaring situations

Let’s accept bringing schools back is hard. It requires leadership, ambition and funding. So what could it look like? It would start with provincial leadership that prioritized childcare and mandated and funded its bodies to make it work

I'm not a public health expert, but if we were determined to bring schools back because children have a legal right to education, we'd start by making that clear. You are to go to every length to get every child an in-person education as before. We will fund and resource you

It requires ambition and gumption. Each board and body would be challenged to come ups with ways to spread out kids physically while maintaining or increasing teacher ratio

So school board could work with city councils to requisition empty hockey arenas, mobile cabins and other spaces. The province would fast-track teacher trainees, and pair them with experienced mentors. I dunno, I'm not an expert but this seems reasonable

Bringing back schools safely is hard. But it's a failure of leadership if we don't move mountains to try. Our kids have a human and legal right. We can't restart the economy without it. If there's one place we should focus our efforts, it's this

Et....voila. Phil nails it https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1276688753524957185?s=20

Adding calculations from Dr Jen Robson of Carleton, on annual pre-tax earnings for women with school-aged children: $113bn, or 40% of household income at the mean. If even 1/4 of women drop out of the workforce, that’s a hell of an economic hit

Dr Robson (I’d tag her but she had to lock her account due to abuse) calculates women’s direct economic contributions - $113bn - as the same as the entire oil and gas industry. But who gets govt support?

If you've followed this thread and want to act - the pressure point is provincial, not the school board. Contact your MPP. I sent this to @LucilleCollard. I've been trying to talk to her for weeks, but no response. @maritstiles has been superb and understood the challenges