In a computer room at Emery Adult Learning Centre, the window sills are littered with dust and dried-up rodent droppings. The room is lined with dozens of desktops with expired warranties. Across the hall, 40 adult students of all races and ages sit, packed in an overcrowded classroom watching a film for their Grade 11 English course.
Emery student Rochelle Ramsey, 31, returned to high school to obtain courses needed to pursue a career in nursing. Emery Adult Learning Centre is one of five adult high schools left in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).
“With my math class, the books are delayed so we have to use our own resources. Our own phones, our laptops if we have one. Some people don’t,” she said.
“I do think they can provide more resources for us to make it more motivating. It can be discouraging if [resources are] not consistent.”
Telling our own stories.
Creating community-powered journalism that centres and celebrates Black, Indigenous and communities of colour in Canada.
Tattered books, dirty bathrooms and limited resources are just some of the issues faced by students and teachers as a result of insufficient funding in Toronto’s adult day schools.
In the 2023-2024 school year, adult day schools cost the TDSB an estimated $16,296,953.
Today, these adult day schools serve 12,000 students across the city. Advocates say the program, which provides a high school education to adults, is severely underfunded. The adult high schools are also vulnerable to budget cuts.
Deborah Buchanan-Walford, an English high school teacher at Emery, has been working with the TDSB for eight years. In that time, she has seen students suffer restricted access to resources and what she describes as an “unhealthy” amount of students in classrooms built for fewer people.
Classrooms in adult schools are practically bursting at the seams compared to regular secondary day schools which have a target average of 23 students per class as per the Ministry of Education. She said it’s not uncommon for adult day schools to have 50 students per class.
“Anything you can think of that would be required for a school to run at its best capacity is lacking. I can say that for my school,” Buchanan-Walford said.
“Right now, at my site, we have books falling apart, all of our computers are outdated and we don’t have enough computers for the students that we have.”
The issue of limited resources in Ontario schools is not a new plight among school workers, but Buchanan-Walford said it’s especially prevalent in adult schools.
This past spring, the Toronto District School Board proposed a restructuring of the adult high schools as a way to balance their budget for the 2024-2025 year. It’s not clear what a restructuring of the program would entail.
“Adult day school teachers do not have many of the same rights and entitlements as regular day school teachers,” said Michelle Teixeira, president of the Ontario Secondary School Federation Toronto.
“[Adult day school teachers] are not compensated for the additional time outside of the classroom, they’re only paid for the time they’re in front of students,” said Teixeira.
“I think it comes from that disregard of people like that in our society.”
Buchanan-Walford said this doesn’t include the time it takes to prep, or pay during winter, spring and summer breaks. In reality, she said adult day school teachers can work up to five to 15 additional unpaid hours a week depending on how many classes they teach.
Buchanan-Walford believes there’s a perception that the work adult high school teachers do is worth less than regular day school teachers despite it being the exact same curriculum.
“There’s this lack of respect, really. For the students, and for the teachers,” she said.
“When it comes to the general attitude of the board towards our students, we’re just habitually neglected — in documents, in procedures, in newsletters etc. It’s like we’re not there, even though we have a lot of students.”
The TDSB has not conducted a census on its adult learners since the 2014-2015 academic year. However, Teixeira said the majority of students in adult day school are racialized folks and newcomers to Canada.
Buchanan-Walford believes this is one of the main reasons adult day schools often get overlooked and passed up for funding.
“I think it comes from that disregard of people like that in our society,” she said.
For Buchanan-Walford the obligation she feels for students goes beyond just that of an educator.
After being a teacher in Jamaica, she migrated to Canada expecting to continue teaching teenage students. She said she got into adult teaching while searching for employment in a regular day school.
“I love teaching the adults, and I love the fact that I’m still doing my job,” she explained. “But to be honest there’s another level of meaning. Knowing these are people I can relate to as an immigrant myself.”
Unfair compensation for teachers and limited materials aren’t the only ways Buchanan-Walford said those in adult schools are impacted by underfunding. Students also feel they don’t receive the right support to help them navigate their careers, postgraduation.
“There’s this lack of respect, really. For the students, and for the teachers.”
Manuel Narvaez migrated to Canada four years ago from Nicaragua, where he worked for 18 years as an agricultural engineer. He’s been an adult student at Emery for two years, and hopes that he can continue his career as an engineer after obtaining his Ontario diploma.
He says there’s no one at the school to provide guidance on what steps he should take to pursue that career in Canada after graduation.
“I am in limbo,” he said. For Narvaez, the prospect of potentially needing to study another five years post-grad is exhausting, but he’s received no opportunities for counsel within the school.
“I don’t know. I’m lost in space . . . I feel like a fish outside of water. It’s terrible.”
Buchanan-Walford notes that a lack of quality support is one of the many ways adult students are impacted, saying, “They’re doubly disenfranchised by having to go back to school and then also not getting the same quality education [as teenage students].”
The TDSB told The Resolve that there are no current plans to cut the adult high school programs. Buchanan-Walford says she’s not reassured by the school board’s statement that there are no plans to cut its adult high schools.
“Yes, they’re going to keep [adult day schools] open, but in what condition?” she said.
For now, she is calling on better attention for the program.
“The boards like to talk about and a sense of belonging and respect for students . . . [It’s] a lot of lip service. I don’t see that for the adult students and I’d like to see that. I think they deserve that,” she said.” “I would want [the board] to look beyond the dollars and cents and find a way to make the program better and to live up to the policies that they claim that they espouse to publicly.”
Rochelle Ramsay says she hopes to see changes within the school like a cleaner environment for students.
“Oh my gosh, the bathroom is . . . I don’t even want to go in there to wash my hands…that’s how bad it is.”
We’re counting on readers like you
The Resolve creates community-powered independent journalism centring and celebrating Black, Indigenous and communities of colour in Canada. If you think this work is important, join us and become a founding member of The Resolve.
