Fifteen new schools will be built across the GTA and at least seven others will get additions or renovations as part of Ontario’s promised plan to address its mounting backlog of school repairs.

In June, Education Minister Mitzie Hunter pledged $2.7 billion over the next two years to cover an assortment of fixes to boilers, roofs, windows and other structural problems in its aging school system.

Now the province has released details of plans to build 28 new schools across Ontario, and to renovate or expand an additional 23. The projects, totaling $474 million, represent “a strategic investment in student achievement and well-being,” Hunter said in a statement Friday.

In Halton Region, five new elementary and secondary schools will be built in the booming area surrounding Milton, with $77 million from the province.

A total of $67 million is earmarked for Peel region, where five elementary schools in Brampton and Caledon will be constructed, along with an addition to a Mississauga middle school.

York Region will see a new Catholic school in Stouffville and a new elementary school in Markham, as well as renovations to accommodate full-day kindergarten students at a Thornhill location, to the tune of $44 million.

The province will invest $24 million in Toronto to replace the existing St. Antoine Daniel Catholic School with a new building in North York, pay for additions at Hodgson Senior Public School in central Toronto and Courcelette Public School in Scarborough, and to renovate two east-end high schools, Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute and Monarch Park Collegiate.

Two new elementary schools in Oshawa will be built through a $21-million investment in Durham Region.

Krista Wylie, founder of the Fix Our Schools campaign, stressed the details released Friday amount to a report back to taxpayers on how money already allocated will actually be spent.

The $2.7-billion investment announced earlier for school repairs brings annual expenditures in line with what’s needed to keep the overall infrastructure from further deteriorating, she said. However, it’s unclear whether that money will be enough to also start reducing the ballooning repair backlog, now estimated at a whopping $15 billion, she said.

The investment in building new schools will help chip away at that backlog, Wylie added.

Toronto parent Koo Chun, a member of the Hodgson parent council, welcomed the news about the middle school’s addition because it desperately needs more space for the Grade 6 students who will attend starting next year. Adding the younger grade will boost the school population to 900 kids from the current 600 in Grades 7 and 8.

“The funding is great news, I’m glad it’s happening because it’s the only way to accommodate all those kids,” she said.

School boards in some of the fastest-growing regions were relieved at the news Friday.

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“Building new schools is good news for everyone as we work to provide the best facilities and programming for our students,” said Michael Barrett, chair of the Durham District School Board and trustee in Oshawa, where spaces are in demand.

Story has been updated from a previous version.

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