No copycats in schools — unless it’s for construction.

When it comes to new buildings and additions, the Ontario government is urging boards to use standard designs as well as prefabricated construction to save on costs — money Education Minister Stephen Lecce says could be instead used to pay for front-line services.

His ministry wants to run a pilot project over the next few years with willing boards to assess how well the prefabricated system works.

“We are taking decisive action to ensure students have safe and modern learning environments that enable their success in the classroom, in life, and in the labour market,” said Lecce’s spokesperson Alexandra Adamo, noting the province has promised $13 billion over the next 10 years for new builds and major renovations.

School boards that have used the modular method have found it to be faster and cheaper — but a densely populated city like Toronto poses challenges that don’t always make it the better option.

While it “reduces the construction schedule” and allowed the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to complete all of its full-day kindergarten additions on time, Facilities Officer Faris Mansur said from delivery with police escort to city congestion to on-site completion, the costs added up.

“Every delay, every obstacle, translates into money,” said Mansur, who is in charge of design, construction and maintenance at the TDSB, one of North America’s largest school boards.

While the Ontario Public School Boards Association welcomed the province’s announcement of $13 billion, President Cathy Abraham noted it is less than the $16 billion the previous Liberal government promised before last year’s election.

While the province has provided few details, using design templates and prefabricated construction might not work across the province, Abraham also said.

“Every school board, every community is different,” she said. “…It seems to me that a prefabricated school that’s good for Rainy River might not be good for the City of Toronto or the City of Ottawa or Kingston. I’m not sure how that’s going to work.”

Using prefabricated construction for additions has worked for some boards, she said, and reusing previous drawings for schools “might not be a horrible idea … it’s not the best, but it works.”

In the Kawartha Pine Ridge public board, where she is a trustee, “I have two schools with the same footprint” and the drawback is “you feel it’s not special to your community to have the exact same footprint as the other school.

“You walk into a Tim Horton’s or a McDonald’s and they pretty much look the same — I’m not sure that’s what we want for our schools.”

The Toronto District School Board used a prefabrication company based in Grimsby for its full-day kindergarten expansion several years ago, and Mansur said as the classrooms were being constructed, sites were simultaneously being prepped.

Because classrooms are fabricated inside, in ideal conditions, it’s an efficient method and produces a high-quality product, he said.

But then came the tough part — it had to be cut into portions to be transported to Toronto, adding to on-site work which led to higher labour costs. The required police escorts were tougher to schedule in the city.

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Toronto schools also don’t have as much land as outside the city, and crews had to work on narrow streets or work around overhead wires, and sometimes cranes had to brought in, he added.

Mansur — who just last month attended a conference on modular, or prefabricated, construction — said the board does consider the method for every building, and believes it could work in Scarborough or the northwest end where there’s more space.

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“Unfortunately, we could not take advantage of the (cost savings) like other boards,” for full-day kindergarten, said Mansur.

The Toronto board already reuses designs, and Mansur said other Ontario boards do too, sometimes changing the colour of the brick or adjusting templates to fit the site, so buildings aren’t identical.

The benefit of reusing designs is that corrections or improvements are found and can be incorporated the next time around, he added.

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