Ontario is investing $498 million to build new schools, renovate existing schools and build new child care spaces to give families more options for licensed child care facilities that are closer to home.

Over the next few months, this investment will go towards building 30 new schools, providing major additions and renovations to 26 schools and creating 122 safe, high-quality licensed child care rooms, resulting in 2,135 new licensed spaces for infants, toddlers and preschool-age children, following an April 2015 investment of $120 million over three years to build child care spaces in schools across the province.

Over the next 10 years, Ontario has committed over $11 billion to school boards across the province to help build new schools in areas of high growth, to help improve the condition of already-operational schools and invest in projects to minimize surplus space through school consolidations. Since 2003, Ontario has provided about $13.4 billion in school infrastructure, including 755 new schools and over 720 additions and renovations.

Ontario is creating more licensed child care spaces within local schools to help ease the transition for children between attending child care and full-day kindergarten. The new child care spaces are being built in areas of high demand.

“Our government is proud to invest in capital projects that are improving students’ learning environments and increasing access to quality licensed child care,” said Liz Sandals, Minister of Education, in a press release. “These projects are bringing students and communities together – and in some cases reducing the cost of under-used space so we can reinvest savings back into the classroom.”