Extra-curriculars, field trips affected by job action
By Jenn Watt
Published Jan. 14, 2019
Elementary school teachers are not participating in field trips or
supervising extra-curricular activities in order to demonstrate their
frustration with contract talks with the provincial government.
On Monday, Jan. 13, members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of
Ontario, which includes all of the elementary schools in Haliburton
County, escalated their job action.
Additionally, ETFO indicated that rotating strikes would commence
beginning Jan. 20 if critical issues were not addressed by the
government by Jan. 17.
“In six months of contract talks, the Ford government’s education
minister has given his negotiators no mandate to discuss anything other
than cuts to education including a $150-million cut to public elementary
education,” said ETFO president Sam Hammond in a statement. “That’s why
there has been negligible progress on substantive issues like supports
for special education, protecting the kindergarten model, addressing
classroom-based violence and compensation that keeps up with the cost of
inflation.”
ETFO members will also arrive to work no earlier than 30 minutes before
the start of instruction and will leave within 15 minutes following the
end of the instructional day.
“Contract talks are not being helped by Ford’s Education Minister
Stephen Lecce making public announcements that misrepresent what his
team is doing at the bargaining table. The disconnect is so great that
we’re left shaking our heads,” Hammond said. “Minister Lecce claims in
public that there will be no changes to the kindergarten model, but
refuses to make that commitment during bargaining. The minister claims
salary is the main sticking point in bargaining, yet it’s been a topic
that has received hardly any discussion over months of bargaining.”
Lecce responded to ETFO’s escalation last week by calling on union
leaders to back down. “Union leaders promised that their escalation
would not impact students and their learning. Regrettably, they have
again broken that promise, however we will uphold our commitment to
parents, to stay at the bargaining table and work as hard as it takes to
reach a deal, that keeps students in class,” he said in a statement on
Jan. 9.
“We have delivered a ratified deal, and most recently a tentative deal,
with education unions to date, and we are working to deliver further
agreements that achieve our priority of keeping students in class.”
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation has also been putting
pressure on the province following fruitless negotiations. Following the
announcement of another one-day rotating strike, Lecce reiterated that
students should be in class.
“It is most concerning that teacher unions’ leaders disagree and
continue to impede learning for the next generation. Our government is
focused on landing deals that keep students in class so that we end the
frustrating experience families face due to predictable union
escalation,” he said. “This continued strike action is unfair to
students and their families.”
OSSTF members at Haliburton Highlands Secondary School and the alternate
education centre participated in two one-day strikes in December, but
are not scheduled to participate in the Jan. 15 one-day action.
High school teachers will also not be supervising EQAO standardized
testing, which the Trillium Lakelands District School Board said would
require adjustments.
“Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB) will not be able to
administer the Grade 9 EQAO math assessment without teacher
supervision,” a labour update on the school board’s website reads. “The
Grade 9 EQAO math assessment will be postponed for all TLDSB secondary
schools until normal circumstances prevail. As this will impact final
mark calculations for students, the final 30 per cent of Grade 9 math
marks will be a combination of a culminating activity and the final exam
as per the Ministry of Education Growing Success document.”
OSSTF has said it opposes the province’s move to increase class sizes
and institute mandatory e-learning. They’ve also asked for
cost-of-living increases, which Lecce has said would be prohibitively
expensive.
