Job actions continue next week with all elementary schools in the Upper Grand District School Board closed on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 10 and Feb. 11.
Secondary schools in the UGDSB are expected to be open as usual.
No strikes are planned at this time for Wellington Catholic District School Board schools, although there will be some administrative job actions.
The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario — which represents 83,000 education workers in the province — sent five-day notices to school boards and authorities across the province to continue their rotating strikes across the province.
Elementary schools in the UGDSB will participate in the rotating strike on Feb. 10 and also in a province-wide strike for all ETFO members Feb. 11.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) will be intensifying their administrative job action beginning Feb. 11 by only undertaking their scheduled teaching and supervision duties and not accepting any additional tasks or assignments.
Any parent-teacher interviews will go ahead as scheduled and teachers will be allowed to participate in extra-curricular activities.
OECTA represents approximately 45,000 teachers across the province who teach students from kindergarten to Grade 12.
In a press release, OECTA president Liz Stuart said the job action is necessary to demonstrate how serious the union is about standing up for what is right.
“Our students are our priority,” said Stuart.
“We will continue to do what we can to advocate for our students while trying to minimize the disruption to their day-to-day lives. While all job action is difficult for everyone involved, Catholic teachers sincerely believe this short-term inconvenience is necessary to voice our concerns and maintain our world-class publicly funded education system.”
In a press release, ETFO President Sam Hammond stated that from the ETFO’s perspective, fair contract talks must include appropriate funding for special education by including a strategy to address classroom violence, maintaining kindergarten programs and fair hiring practices.
“ETFO’s 83,000 public elementary school educators will be on the picket lines again next week in the hope that the Ford government and Education Minister Lecce will return to talks prepared to support public education,” said Hammond.
“It is clear that they are not going to accept the government’s deep cuts to public education. The Minister and his team must come to the table with a mandate to reach a deal that benefits students, student learning and educators.”
