THUNDER BAY - Despite Ontario teachers and education workers and the provincial government nearing a possible deal, job action continues across the province with two local boards taking to the picket line.
The Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board and CSDC des Auroes Boreales joined dozens of other school boards across the province in a planned one-day strike on Thursday.
“In good faith we postponed and cancelled rotating strikes last week,” said Aldo Grillo, president of Ontario English Catholic Teacher’s Association Thunder Bay Elementary Unit. “We weren’t prepared to do that again if the government wasn’t willing to sign off on things.”
The Ford Government and Ontario teachers and education workers are closer to a deal than ever before since work stoppages began last year.
Earlier this week, Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced the government was willing to back down on the issues of class sizes and e-learning.
Originally the government was pushing for average high school class sizes to be 28 students to one teacher. Lecce offered to only increase that to 23 students next year, up from 22 last year.
“We hope it’s a step in the right direction though the words he used were not quite precise,” said Stefanie Middleton, a junior and senior kindergarten teacher at Franco Superior School. “He said he would cut back. But if you look back a few years ago the ratio was 22 to 1, but he said he would decrease to 23. I know I’m only a JK/SK teacher but I know that’s more than 22.”
In terms of e-learning, the government would allow for an opt-out option when previously it wanted it to be mandatory.
The province is not moving beyond offering a wage increase of one per cent a year, while the teachers unions were asking for two per cent on salary and six per cent on benefits.
“This isn’t a monetary issue, this is for the good of the students and the classroom,” Grillo said.
“We just all need to think long term and what is going to benefit the children the most and that’s having the most individualized attention as possible, being able to respond to the students who have special needs, being able to answer to what they need in the classroom, and having smaller class sizes,” Middleton added.
The two sides met on Wednesday and talks continued on Thursday in Toronto. Teachers and education workers accused the provincial government of allowing talks to break down in the past because of its unwillingness to budge on the issues of class sizes and e-learning.
Now that the government has agreed to budge, those on the picket line are hopeful this will mean an end to rotating strikes and job action and teachers and students can get back in the classroom.
“Certainly what’s been revealed publically is the two sides are close and now I think it’s a just a matter of them sitting down and getting this written up,” Grillo said. “We are certainly hoping things are moving in a positive direction today.”
“We’re hoping that the government is serious about making a settlement,” added Carlo Cappello, president of OETCA Secondary Thunder Bay. “What we saw the minister do at the podium is present options, but we haven’t seen any fine print at the table.”
There are no future strike days planned as of Thursday and despite teachers being back on the picket line with a deal so close, Cappello believes they still have the support of parents and the public.
“When you look at the public consultation piece the government put out on education, the public overwhelmingly supports our position in that we don’t believe in large class sizes or don’t believe in e-learning,” he said. “I think our position has resonated with the public and we still see a lot of public support on our side.”
