Job action continues to cancel school in WC

WEST CARLETON – All four major teachers’ unions are continuing with job action this week forcing the closures of schools in West Carleton in both boards.

Here is a list of planned strikes and work-to-rule campaigns.

Public Elementary Schools

The union representing Ontario’s public elementary school teachers, the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO), has scheduled rotating strikes for every day of the coming week, including a province-wide strike on Tuesday where all 83,000 members of will walk off their jobs.

ETFO said the rolling strikes mean that each school board in the province will strike twice next week — once on Tuesday’s province-wide walkout, and again on a designated day of the week.

West Carleton public schools will be closed on Tuesday, Feb. 11 and Thursday, Feb. 13.

Public High Schools

Ontario’s high school teachers at nine boards will go on a one-day strike on Thursday, Feb. 13. Affected districts include Peel, Superior-Greenstone, Greater Essex Country, Avon Maitland, Niagara, Limestone, Renfrew and Huron-Superior Catholic.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) says members will also continue their work-to-rule campaign, which started in November. Teachers will not participate in staff meetings outside school hours or provide comments in report cards.

Catholic Schools

The union representing Ontario’s English Catholic teachers has announced it will ramp up its administrative job action on Tuesday. The new action means teachers will only execute scheduled teaching and supervision duties and won’t accept additional work. Teachers will still participate in extracurricular activities and go through with parent-teacher interviews if they’ve been scheduled.

Catholic teachers have already stopped preparing report cards, participating in standardized testing or attending Ministry of Education initiatives as part of an effort launched in January.

The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) says it’s trying to minimize the effect of the job action on students.

Ontario French Schools

Twelve-thousand members of the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO) will begin walking off the job once a week, with the first strike planned for Thursday.

AEFO says it will also continue its work-to-rule program, in which members of the union no longer complete some administrative duties.

The union recently met at the bargaining table but negotiations ended before an agreement was met.