QUEEN'S PARK -- Ontario's Education Minister says a decision on the upcoming Grade 9 standardized math test—scheduled for next Monday—will be made "in very short order" amid warnings from public schools boards that the test cannot be salvaged.
As part of their work-to-rule campaign, thousands of public high school teachers stopped preparation work for the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) exam, leaving school administrators in charge of giving students the test.
Officials with the Peel District School Board tell CTV News Toronto they believe it would be "extremely difficult" for schools to continue with the test, which is scheduled to begin on Jan. 13, without teacher involvement.
"(Teachers) play a key role in the administration of that assessment and it would be very challenging for the board to do it on its own," spokesperson Carla Pereiera told CTV News Toronto.
"There could be hundreds of students in Grade 9 who are taking the assessment at the same time, principals would need to be monitoring and supervising all of those assessments being written."
The concerns echo a letter from the Ontario Principals' Council to Education Minister Stephen Lecce last December, which called on the government to either postpone the test or cancel it entirely.
Lecce said the government spent the Christmas break reviewing its options and will be announcing a decision shortly, but believes the test can still be administered in certain school boards on Monday.
Only teachers in public high schools are in a work-to-rule campaign, while educators in Catholic schools are still in negotiations with the government.
"For the public schools, my hope is that those teachers will continue to support their kids, and Catholic schools those supports would continue to exist unimpeded. There's not a withdraw of that service," Lecce told CTV News Toronto.
