Ontario school boards will have to disclose activities for PA days come September

Ontario school boards will soon have to disclose exactly what teachers and staff are learning during their professional development (PA) days as part of the province’s new education bill.

Bill 98, also known as The Better Schools and Students Outcomes Bill, was unveiled in April with the goal of creating consistency and transparency across Ontario’s 72 school boards. Under the legislation, the government can set “provincial education priorities” and require boards to publicly post about their progress.

School boards were notified of the first approved regulations under this bill in a memo sent Friday and obtained by CTV News Toronto.

• Download our app to get local alerts on your device
• Get the latest local updates right to your inbox

In a statement released Monday morning, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the new measures implemented today “will focus on getting back to the basics of education: strengthening reading, writing and math, and other STEM disciplines.”

“These reforms include the new authority for our government to set binding priorities on school boards that focus on boosting student achievement focused on reading, writing and math. This sends a clear signal to Ontario’s school boards we’ve listened to the priorities of parents putting common sense at the centre of our education system.”

Part of this plan includes ensuring that parents are notified at least 14 days in advance as what teachers are going to learn during their PA days. This includes the date, timing and format of the activities, as well as the name of each school participating.

It will also include a description of the material covered—including the names and titles of the people delivering the materials—and how it is going to be presented.

The government says it expects school boards to inform parents and guardians directly and the information must be posted in a “conspicuous location” in the main office of each school.

The government has mandated that the three mandatory PA days for the 2023-24 years will focus on literacy and mathematics curriculum implementation’ and student well-being, school safety and violence prevention.

Boards have until Aug. 15 to submit a general outline of the activities to the government.

“The PA day descriptions will be reviewed by regional offices, which may be in contact with boards where necessary,” a memorandum on the policy says.

PROVINCIAL EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES

The province has outlined three provincial priorities for education: Achievement of learning outcomes in core academic skills, preparation of students for future success, and student engagement and well-being. It’s unclear how these priorities are defined or how they are expected to be measured.

Under the legislation, boards are required to adopt these priorities in their multi-year plans and to engage with the community to ensure they are “responsive to local needs.”

Part of this will include engaging parents within the first and last two months of the school year. The plans will be shared publicly.

The reports, the government has said, will allow the Ministry of Education to “discern where additional supports may be needed.”

Educational experts have noted that school boards have always been transparent about their multi-year plans, as well as what is being taught during PA days.

Speaking with CTV News Toronto, Ontario Public School Board Association President Cathy Abrahams said the only difference now is that the transparency is “standardized.”

“Boards have never kept secret what we’re doing,” she said. “It just may have appeared in a variety of different ways across the province, so perhaps one board does it In the form of a newsletter does it just by posting everything on their website.”

Children raise their hand in a classroom. (Narongchai Hlawprasert/Adobe Stock Photo/CNN)

Lana Parker, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Windsor, told CTV News Toronto in June that she feels the focus on transparency may be a “distraction tactic.”

“To me, it feels like a move that nobody was really asking for and that I'm not really sure has been justified in any given context, considering how much transparency, how much good quality, ongoing learning and improvement the school boards have demonstrated,” she said when the regulations were first proposed.

She stressed that the bill doesn’t address other concerns related to education, including class sizes and a lack of funding. It’s also unclear as to what problem the legislation is addressing, Parker added, noting that while scores within the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) may be lower than expected, Canada is placing highly for math and science on a global level.

“Then there's a couple of other indications that I think don't often get talked about, if we are going to use standardized test scores as an indication of how successful our public schools currently are, and that's that Canadian students rank among the highest for awareness of global issues. We rank among the highest for respect for people from other cultures. We ranked among the highest for positive attitudes towards immigrants,” she said.

“I think it's very important to provide the context for the excellence of our existing public schools, both in Ontario and Canada more broadly, whenever we are talking about a revision to the Education Act, or the introduction of new legislation.”

WHAT ELSE DOES BILL 98 DO?

Other regulations that go into effect on Monday include an expansion of transitional certificates used by teacher candidates that will allow students enrolled in a full-time program to work while completing their studies. Internationally educated teachers will see certification time reduced from 120 calendar days to 60- business days, “except in exceptional circumstances.”

It also introduces early reading screening for all students in year 2 of Kindergarten, as well as those in Grades 1 and 2. The government says these requirements will “help to support the early identification of students who require support in reading and support their reading development in the classroom.”

In addition, the legislation establishes a framework for surplus school property, or facilities that have been closed or will not be used by future students. Back in April Lecce said is goal was to better leverage property for public education and other “provincial priorities” such as long-term care homes and affordable housing.

“It's about better maximizing our real estate portfolio,” he said.

• Ontario to give itself more powers over sale of unused school property

Under the bill, the ministry may direct a board to sell or dispose of a school site or part of a school site.

The province will also be given the first right of refusal on surplus land being sold or leased. Prior to the bill, the government was one agency among many public entities that were notified of a sale.

Officials said that if there is a need, the property would first be sold to another school board. However, if it is not needed in the education sector, the Ministry of Infrastructure would consider the property for other purposes.

If the property is not needed, officials said it would be sold in the open market at fair market value.