As Ontario elementary school students celebrate the start of summer, the threat of teachers' strikes looms over the next school year.
Most of the province's 1.3 million elementary students will be packing up their books and pencils, starting a two-month vacation on Thursday afternoon. Teachers in most school boards will be back at school Friday for a professional activity (PA) day before starting their summer.
As classrooms are cleaned up and closed down, the threat of strike action looms across the province, leaving parents, teachers and students wondering what school will be like in the fall.
The Ontario Public School Boards Association and Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) are in the middle of a months-long bargaining dispute, and elementary school teachers have been on a work-to-rule campaign since May.
This year, the job action means that teachers are not performing administrative duties, including writing comments on report cards and inputting grades. Teachers were also told not to participate in any in-school meetings or book any field trips for the 2015-16 school year. There were also no standardized tests this year.
The ETFO has said that strike action will continue into the fall if the labour dispute is not "satisfactorily resolved," but also said that it may decide further action is required. The organization has indicated what next steps teachers may take if the conflict continues.
At the same time, high school students may be affected by job action from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF).
Teachers with the OSSTF in the Rainbow District, Peel Region, and Durham Region School Boards walked out of their classrooms in May, when talks with the local boards broke down. Teachers in the three boards were ordered back to school by the Liberal government, but the back-to-work legislation appears to have done little to quell the looming unrest.
At the same time, the union walked away from the provincial bargaining table, threatening the possibility of an Ontario-wide strike in the future. The day after the back-to-work legislation was passed, OSSTF President Paul Elliott said he was looking at the possibility of a strike in the fall, should negotiations remain at a stand-still.
Last week, the OSSTF sent a bulletin to its members advising that teachers would not be running any extra-curricular activities in the fall.
Students in provincial Catholic schools may face similar challenges in September. On Wednesday, the union representing Ontario's English Catholic teachers filed for conciliation at the provincial bargaining table, paving the way for a possible strike.
Union president James Ryan said in a statement that they are hopeful that they can reach an agreement and avoid any disruptions to the next school year.
