Month: May 2015

EQAO testing change hits back at province
The Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
Wed May 13 2015
Byline: COLIN MACKAY

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced earlier this week a partial withdrawal of services was to begin on May 11.

Teachers have been told not to do prepare students or do anything regarding EQAO, or any type of Ministry of Education initiatives. As well, report cards will simply have marks placed on them with no comments. This is a new strategy from ETFO which represents a gradual phasing of work-to-rule. ETFO has called this strategy ‘Phase 1’. Phase 1’s effectiveness has yet to be determined. It will likely be determined on how annoyed the province will be when EQAO tests are not implemented properly. In the past, the implementation of EQAO has had extremely stringent rules about who can be in the room and what can be done for students. That may change.

ETFO has decided implementing an incremental work to rule is the way to go. Phase 1 will have minimal, if not altogether, no impact on students. However, it does put enormous pressure on the province with regards to the implementation of the standardized test, known as EQAO. With potentially no EQAO testing, what would the province do with no results from this year?

Essentially, negotiations have arrived at this point because the provincial government had already decided teachers would receive a ‘net zero’ contract. In other words, to gain anything, the ETFO would have to concede something within a contract. Before the process even began, the province was not only looking for teachers to make concessions, but expecting them. The starting point was ridiculous and, in fact, was no way to begin collective bargaining.

The province’s excuse has been the $10.9 billion deficit must be reduced. Somehow that has transformed into; teachers and educational workers must become ‘The Austerity Agenda.’ But wait, other public sectors have had raises of up to eight per cent, so why insist on specifically targeting educational workers, including teachers? In essence, the province wants to highlight the fact it is a tough negotiator, not willing to bend to the ETFO’s demands, and through this austerity undertaking, they will ultimately rid themselves of their own self-created deficit.

ETFO decided enough is enough. In a unique twist or turning of the tables, the ETFO has targeted the province and their sacred cow -EQAO testing. Even if the test is somehow administered by principals and others, would the results be valid? Conditions for the test will have changed dramatically, especially when compared with other years, since no classroom or special education teachers will be present inside the testing rooms.

Fundamentally, under Premier Kathleen Wynne, education has turned into an expense, something to reign in. Instead the province’s outlook should be -Education is an investment -not part of a specifically targeted austerity agenda.

After imposing conditions via Bill 115 unilaterally there was no way the ETFO would settle for concessions in this collective agreement. Sadly, the province did have an alternative to choose by increasing corporate taxation by one or two per cent. However, it would appear, they instantly discarded that possibility, despite Ontario corporations already having a ridiculously low tax rate.

Instead of problem solving, which should be the goal of governments, the province of Ontario decided to initiate a conflict.

If the province somehow manages to implement EQAO testing, the ETFO will be forced to consider stronger measures. Simply not doing ministry initiatives only targets the government for now.

That said the government built the crisis; they should be the ones to solve it.

(c) 2015 Osprey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved.

Public school board expects $3.5M provincial funding cut
The Peterborough Examiner
Wed May 13 2015
Byline: EXAMINER STAFF

The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board expects to take a $3.5-million hit in provincial funding in 2015-16 because of declining enrolment in area public schools.

The board’s budget committee met for the first time Tuesday night and trustees learned that the board expects to get $1.5 million less in special education funding, $1.3 million less as an adjustment because of declining enrolment and $700,000 less for school facility operations, according to a release from the board.

The board aims to produce a balanced budget, as required by the province, and will meet again May 25 and June 8. The meetings start at 7 p.m. at the education centre on Fisher Dr.

Last month it was revealed the board has issued lay-off notices to all 118 of its high school contract teachers because of the falling enrolment.

“We have been fortunate within the education sector to benefit from strong provincial support for the last number of years. While that commitment to public education continues, provincial economic challenges, combined with a continued decline in school-aged children locally and across Ontario, leads to a number of financial pressures for us,” budget committee vice-chairman Wayne Bonner stated in a release.

“We will move forward with developing a balanced budget that responsibly ensures a superior educational program for our students.

“While enrolment within our elementary panel remains consistent and stable, we expect decline within our secondary schools for another few years. We will continue to do all that we can to minimize the impact of this decline across our system.”

The board is also in the process of updating its board-wide accommodation plan, which would guide future school closures and consolidations. The board conducted public meetings at several low-enrolment high schools, including Lakefield and Norwood, earlier this year. The board closed PCVS as a regular high school several years ago and is combining its two Cobourg high schools after the end of the school year in June.

(c) 2015 Osprey Media Group Inc. All rights reserved

Teacher strikes: Are they illegal? Durham, Peel, Sudbury boards file labour relations board case
The Ontario Labour Relations Board is being asked to rule if the strikes by high school teachers in three boards are legal.

By: Kristin Rushowy Education Reporter,
Published on Tue May 12 2015

Three public boards hit by strikes by high school teachers are now striking back – calling the job action unlawful and launching a case with the Ontario Labour Relations Board to get students back to class.

“We’re calling on the OLRB to rule that the secondary teachers’ waged an unlawful strike to put pressure on the provincial negotiations” which is not allowed under new bargaining legislation, said Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel District School Board.

“This ruling would return Peel, Durham and Rainbow (Sudbury) students to their classrooms, where we know they can finish off the school year positively, without further disruption,” she said in a written release.

Teachers in Peel walked off the job last week, and those in Rainbow/Sudbury two weeks ago. Durham teachers, now in their fourth week of a strike, hit the picket lines April 20.

This round of bargaining, under new legislation, has the government, school boards’ associations and provincial unions bargaining centrally on costly items such as class size or salary, with union locals and school boards hammering out non-monetary items.”We’ve said, from the beginning, what we know is true: that provincial OSSTF (high school teachers’ union) is setting the agenda for local bargaining and that this local strike is part of their overall provincial strategy,” added McDougald.

“We’ve seen secondary teachers in each of the three boards protest issues being negotiated at the central table, particularly the central matter of class size. Our teachers need to know, and our parents and students need to know, that there is nothing we can do at our local table to impact class size decisions – nothing.”

Supervision and teacher autonomy have also been mentioned as strike issues, she added, and again they are to be dealt with centrally.

However, local union leaders have cited issues ranging from performance appraisals to personnel files as the reasons behind the strikes.

“If something is not dealt with over a period of 10 to 15 years, it’s a problem – especially around evaluations, and especially if they determine if someone is going to have a job or not have a job,” Paul Elliott, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, or OSSTF, has told the Star.

No central bargaining talks took place on Tuesday, amid the strikes and as province’s public elementary educators continue their work-to-rule.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario had briefly returned to central negotiations on Monday, but left talks an hour later saying the government and school boards’ had not changed their offer.

On Monday, elementary teachers also launched job action, refusing to take part in standardized testing in any way or prepare comments for June report cards.

School boards are saying it will be near impossible to run the yearly EQAO tests, which are administered later this month.

The head of the EQAO (Education Quality and Accountability Office) says unless there is a strike, boards should proceed but the CEO acknowledged it will be “very difficult” without the co-operation of teachers.

“We’ll need to wait to see what happens,” said Bruce Rodrigues. However, he added, “we are expecting that on May 25, they should be ready to write.”

The tests given to students Grades 3 and 6 in reading, writing and math, consist of six, one-hour sessions that usually stretch over three days. They are scheduled to be held anytime between May 25 to June 5.

“Administratively, I don’t know how to do it” without teachers, said Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, adding that if cancelled, tracking student progress over the years will be affected.

Classroom teachers in Grades 3 and 6 prepare students for the tests and administer them, while other teachers are hired to mark them – all things they’ve been instructed by their union not to do.

(Grade 9 math assessment is to go ahead in all schools from May 28 to June 12, except in boards where secondary teachers are on strike. Grade 10 students wrote the mandatory literacy test back in March.)

This round of bargaining , driven by new legislation, has the provincial school boards’ associations, unions and the Ministry of Education trying to settle the big-money issues with individual school boards and union districts negotiating local items.

Hammond has said the union won’t accept changes proposed by the government and school boards’ regarding class size, control of prep time and a new hiring policy.

He has also said while pay is not a key issue, he will be seeking a raise because of cost-of-living increases.

Both Wynne and Education Minister Liz Sandals have repeatedly said there is no money for salary increases unless savings are found elsewhere.

Barrett, who is also chair of the Durham board, said the strike there is now in its fourth week and concerns are growing that the year could be lost.

At Queen’s Park, Sandals said she too is worried but noted none of the boards involved has applied to the Education Relations Commission to rule if the academic year is in jeopardy.

Local talks in Durham were held on Friday with the high school teachers’ union District 13, and future dates are expected. Peel is also expected to be back at the local bargaining table on Wednesday.

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ETFO Statement Regarding Central Table Bargaining

May 11, 2015

Here is a statement from Sam Hammond, President of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.

“The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario returned to the central bargaining table this morning at the mediator’s request. It was our expectation that the government and the Ontario Public School Board Association (OPSBA) would remove concessions from the table. That did not happen and the meeting ended at 11:00 a.m.”

“ETFO will continue phase one of its work-to-rule strike action. In order for real progress to be made at the central table, OPSBA and the Liberal government need to reconsider their concession-based approach to central bargaining.”

“When these concessions were initially tabled, OPSBA and the government stated that they were ‘opening positions’ only. ETFO would like to move beyond opening positions to meaningful bargaining.”

ETFO’s 73,000 teacher and occasional teacher members will remain in schools to carry out their instructional duties with students, provide extra help to students and maintain contact with parents. Teacher voluntary extra-curricular activities and scheduled field trips will continue for the duration of the phase 1 work-to-rule. The strike action is incremental in nature and will continue until bargaining issues are resolved or ETFO deems further actions are required.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario represents 76,000 elementary public school teachers, occasional teachers and education professionals across the province.

Hydro One privatization will hurt schools
Guelph Mercury
Tue May 12 2015
Byline: Misty Gagne

“The privatization of Hydro One will further exacerbate already underfunded school board budgets.”

I couldn’t agree more with that statement. The sale of Hydro One will mean rising rates as private corporations demand larger profits.

You don’t have to take my word for it, either. That quote came from the lips of Liz Sandals, now Guelph’s MPP and the province’s Minister of Education. It was made in 2002 during a presentation to a government panel holding hearings into the sale of Hydro One in 2002, when she was president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association.

Sandals very articulately laid out the argument against hydro privatization, and as an MPP and education minister, I hope she remembers the truth in what she said.

She argued Hydro One should not be sold because private investors will expect profits from the company that will drive hydro rates up. That would translate into a real hit for schools across the province as they struggle to find the cash for higher hydro rates from already overstretched budgets, she argued. A private investor also won’t want to sink money into necessary hydro infrastructure improvements, she said.

Well, today we’re in a situation where program budgets for schools, as well as for health care and almost every public service, have been kept below the rate of inflation and population growth for years. Ontario spends less on public service programs than other provinces. The government is already forcing school and hospital closures across the province. We’ve seen the death toll from a cost-cutting privatization of snow clearing on provincial highways.

The government has said they plan to keep a minority 40 per cent stake in Hydro One, but the legislation they introduced anticipates what will happen when government ownership falls below 10 per cent. That says to me they have a long-term vision of a complete privatization of our provincial electrical transmission and distribution infrastructure.

How will this privatization and the rising rates be any different from what Sandals foresaw 13 years ago?

The simple truth is, it won’t be.

Experience in Ontario and around the world says so. Our electrical system will become less reliable. We will lose local control over a vital public service. Rates will go up, and schools, hospitals and other public services we rely on will have to cut millions of dollars more from front-line services to pay for rising demands for profit from Hydro One’s new corporate owners.

Liz Sandals was right in 2002. I encourage our MPP to fight the Hydro One sale in caucus and in public, and to do the right thing and vote against it in the Ontario legislature.

(c) 2015 Torstar Corporation