Schools’ Terry Fox runs in jeopardy
Dozens of Ontario elementary schools are postponing their Terry Fox charity runs because of a work-to-rule campaign that stops teachers from organizing fundraising events or collecting money.
And a new union ban against teachers running extracurricular activities on what it calls “Wynne Wednesdays” could further disrupt the runs, which have been slated in many schools for Sept. 30.
Some 62 public elementary schools had told the Ontario Terry Fox Foundation by late Friday that they will delay the annual events, which collectively raise a staggering $7 million a year for cancer research — more than half the $12 million raised in total, said provincial director Martha McClew.
Yet only five of the 4,000 Ontario schools that usually take part have decided to cancel altogether, she said, most preferring instead to postpone to later in the year when the work-to-rule campaign has ended. Typically,1.5 million Ontario students take part in runs at their schools, with nearly one million of them at 2,800 elementary schools.
“It’s particularly bad timing for us, but I’m just incredibly grateful to teachers for doing what they can to keep Terry in the schools by postponing the event to later in the year,” said McClew.
The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) has been working without a contract for more than a year and began the fall term with a work-to-rule ban on field trips or fundraising, including the advice that “under our work-to-rule strike action, teachers can supervise students while they complete the Terry Fox run during the instructional day at their school . . . but they may not hand out forms or collect monies for their students attending this event as fundraising is ‘struck’ work.”
Because this shifts the onus to principals or other non-union adults to organize permission forms and pledge sheets and collect the money, some York Region schools have decided to scrap the fundraising side altogether, said spokesperson Licinio Miguelo, of the York Region District School Board.
“Some have modified the run so that they won’t be a fundraising event, but they’ll still acknowledge Terry Fox as a Canadian hero,” said Miguelo. The new “Wynne Wednesdays” work-to-rule, announced Friday and starting Monday, would not stop a principal from switching the Terry Fox run to another weekday, suggested Steve Dénommée, president of ETFO in Peel.
The Toronto District School Board expects many schools will choose to postpone their Terry Fox runs until after the labour disruption, said spokesperson Shari Schwartz-Maltz.