Teacher strike kills high school exams

Final exams have been cancelled for some Ottawa students and others have had year-end projects pulled as the work-to-rule campaign by high school teachers begins to hit students directly.

The cancellation of some yearend exams and projects — also known as “summatives” — at local high schools appears to go beyond the partial withdrawal of administrative services announced by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation earlier this year as part of an ongoing labour dispute with the school board and province.

“We are certainly now beginning to see the impact of the service withdrawal,” said Jennifer Adams, director of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.

“They certainly go beyond administrative duties and may have a significant impact on our students.”

The impact on students goes beyond exams and year-end projects. Adams said there may be no academic awards handed out at high school graduation ceremonies later this month, although commencements will go ahead as scheduled. And, while Grade 12 report cards will be done in time to allow students to complete post-secondary applications, other report cards will be delayed.

With the end of the school year just weeks away, Adams met with high school principals this week to discuss the issue and to try to determine how many students will be affected.

Dan Maxwell, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation District 25 bargaining unit, denied the action is ramping up the labour dispute.

“I don’t think it’s upping the ante in any way, shape or form. It’s part of the sanctions we proposed when we started the strike.”

The Ministry of Education requires that 30 per cent of high school grades be based on a final evaluation. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board specifies that should come from two separate tasks, such as a final project and an exam. Teachers communicate evaluation plans to students and parents in a course outline distributed at the beginning of the term. Some of those plans have now changed, with teachers telling students that a scheduled exam has been cancelled.

In addition to giving teachers discretion to change final evaluations of students, the OSSTF has given direction to teachers in several other areas that Adams said will directly affect students.

Teachers have been told not to enter final grades into the student data system, Adams said, but to hand hard copies of grades to school administrators, which then have to be entered into the computer system before report cards can be completed.

The school board’s priority, she said, will be to get Grade 12 marks completed within a few days. It will also get marks in for students who have failed and need to take summer school. Other report cards “will definitely be late.”

The board, she said, won’t delay graduation ceremonies, but marks might not be completed in time to hand out academic awards at the events. Teachers will participate in graduation ceremonies.

“While this is an extremely busy time of year for all involved, we recognize the importance of taking time to celebrate student achievement and accomplishments,” said Maxwell.

The issue of how many final assessments should be done in high school has long been a point of contention between the union and the school board, said Maxwell, and sets the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board apart from many other boards, as well as provincial curriculum documents that require a minimum of one final assessment.

“We for some time have questioned the value of the second assessment. The difficulty is the workload at the end of the year, and trying to finish off in time to get the marks in,” Maxwell said.

He said teachers have been told to use their own judgment when it comes to year-end student evaluations, as long as they adhere to the Ministry of Education’s Growing Success curriculum document.

Adams said the work-to-rule will also affect so-called “credit rescue and recovery,” in which students who are struggling get extra help in the areas where they need it, based on communication between classroom teachers and special education teachers. Classroom teachers will no longer fill out regular reports about students who need extra help.

Adams said it’s crucial that teachers have conversations to pass that information along so those students can get the extra help they need.

“These are our most vulnerable students.”

And some teachers, she said, won’t be administering the Grade 9 EQAO exam, which doubles as a final exam in Grade 9 math. The union says individual teachers can decide whether or not to participate.

Adams said having teachers make such decisions individually makes it “very hard to ensure consistency either from school to school or even within schools.”

The school board is posting information online (www.ocdsb.ca) about the issues. Adams said parents should contact teachers directly to find out what’s happening with exams and summatives.

I don’t think it’s upping the ante in any way, shape or form. It’s part of the sanctions we proposed when we started the strike.