Teachers walk the picket line
One-day strike held as OSSTF, province express frustration
A local high school teacher would like to see the government put more money into the classroom, not less.
“I’d like to see them reinvest in education,” Andrew Bigg said while walking the picket line Wednesday.
Bigg, a teacher at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School, paced the sidewalk outside his school Wednesday, alongside other Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) union members.
The strike, locally affecting Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, was a provincewide effort to garner public support against cuts to education and to let the government know teachers aren’t backing down.
OSSTF has been in contract negotiations with the government since April, but there’s been no progress.
The Ontario government wants to increase class sizes in high schools from 22 to 25 and implement two mandatory online courses.
Initially, the province wanted to boost class sizes to 28 and impose four e-learning courses. That plan was altered after public outcry to the proposal, but secondary school unions still don’t agree.
Bigg said the new online courses the government is proposing will leave a lot of kids “completely behind.”
“You really have to be able to sit down and force yourself and have self-discipline — for a lot of kids, that’s not reality and they can’t do that,” he said.
Education minister Stephen Lecce issued a statement late Tuesday night.
“It has been over 200 days since we first started bargaining with OSSTF and in that time,
they have not made any substantive moves since their first proposal was tabled,” he stated. “The onus is on OSSTF to be reasonable, stay at the table, and to cancel this needless escalation that is hurting children, parents, and families." About 80 union members walked the picket line — over two shifts — at Kenner Collegiate Vocational Institute, including teachers from PACE.
Local OSSTF president Erin Leonard said members don’t want to see students crammed into classes or forced to take online courses.
“We want them to have a safe and viable learning opportunity,” Leonard said.
Students aside, the union is also asking for a cost of living adjustment in salaries to match inflation.
Daniel Kivari, a teacher at Kenner, expressed his concerns over increased class sizes and e-learning.
He said they both affect the number of courses that can run in a school, which creates timetabling challenges.
“Every time they accommodate those types of changes, we have to cut courses that are being offered,” he said.
Cutting courses means less options for students, Kivari said, and e-learning courses are constantly full.
“We’ve got Grade 9s, for example, this year that are taking Grade 11 accounting on e-learning as an elective because we can’t fill timetables,” he said.
Fellow teacher Tania Rightmyer said the pictures the government is showcasing of students “sitting nicely in seats putting their hands up” aren’t how all classes run.
“When you add extras in there, you don’t have eyes around your entire head to watch what’s going on and have the time to give individual attention to students,” she said.
Rightmyer said she’d like to see public confidence in what the union is fighting for and for the government to see that what it’s trying to do isn’t for the benefit of students.
“It’s not about us, it’s about the kids,” she said.