Elementary teachers to cancel class trips

Labour strife escalates as work-to-rule campaign expands throughout province

Thousands of elementary school field trips could be cancelled across Ontario — some of them already paid for — as part of teachers’ work-to-rule campaigns that start as early as Monday.

In Toronto, teachers plan to scrap field trips starting Dec. 10, when they will be in a legal strike position.

Some scrambled Friday to try to reschedule trips to next week so they won’t lose the deposits, or the educational experience or trigger cancellation fees. Some were slated for Black Creek Pioneer Village and the Ontario Science Centre.

“Field trips are an incredibly important way to give students that real-world experience.” SIMON STOREY CHAIR, TORONTO SUPERVISORY ADMINISTRATORS’ ASSOCIATION

The ban on field trips could last indefinitely, unlike the teacher strikes that have been announced by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, which are expected to last one day across an entire board, one or more boards at a time, giving parents 72 hours’ notice.

Teachers are ramping up their protests against Bill 115, which gives the province the power to shut down a strike or lockout and freezes wages and cuts benefits.

Martin Long, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, said field trips are being axed — except for those to the board’s own outdoor education centres — because they require teachers to do extra paperwork not permitted under the planned job action.

“They involve administrative work like collecting money and arranging buses and preparing forms,” he said, “so they’re pretty much off.” Toronto teachers also will stop all evening activities, meaning holiday concerts will have to be held during the day.

Elementary teachers in Simcoe County, the Kawartha-Pine Ridge board around Peterborough, Ont., and Trillium Lakelands board in cottage country will not run field trips starting Monday; teachers in the Rainy River school board in northwestern Ontario will not book any new field trips starting next week; London teachers will not run field trips starting Dec. 14. York Region teachers will stop running field trips four days sooner.

Sources told the Star some teachers don’t like scrapping field trips as a job action because it penalizes students rather than the administration, which until now had been the goal of labour action.

At one school Friday, teachers were trying to reschedule a trip slated for Dec. 10, for which a parent planning to help supervise already had booked time off work.

“It’s unfortunate; field trips are an incredibly important way to give students that real-world experience,” said Simon Storey, chair of the Toronto Supervisory Administrators’ Association. The long-time principal said most teachers take their class on at least one field trip a year, often more in the early grades, and usually linked to a unit of study.

Long could not say when Toronto teachers would hold their one-day walkout but said he does not expect it to be the week of Dec. 10 because teachers in several other boards will be in a legal strike position first.

The president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation told the Star he believes the only way to put an end to all this labor turmoil is for the province to repeal controversial Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act.

Ken Coran said he believes there is a component of Bill115 that allows it to be repealed through an order in council.

Several boards have written to Education Minister Laurel Broten echoing the call for the bill — or parts of it — to be repealed.

However, on Friday Broten said she has no such plans.

“The Putting Students First Act was passed by a significant majority of MPPs in the House,” said Broten’s spokesperson Alyssa Armstrong. “Repealing this necessary piece of legislation that gives the government tools to protect fullday kindergarten, small class sizes and 20,000 teaching and support staff jobs is not on the table.”

Meanwhile, MPP Lisa MacLeod, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives’ education critic, called this the worst time of year for parents to have to deal with the stress of a strike, as well as the extra costs of child-care when teachers walk off the job.

She said the education minister needs to act now and put an end to even the threat of a strike.

Ken Arnott of the Ontario Principals’ Council said if teachers do walk off the job, it will be up to each board whether to keep schools open.

If they do remain open, he said vice-principals, principals and even superintendents could be supervising students in the gym or the library.