Unions mull legal challenges over class sizes
Ontario groups pushing government to change back-to-school plans
The unions representing Ontario’s teachers are calling on the provincial government to change its back-to-school plans and are warning a legal challenge is possible.
“We are consulting with legal counsel, absolutely,” said Liz Stuart, president of the 45,000member Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, which continues to advocate for smaller class sizes and masks for all students.
“The best thing to find out at this point is to see what we can do in order to fight to keep our members safe.” Sam Hammond, who heads the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario — the country’s largest teachers’ union — said his members will use the next couple of weeks “to try and push those issues to get the government to step forward” and address teachers’ and parents’ concerns.
But if the government doesn’t budge, his union executive is meeting later this week and “if they continue to have the concerns that they’ve had since the plan was released, then certainly we’ll look at all of our options to take a stand to get the attention of the government to make change.”
While ETFO is not officially calling for a delay to the start of the school year, “I think the government needs to look at all the options,” Hammond said.
“If we had the luxury of another month, we’d certainly be in a very different place.”
Local unions have talked about launching grievances or legal challenges, and Stuart said the labour board is a possibility.
In the United States — where cases in many states have hit record highs — one teachers’ union in Florida is seeking a court injunction to force all classes online until COVID-19 numbers have subsided.
The American Teachers’ Federation has said it supports strikes if local units don’t feel the reopening conditions are safe enough to protect members.
Ontario’s back-to-school plan includes mandatory masks for students starting in Grade 4 — the only province in Canada to require them throughout the school day — as well as improved hand hygiene and school cleaning and smaller classes for high school students in large, urban boards. However, in elementary schools, classes sizes will remain unchanged, meaning children in kindergarten and Grades 4 through 8 could be in rooms with 30 students.
The province has said it will provide $30 million to help shrink class sizes if classes are too large. That amount would fund roughly 300 teachers. The Toronto public board alone has said it would need at least 200 extra elementary teachers if class sizes were to be reduced to 15. The province is also hiring 500 public health nurses, or about one for every 10 schools, to help with COVID and also random testing of high school students.
Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday that Ontario is “doing everything we can … we have the best plan in Canada. People from other provinces want our plan, and we’re going to do everything we can and I’m not going to spare a penny and I’m not going to spare anything making sure that we have the safest classrooms in the country.”
Ontario, he added, has “the smallest classroom sizes in the entire country, bar none. We have more protocols and guidelines than any other jurisdiction” in Canada, and noted his government is so far spending more than $309 million, which is more per pupil than other provinces. But NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who visited Kingston on Tuesday, called the province’s announcement “a bargain basement plan that really pinches pennies on the backs of our kids” and urged the province to hire thousands of teachers.
Alexandra Adamo, spokesperson for Education Minister Stephen Lecce, said the government has “engaged in discussions with multiple unions with the singular goal of ensuring the safest and healthiest school environment for all students and staff” and is willing to continue talks.
Hammond said smaller class sizes were a key part of recommendations made by experts from Sick Kids, advice the government chose to ignore. He’s advocating for elementary classes to have about 15 students, or close to that number.
He also said masks, proper ventilation in schools and busing remain huge safety issues.
Harvey Bischof, of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, said his union “is consulting with counsel now and have been for some time … We just want to ensure that we are aware of, and maximize the use of, any legal strategy required to keep our members safe.”
Bischof said his union hasn’t landed on what it’s strategy will be, but added that “I’ve seen no evidence so far that this government is listening to us and our concerns.”