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Teachers Are At It Again – But Of Course They’re Only Thinking Of The Children As They Withdraw Services

On Strike

Sigh…

As always, it seems like children will once again be the losers when the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) escalates their work-to-rule strike action on October 28th. This latest strike action is part of a cumulative work-to-rule directive from ETFO that began in May. I feel badly for the children whose school lives are continually disrupted by these strike actions.

Gundi Barbour (Upper Grand ETFO president) says they are withdrawing from extracurricular activities (including completing report cards) “reluctantly” and goes on to say “They are not part of our contract, they are not part of our teaching expectations” … to which my reply would be “MAYBE THEY SHOULD BE!”

Maybe it’s time we redefine what should be included in the teachers’ contracts. Maybe it’s time we redefine what our “teaching expectations” are for our teachers so we don’t continually have these disruptions year after year. I for one believe that completing report cards is a fundamental part of the job of being a teacher in Ontario and don’t understand why that would not be included in any contract or why any teacher would refuse to do this.

Some of the things teachers are/will be refusing to do:

  • extracurricular activities
  • completing comments on report cards
  • organize field trips
  • participate in fundraising activities
  • act as teacher designate or teacher-in-charge at any time
  • respond to any electronic communication from the principal or vice-principal outside the school day (except for safety issues)
  • collect/distribute paperwork required by the school or board
  • attend “meet the teacher” events outside school hours
  • complete any paperwork to the ministry (excluding those for special needs students)
  • participate in any in-school meetings or professional learning activities during certain professional activity (PA) day;
  • complete year-end Ontario Student Record (OSR) activities, including filing, sorting and completion of French cards
  • communicate electronically or by phone with their administrator except during certain emergency situations
  • update class websites or blogs
  • do additional work during prep time
  • fill in for absent teachers, with the exception of occasional teachers hired as a replacement

[Click here to read a full article on this subject in the Wellington Advertiser…]

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3 Comments

  1. How are some of these ‘not’ a teachers responsibility? Seriously. Teachers do less now then when I was a student but get paid more. Classroom size? Please give me a break. Classrooms had 25 students on average, one was as high as 34 in my highschool English. I’m to the point where I’m having an opinion of fire them all and see how they like not having a job.

  2. I don’t know why they even do report cards. Kids can’t fail any more. It’s too hard on self esteem. They find out at 18 that they needed extra attention in grade 4

  3. I don’t get it.. If they don’t do their FULL job, they should not get paid. End of.
    This is as ridiculous as police refusing to use fill in incident reports, ambulance attendants not pushing stretchers, nurses not giving needles, bus drivers not turning the steering wheel.

    I’m trying to imagine the impact if I told my boss that I was going to stop doing part of my job because I’m not happy with my work situation.

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