Teachers to stage rotating strikes over fear of education system ?dismantling?
By Craig Gilbert/London Community News/Twitter: @CraigbGilbert
As the threat of rolling strike action in Ontario?s elementary schools draws near, London parent Jennifer Diplock is doubly worried.
The mother of two walks her children to school every day: One to Lord Roberts French Immersion Public School, the other to Lorne Avenue Public School. She has been the community-at-wide representative on the Central London Elementary Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) for a year.
Not only will she have to make arrangements for one or both of her kids at the same time, she fears strike action will impact the work of the ARC committee, which is within weeks of making its final recommendations to the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB).
?The rolling strike, I think, causes doubt in the community,? she said. ?There is a lot of animosity growing right now ? around extra-curricular activities being cancelled, and services that normally were available in schools not being available and now, there might not even be a school to go to.?
Phillip Mack is the president of the Thames Valley local of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO). A 25-year veteran teacher, Mack said he sees the significant gains made in Ontario schools in the past decade about to unravel.
?Nothing will change for students when we begin (work-to-rule) on Monday,? Mack said Thursday evening (Nov. 29). ?It doesn?t impact them any more than it already has. If anything, it will help teachers focus on the classroom.?
The impact will come of course if and when rotating strikes begin. He said ETFO is being ?relatively polite? by giving 72 hours notice ahead of any specific strike action.
He calls Bill 115, which severely limits the collective bargaining rights of teachers in Ontario, is just the first step in a ?potential crisis? in the province?s education system.
?The education minister seems to think that after Dec. 31 it will be over,? he said. ?It won?t be.?
He said the cuts to sick days will hit elementary teachers, and therefore their students, harder than it will secondary schools.
?We deal with young children who don?t tend to stay home when they are sick,? he explained. ?So if you as a teacher can?t go home if you?re sick, you?re impacting the learning environment, and you?re potentially making other students sick as well.?
He said increasing class sizes and re-formulating what full-day kindergarten looks like will have the effect of clawing back improvements to student learning that have taken place since Premier Dalton McGuinty was handed the reins by Ontario voters in 2003.
?We?re looking way down the road at what is going to happen to education,? he lamented. ?The effects will be devastating and Bill 115 does that.?
?It?s why we?re outraged. It?s when the government puts aside education professionals and says we know better. They didn?t take the advice of anyone engaged in the education system at all. We are really concerned about the true demolition of the education system in Ontario.?
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