More Ontario schools to be affected by teachers’ strike

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Published January 19, 2020 at 7:37 pm

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The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) announced on Saturday that rotating strikes will begin this Monday, January 20, as negotiations with the provincial government have come to a standstill.

Since then, the ETFO has given the required five-day notice to Bluewater and Ontario North East school boards for strikes on Friday, January 24.

This is in addition to the notice already given to the Halton, Avon Maitland, Niagara, and Lakehead school boards, which may be affected by a one-day walkout on Thursday, January 23.

At this time, the Peel District School Board and Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board are not expecting to be affected by the strikes.

“For 29 days, Minister Lecce has refused to return to contract talks with ETFO even though we tabled revised proposals in our last session on December 19, 2019,” said ETFO President Sam Hammond in a recent statement.

“We can only assume that the Ford government does not want to discuss key issues for students, student learning and educators in public elementary education. They only want to talk about cuts to public education.”

Meanwhile, Minister of Education Stephen Lecce has remarked that the strikes are negatively impacting people in the province, notably kids and their parents.

“There is a cost to this strike,” Lecce said in an interview posted to Twitter. “I mean on a human level, for parents, for yourself, for others who have their lives upended, who have to find childcare on unusually short notice, and the stress that this is imposing on all the players, all the people involved, including our kids.”

Residents are advised to check their school board’s website and social media pages to see if they will be impacted.

We’ll update with further news as the strikes progress.

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