Teachers' union, NDP push for clear plan to restart classes

A teacher's union official and Ontario's NDP are calling on the province to come up with a plan that will work for students, teachers and parents when returning to school this fall.

The Ministry of Education directed school boards to come up with three school re-entry plans. One was a regular in-class plan, one was a learn-from home program and the last one was a hybrid version of the two.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce initially said he was leaning towards the hybrid model, but is now saying the in-class model is preferred.

Louis Clausi is the representative for the northeastern unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association and was also a high school teacher in Timmins for 20 years.

He says the province should take different approaches in different areas when it comes to education.

"We've had very few [cases] for the past few months," he said. "I think there needs to be some direction for different parts of Ontario, a regional approach for education."  

Clausi says when students were sent home in March due to the pandemic, a big issue in northern Ontario was consistent access to high speed internet.

"That was a huge obstacle in this last period of time," he said. "There's a lot of talk about the technology but nothing was done during that time to improve things. Distance learning won't work until that issue is addressed.

Clausi says geography is also a problem.

"The sheer size of our board - there's no moving kids to another school or trying to share schools," he said. "In a lot of my communities, it's one school in one community."

He says that doesn't leave those schools many options.

"If there's a class of 23, what do you do?" he said. "I don't know what the plan is in terms of cohorts in terms if that's how it's going to go. None of the final decisions for our board have been made yet."

'Make this happen'

The opposition NDP want the Ford government to address the concerns for parents and teachers about what the plan will be for September.

MPP Marit Stiles filed a motion on Tuesday asking for an emergency plan that would get students safely back in class five days a week.

That plan includes maintaining job-protected leave and benefits for parents, funding to help keep the child care sector afloat and funding for more school buses to ensure physical distancing.

"If the idea is to keep it out there to give them a plan and a list of items that we're getting from all of our constituents across the province and give them a list of actions that could be taken right now and I don't think it's too late," she said. 

"It's pretty darn late but it's not too late to make a big impact and do this better."

Stiles says she knows the government has said it will not debate private members' bills like this one.
    
"And you know in my opinion I would like them to debate and pass this motion but if they won't do it they should present their own similar one and let's just get this done," she said.

"I have no illusions, let's just make this happen."