Northeast teacher unions worry about 'last minute' plans to re-open schools in September

It's the last week of school, but education officials in northeastern Ontario are facing a very busy summer.

The provincial government has asked school boards to have plans for next school year drawn up by Aug. 4.

That includes how to re-open classes safely with only 15 kids in each room, as well as separate plans for keeping all learning online if COVID-19 is still a threat come September, and a third plan for a blend of distance and in-person learning.

"I don't see that being an easy feat at all," says Liana Holm, incoming president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario for the Sudbury area.

"There are going to be some definite challenges for boards to come up with those plans. It's going to be an astronomical feat."

Eric Laberge, president of the Sudbury branch of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, says the province should have started the planning process much earlier.

"That kind of announcement could have happened a month ago, instead of at the last minute," he says.

"'Here's some money, here's some general guidelines and go out and make it happen, boards,' and that's pretty much the feeling I was left with."

The province says it is making a record investment in the education system, with $736 million in extra funding available for the fall, including $4 million for enhanced cleaning.

But Laberge says this is more of a "re-allocation of funds" that covers up some of the budget cutbacks of recent years.

He says there are lots of questions of how to run a school with only 15 students in each class, and he expects there will be a lot of "fallout" from staff and students who won't fit into the framework boards come up with — and big questions about how they'll be accommodated.

"It's going to be very challenging to deliver any kind of curriculum in 2020-21," says Laberge.

Louis Clausi, union president for teachers with the Northeastern Catholic District School Board, says he and his members are confused by contradictory comments from the education minister.

"Parents don't have certainty and predictability. Students don't have that, education workers, the boards," says Clausi, whose members are spread out from Kapuskasing to Timmins to Temiskaming Shores.  

"Everybody is just waiting for more information and it's the last week in June. And I don't think that's the appropriate way to do business."

He says that he is now sitting on a committee that will meet through July to figure out some of these plans.

"There are lots of pieces that haven't been thought about," says Clausi.

"Parents saying, 'Who is watching my children when I'm back at work?'"

CBC reached out to most school boards in the northeast and six of them declined to comment saying it was too early in the process. Several others did not reply at all.