Ontario's education minister urges teachers' unions to use arbitration to avoid strikes

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce is urging three teachers' unions to agree to a deal that avoids strikes, days after the government reached a tentative deal with the province's secondary school teachers' union.

At a news conference in Thornhill, Ont., Monday, Lecce said he wants to make the same deal with the unions for elementary teachers, Catholic high school and elementary teachers, as well as teachers in the French system.

"We look forward to meeting with all education unions [and] the teacher unions, so we can sign a deal that can keep kids in class," Lecce said Monday.

The deal with secondary school teachers — the province called it a "tentative agreement" while the union called it a "proposal" — would see the two sides continue bargaining until Oct. 27, at which point they would enter binding arbitration to resolve any remaining issues.

Lecce said that would allow negotiations to take place for two more months before going to arbitration.

The three other unions said last week they are not considering that move at this time. Lecce is set to meet with two of those unions this week and the other next week.

The news comes after both the OSSTF and the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario said earlier this month that it would be holding strike votes this fall.

"We will continue to bargain, but this proposal does establish a clear pathway forward for this round of bargaining that could potentially end in arbitration," OSSTF president Karen Littlewood said Friday.

"This process that we are now bringing to our members promises to break any impasse at the bargaining table by bringing in a third party arbitrator to seek a fair and just resolution."

The union said an internal vote on the proposal will take place through September.

Curriculum changes ahead of new school year

Students are set to head back to class as negotiations between the province and education unions continue.

The ministry says schools will look a bit different for kids this year with new curriculum changes in reading, writing and math.

"We're delivering on our commitment to keep raising the bar, by boosting student achievement in the classroom with a refocus on reading, writing and math, and STEM disciplines," Lecce said.

The ministry says nearly $700 million will be directed to base education funding, in addition to $109 million that will go toward a new strategy to boost literacy rates and hiring nearly 2,000 additional educators. Of the 2,000 educators, 700 will be focused on literacy, 300 will be focused on math and roughly 940 will be focused on Grades 7 to 10, the province says.

Starting this year, the education ministry will assign one person as a lead to each school board in an effort to focus on helping students in math through curriculum implementation and standardized training.

The province will also assign roughly 300 math coaches to provide support in classrooms.

The ministry says the newly implemented math action teams will also be working directly with school boards to "identify and recommend targeted strategies to improve student achievement."