Ontario’s public elementary teachers have voted 98 per cent in favour of strike action, a result their union president called “historic” as he accused the Ford government of making cuts that will impact the quality of education in the province.

The government is “refusing to address our concerns” about the need for more supports for students, especially those with special needs, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario president Sam Hammond told a news conference Friday morning.

He said that includes a $50-million fund that was a part of teachers’ previous contract that allowed board to hire additional teachers for special education students.

Hammond also noted that the government has not committed to maintaining the current staffing model for full-day kindergarten — a full-time teacher and full-time early childhood educator — at the bargaining table.

The announcement came on the same day the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation said it had been issued a no-board report. That begins a 21-day countdown to potential job action — which could include a strike — in the province’s high schools.

All education contracts expired at the end of August.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said Friday that “while our government has been a reasonable and constructive force at the bargaining table — focused on keeping kids in class — ETFO has taken another escalating step toward a strike which will disproportionately hurt our kids.”

Lecce warned that “strike action caused by unions could mean school closures, disruption, and uncertainty for students and parents. I support a deal, not a strike.”

The province recently reached a deal with support staff, represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, after they began a work-to-rule under threat of strike.

Although negotiations continue with all teacher unions, the province’s public high school as well as all Catholic teachers are also taking strike votes.

ETFO, which has 83,000 members and is the largest teacher union in the country, also represents early childhood educators in full-day kindergarten classrooms in some school boards. They also voted 98 per cent in favour of a strike.

Premier Doug Ford said “I don’t think anyone was surprised by the percentage of the vote.”

“This sends a pretty clear message to the parents and everyone in Ontario they want to escalate this and we’re trying to turn down the heat,” Ford told Newstalk 1010’s Jerry Agar. “Our main goal is to the kids in the classroom.”

New Democrat MPP Marit Stiles (Davenport) said the strong mandate for a strike was a result of “Doug Ford's deep cuts to education in this province" and should send a strong signal to his Progressive Conservative government.

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“They know what needs to happen. They need to back off the cuts to classrooms,” said Stiles, the NDP education critic and a former Toronto public school trustee. “Remember, this is only year one. Imagine the chaos that we're going to experience in years two, three and four.”

Stiles said parents are “very unhappy, and they’re very concerned about the impact that the cuts to our classrooms are already having — the fact that our students are in classes of 40-plus in many of our high schools, we're losing courses, we're losing caring adults in our schools.”