The standard course of action for parents with concerns about what their kids are being taught in class has always been to speak directly with the classroom teacher or the principal.

Local school board officials say they hope that protocol will continue.

Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson announced this week her government will draw up a Parental Bill of Rights and create a hotline, 1-888-534-2222, and dedicated submission platform, fortheparents.ca, to complain if a parent believes a teacher has veered from the curriculum or if they have concerns or complaints about their child’s education.

This announcement came as the Doug Ford government revealed directives to Ontario school board concerning the health and physical education.

Ontario high schools students will be taught from the 2015 sex education curriculum that addresses consent, gender and gay marriage for the upcoming school year.

However, students in Grades 1 to 8 will learn from the health curriculum introduced in 1998 and taught until 2014, which does not begin sex education as early or address issues like gender fluidity.

“I think what the government has done is looked at where the concerns were — and they really did lie within the elementary curriculum,” said Lesleigh Dye, director of education for District School Board Ontario North East. “The main concern from across the province and families was really about the 1 to 8 curriculum, and actually not the specific expectations but the teacher prompts that were in the curriculum. And those teacher prompts for our families, and our community members were never a concern at the secondary level.”

As for the government’s introduction of a hotline, Dye said she hopes parents don’t think that’s their only option.

“From a DSBONE perspective, we want to work really closely with our families,” said Dye. “We would like our families, if they have a concern, to come directly to the classroom teacher … And if a family member or parent is not satisfied with their interaction with the teacher, then the next step is the principal. And if the issue has not been resolved at that point, then it’s the school superintendent. And then, I’m hopeful after those three points of contact, there has been an opportunity to resolve it, then it comes to the director of education.

“So we would really encourage all of our families to come to us directly. We would not be in favour our families using the provincial hotline or website they have created.

“Certainly, that’s a family’s choice but we have a long-standing history at DSBONE” of encouraging parents to bring their concerns directly to them.

Tricia Stefanic-Weltz, director of education with the Northeastern Catholic District School Board, echoed that sentiment.

“We want to work in partnership with the families that we serve and it would be our hope, if there are concerns, that we would continue to follow the protocol that seems to have worked for a long time, in encouraging healthy, productive relationships between our families, our principals, and our teachers,” said Stefanic-Weltz.

“So I encourage any concerns to be addressed first with our school staff and hopefully there can be resolution if any concerns that may arise.”

She added, “We can only solve problems that we are aware of so we would expect and we would hope our parents would continue to speak with us directly so we can address any concerns, any inquiries, whatever that might be, together.”

Speaking about the health and physical education curriculum as it is taught in the Catholic school board system, Stefanic-Weltz explained, “Our responsibility is completely to the Ontario curriculum but we do have supplementary programs that help us address the Ontario curriculum expectations but through the lens of a Catholic program.

“It’s really important that we remember our primary concern is to ensure we provide our student with the best possible Catholic education. And we take our direction from the Ministry of Education and that is not negotiable for any Catholic or district school board. But from the Catholic context, we’re going to do what we have been doing for the past 30 years and that is providing an approved Family Life curriculum which works in concert with the Ontario curriculum expectations.”

Dye, DSBONE’s director of education, said if parents want to learn more about what is in the health and physical education curriculum, “The best place to go to would be the Ministry of Ontario website and you will find every curriculum document — if you click on Elementary Curriculum, by subject or even by grade … you can actually go directly online and read what the curriculum expectations are, because … it’s very important to go to the source rather than what other people are saying might be in the document.”

For this story, The Daily Press attempted to speak with the directors of education with the French Catholic and French public school boards but was unsuccessful in reaching either of them.