Two small Ontario school boards are tackling the largest teachers’ union in the country in a case that could have a significant impact on the dispute that has shut down extracurricular activities across the province.

The Trillium Lakelands District School Board in Ontario’s cottage country and the Upper Canada District School Board in eastern Ontario are seeking a cease-and-desist order before the Ontario Labour Relations Board against the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.

On Friday, the boards will argue that the broad definition of strike activity under the Education Act of Ontario includes anything that “curtails . . . the operation or functioning” of schools or programs.

While ETFO president Sam Hammond was not available for comment, the union’s lawyer, Howard Goldblatt, said “our position is going to be that there’s no violation and it’s been appropriate conduct.”

But from refusing extracurricular activities to boycotting traditional overnight field trips to not filling in for absent principals, “these activities are impairing our ability to operate the school board,” said Greg Pietersma, chair of the Upper Canada board.

“It’s not just after-school programs that are being affected. Teachers aren’t doing class-organized trips or collecting money for hot lunch and milk programs or even organizing graduation,” said Trillium Lakelands chair Karen Round.

There, the boycott is threatening swim programs, exchanges with Quebec, a national choir competition and in some cases, the completion of Grade 8 students’ high school option sheets. Boards are also concerned that upcoming report cards could again be the bare minimum required.

On Thursday, Education Minister Laurel Broten said the boards’ labour board case shows they “are concerned about extracurricular activities. I’m concerned about extracurricular activities too. I have called upon ETFO and OSSTF to allow their teachers to support extracurricular activities in schools.”She said the government will not be getting involved.

“I absolutely appreciate their concern with respect to extracurricular,” she added. “At this point in time our focus is on seeking to ensure we see union leadership allow their teachers to offer extracurricular. We believe teachers want to offer some extracurriculars and make them available to students and we don't want to see something standing in the way of that.”

In the Upper Canada board, Pietersma said most elementary schools there on’t have vice-principals, so a teacher volunteers to be in charge — and is paid — when a principal is sick or needs to attend a meeting. He said the union has been “counselling its members not to participate” in after-school activities, as outlined in a Jan. 14 memo.

At one school, teachers were getting ready to leave for the Grade 6 outdoor education overnight field trip, when a union official arrived and told them not to go. The teachers backed out, but the trip went ahead thanks to parent volunteers, he added.

Pietersma understands the union’s frustration over the government imposing contracts on teachers under Bill 115, “and we’re under no illusion that if we are successful, that on Monday everything is just going to be great.

“But we need to get politics and posturing out of this so our teachers, our schools, our principals, our communities, our school councils, can start to recover from all of this.”

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, said Friday’s case will have ramifications no matter what the decision, and could “strengthen the position of some bargaining units with some boards” or influence actions of school boards.

Ironically, a former lion of the Ontario labour movement will be at Friday’s hearing to support the case against the teachers’ union, now as an official with the Trillium Lakelands board.

Earl Manners was president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation during the volatile Mike Harris years from 1995 to 2003, and advised members on several occasions not to perform extracurricular duties — but only when they were in a legal strike position, he recalled Wednesday.

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“And I’ve never believed a teacher’s responsibilities were restricted to just class time,” said Manners, human resources administrator for the board since 2007. “Our duty of care does not stop when the bell rings.”