The provincial mediator is expected to call the government and high school teachers’ union back to the bargaining table, possibly this week, says Education Minister Stephen Lecce.

Fresh off signing tentative deals with the Catholic teachers’ union last week and the elementary teachers on Friday, Lecce said the province will resume talks with the AEFO – representing 12,000 French-board educators – on Monday.

While the province held brief, “exploratory” talks with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) earlier this month, no formal talks have been held since last December.

“We seek to build more momentum with the French teachers’ federation Monday and Tuesday of next week and with OSSTF, the remaining partner at the table,” Lecce said at Queen’s Park.

A Ministry of Labour mediator “decided to bring us back (with the French teachers) and that’s positive,” he also said. “We hope the mediator will do the same with OSSTF next week, or in the coming days thereafter … I think they will call back the final partner in the coming days.”

Harvey Bischof, president of the OSSTF, said he awaits the call “and we’ve always said that if invited by the mediator, we expect we would go back.”

However, he expects some changes to the negotiating process will need to be made “given we are under different expectations for behaviour with social distancing.”

Lecce has shut down Ontario schools for the next two weeks, until April 5, in a bid to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, and on Friday unveiled a website for parents and students to access learning materials during that time.

Lecce says he has now reached out to the unions as plans are being made in the likely event schools are shuttered even longer. A letter to union leaders sent Friday night said “our goal would be to restore teacher-led learning to the greatest extent possible, recognizing the challenges in doing so while respecting public health direction … We will be asking school boards to develop a plan that supports teachers in connecting with their students to ensure the successful completion of the school year for all students, and to support students in advancing to the next school year and to graduate.”

At Queen’s Park on Saturday, Lecce told reporters that “we want to work with all of them to provide stability and to move forward with unity on the mission at hand which is combatting COVID-19 and ensuring the safety of staff, but of course our kids in schools and right across the province,” Lecce said.

He also said he will soon issue a letter to families about the unprecedented situation, impacting two million students in the province’s 4,800 schools.

Bischof said “as soon as it became apparent that this was as serious as it was, we signalled our intent to cooperate in terms of looking out for student well-being.”

Meanwhile, in an email to parents, Toronto District School Board Director John Malloy said the board, like others, has posted additional learning materials online, and said “It is important to note that these online resources are not mandatory or graded and are meant for families to use as optional resources to support independent learning while students are at home.”

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He also said that starting Monday, “many members of the Professional Support Services staff with mental health expertise will reach out to the students with whom they have relationships. In a few days, a variety of mental health resources will be announced on the TDSB webpage.”

Malloy also said the board “has been working to resolve a number of challenges that lie in creating conditions where all students and teachers have access to devices and the internet and supporting our Special Education and English as a Second Language students. We are committed to working through all aspects of this situation quickly and effectively under these very difficult circumstances. We are working on our plan and once finalized, we will share it with staff, students and families.”