On a day of massive strike action, Education Minister Stephen Lecce and Catholic teachers’ union chief Liz Stuart spoke to the Star separately, but jointly share their frustrations.

Ontario’s education minister is frustrated with the current labour unrest in the school system, calling it “unacceptable” for anyone who is committed to students to walk off the job.

As the latest in a series of daylong strikes shut down Catholic boards across the province as well as a number of public elementary and secondary schools, Stephen Lecce said it concerns him that “kids in Ontario are not learning.”

“I find it unacceptable that anyone who is committed to our students would — granted, on the instruction of their leaders — that they would walk out,” Lecce said in a wide-ranging interview with the Star about the ongoing one-day strikes on Tuesday, the biggest job action by teachers to date during this contentious round of bargaining.

“I find what is most particularly unnerving is that for parents, with a few days’ notice, their lives are upended … The fact is, all people are paying the price.”

The level of turmoil in Ontario’s education sector has not been seen for more than two decades — when Lecce was in elementary school.

As teachers from three unions walked picket lines on Tuesday, the education minister spent much of the day at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in downtown Toronto, and spoke to the Council of Directors of Education, which represents leaders at all 72 school boards in the province. He later attended a prebudget consultation in his King-Vaughan riding with Finance Minister Rod Phillips.

“I have always believed that the right approach is to negotiate at the table” and not make students “the casualty of this,” Lecce told the Star.

However, the government is currently bargaining only with the union representing the province’s French-board teachers, and has no talks scheduled with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation or Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association.

Lecce said the government will wait until a mediator calls the sides back to the negotiating table — but does not believe the government needs to make the first move as it has already budged enough.

The unions argue they are walking the picket lines to ensure the education system remains strong.

While the minister can say it’s unacceptable to strike, “what’s truly unacceptable ... is a minister of education pretending to care about Ontario’s students while imposing drastic cuts that will have severely negative effects on those students’ prospects and Ontario’s future economy,” said Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

Lecce said he worries about the impact of the strikes on learning: “the fact that school boards, including in Toronto, have had to postpone exam periods or delay them, EQAO (standardized) math testing delayed, report cards not being completed” and news that some boards are now cancelling winter elementary report cards altogether.

“These things add up and I think parents are rightfully frustrated that this keeps happening every few years and their kids are in the middle of this,” Lecce said, referring to labour unrest during contract negotiations under different provincial governments.

Elementary teachers are looking for a promise that full-day kindergarten staffing will remain as is, with a full-time teacher and full-time early childhood educator — something Lecce has publicly promised but his negotiators have not — as well as commitments for extra supports for special needs students that expired when their contracts did last August.

The government is also boosting class sizes from an average of 22 to 25 in high schools — down from its original proposal of 28 — that will still result in the loss of thousands of teaching positions as well as fewer course options for teens. It also wants to mandate two online courses in high schools, a first in North America.

The moves are highly controversial, and unpopular with school boards as well as the public, according to a number of polls. Even a survey of students showed about 95 per cent oppose mandatory elearning.

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The government has also set any wage increase at one per cent a year, something a number of unions are challenging in court.

Lecce said he still thinks there is a path to get a deal, with a “win-win-win outcome.” He hopes all sides will agree to switch from a government mediator to private mediation, which he says made the difference in getting a deal with CUPE.