On Tuesday it will be official: the school year will have begun across the province, and for now all of the schools will actually be open.

That wasn’t necessarily going to be the case: all of Ontario’s teachers' unions have to renegotiate their collective agreements this year. That, combined with the Liberal government’s need to balance the provincial budget by 2017-18, could very well have meant strikes to start off the school year. So far though, that hasn’t happened.

Here’s where things stand between the government and the teachers' unions.

English high school and English Catholic teachers’ contracts settled (mostly)

The government has negotiated tentative agreements with two of the province’s four major teachers' unions so far. Late in August, the Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) and Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) announced tentative agreements. Neither agreement has yet been ratified by their union membership.

Reached by TVO.org this week, OECTA President Ann Hawkins noted that the bargaining process won’t be complete until the union also has agreements with local school boards – but that the issues to be settled locally are unlikely to lead to a strike or other work stoppage.

Stay up to date! Get Current Affairs & Documentaries email updates in your inbox every morning.

As a result, parents with children in English-language public high schools or in the entire Catholic system can expect a relatively smooth start to the school year.

Both the OSSTF and OECTA agreements reportedly include small raises for teachers and a lump sum payment this year.

Education Minister Liz Sandals has acknowledged that teachers may see raises in this round of collective bargaining, but insists money for those increases will come from elsewhere in the budget and still keep “net zero” growth in education spending.

Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government has pledged to balance the $8.5 billion provincial deficit by 2017-18, which will require keeping a tight lid on education and health care spending – the province’s two biggest budget items.

York University professor Michael Lynk says the Liberals, currently third place in provincial polling, can’t afford to let teachers' pay distract from the goal of slaying the deficit on time.

“What happens in 2018 is you’re approaching an election. If there’s one promise you want to keep, it’s that you’ve balanced the budget,” he says.

“The worst of all possible worlds is they don’t balance the budget and they’ve lost their relationship with teachers' unions and they’ve lost the respect of the public.”

Question marks still surround public elementary schools and French schools

Pay increases were not the most divisive issue in this round of collective bargaining talks. Notably, the two unions that haven’t yet inked agreements with the province aren’t talking about pay increases. Rather, they’re talking about work conditions for teachers.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), which represents elementary teachers in English language public schools, and L’Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), the union for all francophone schools, are the two unions that still haven’t signed agreements.

Some of the outstanding issues for ETFO and AEFO are the amount of prep time for teachers each day, class size, the role of early childhood educators in classes, and how much flexibility principals will have to cover gaps resulting from sick days.

“I’m cautiously optimistic we can reach an agreement. Since we’ve come back to the table, there’s a better will from the parties,” says Carol Jolin, President of AEFO.

For the time being AEFO has not asked its members to carry out any kind of work-to-rule campaign in the schools. However, ETFO’s President Sam Hammond announced the work-to-rule campaign in August, which will prevent teachers from leading field trips or parent-teacher nights, but won’t threaten extracurricular activities, as it did during in response to the passage of Bill 115 in 2012.

Bill 115, passed under Premier Dalton McGuinty, legislated away teachers’ right to strike and imposed wage freezes and unpopular changes to sick leave policies. The episode is still fresh in some people’s minds, despite Wynne’s attempts to try and repair relationships with teachers' unions.

Hawkins of OECTA says teachers are looking to put the rancour of that time behind them. “Teachers just want a fair contract. They don’t want the attacks to continue.”

Image credit: Ontario Federation of Labour

​Read more in TVO.org's Back to School series: