Cameron Penn earned his G2 driver’s licence and has picked up extra shifts at the grocery store near his home, where he works part-time.

Nevell Provo is playing a lot of basketball with his friends, and is spending time on the picket lines to support his teachers.

As the strike by public high school teachers enters its third week in Durham Region — and as one in the Rainbow school board in Sudbury wraps up its first week — teens have found themselves with a lot of time on their hands.

Some are working or studying, others relaxing, as many grow worried about the curriculum they’re missing, if they’re going to get final marks or even course credits if the strike drags on.

“We were all given assignments (before the strike started), but that can only last for so long,” said Penn, who is in Grade 12 at Pine Ridge Secondary School in Pickering.

“It’s hard to look at a book and figure out” something as challenging as calculus all on your own, he added.

Since the strike began April 20, no talks between the Durham District School Board and the local district of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation have taken place. Provincially, bargaining on big issues like prep time and class size is ongoing, but slow moving. More local strikes are expected in Peel, Halton, Ottawa, Lakehead/Thunder Bay and Waterloo in the coming weeks.

“No one knows why this is happening — teachers aren’t able to talk about it, and I don’t even think the board knows why this is going on,” said Penn. “We are the only ones in the entire country to go on strike (on April 20) and we really are so unfortunate.”

Students who’d hoped to boost mid-term marks may not get the chance, said Penn, and others worry about makeup classes extending into the summer, when students have already lined up jobs to help pay for college or university.

“And especially for students going into engineering — they will be going into (university) without that knowledge, and they are going to be at a disadvantage,” said Penn, who has been accepted to the University of Ottawa to study commerce.

So far, the strike has led to the cancellation of a rugby tournament his school team was going to take part in, as was a charity fundraiser for mental health and suicide prevention.

“That was something we worked hard on,” he said. “We also wanted to do a fundraiser for Free the Children, and we’d booked speakers and received grants form the government to run the event — and we had to cancel and give up the grant because of the strike.”

Michael Barrett, chair of the Durham District School Board, said he gets 30 to 35 emails a day from parents “just exasperated” by the strike that has left their children at loose ends.

“They’ll tell me, ‘my kid was in bed when I left for work and was still in bed when I returned home,’ ” said Barrett, who has a son in Grade 12 worried about the impact of the strike on his applications to college.

“They’re losing that momentum.”

Parent Charlene Wainwright, whose daughter attends Anderson Collegiate in Whitby, said parents are frustrated, with mixed feelings about who to blame.

She’s spending time with her own daughter, who is in Grade 11, but has noticed a lot of teens at the mall “especially in the afternoon, because I think a lot of them are sleeping in,” she said, though “some are going to the library to try and keep on top of things.”

Provo, who is 18, already has a scholarship to play basketball at Loyola University in Maryland, while studying finance.

“I’m preparing for that, training every day, and I’m able to train a bit more,” said the Pine Ridge student. “I’m trying to keep my brain active, reading over some of my class notes.”

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A leadership camp he and classmates were supposed to attend in Muskoka will not take place, he added.

“The frustrating thing to me is that everyone at the table says their main concern is the students,” added Penn. “But I have a hard time believing that.”