With exams now over, Ontario’s public secondary teachers will resume their rotating, one-day strikes next week.

News of the walkouts came Thursday as talks continued for a second, full day between the province and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) — seen as an early positive sign in the impasse. They return to the table on Friday.

ETFO has said its 83,000 members will strike two days a week, starting next week, if no deal is reached by Friday.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said on his way into a noon-hour cabinet meeting that his negotiators have been granted “the latitude” to get a deal, and that talks were “productive.”

“We’ll see how the negotiations go,” he said.

On Tuesday Feb. 4, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation will target a dozen boards with strikes, including Halton public and York’s public and Catholic boards.

The 60,000 member union represents teachers as well as education assistants, early childhood educators, psychologists and speech-language pathologists in public, Catholic and French boards across the province.

Catholic teachers return to the bargaining table on Monday, the day before their planned day-long province-wide strike.

The government is also negotiating with the union representing French-language educators, but has no talks scheduled with the secondary union.

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Harvey Bischof, president of the secondary school teachers’ union, said the one-day strike can be averted if the Ford government “agrees to return to, and maintain, the class-size ratios and staffing levels that were in place in Ontario schools just one year ago.”

The province plans to boost secondary class sizes from last year’s average of 22 to 25, which would mean the loss of thousands of teaching positions as well as course options for teens. It also wants to introduce two, mandatory online credits starting next fall, a controversial move which would be a first in North America.

Neither move is popular with the public, and is opposed not only by the unions but also school boards, the principals’ association as well as the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, which advocates for the province’s two million students.

Bischof said his members “are not the only ones who understand the enormity of the damage that will ensue if this government’s education agenda is allowed to unfold.”

He said if Premier Doug Ford “is even remotely serious about providing ‘government for the people,’ then he will acknowledge that Ontarians have roundly rejected his education agenda, and he will direct his minister of education to return to the bargaining table and negotiate a deal that preserves the quality of one of the best education systems in the world.”

Lecce has called on the unions to end their one-day strikes, saying such job action only hurts students.

“Parents are losing patience with (the secondary school teachers’ union) ultimatum of proceeding with further strikes against students unless the government delivers on their demands,” he said in a statement.

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Last week, Ford said he has limited patience for the teacher walkouts, and vowed the government will not budge on its offer of a one per cent annual wage increase.

Teachers are seeking a raise equal to the cost of living, or about two per cent.

Boards impacted by the high school teachers walkout on Tuesday are: Lakehead, Thunder Bay Catholic, Lambton Kent, Thames Valley, Waterloo, Waterloo Catholic, York Region, York Catholic, Halton and Kawartha Pine Ridge. Some schools in Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir and Conseil scolaire Viamonde will also be targeted.

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