The province’s push for mediation didn’t lead to any progress in negotiations with Ontario’s public high school teachers’ union, and no further talks are planned.

And as the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) heads into a second day of talks on Thursday for the support staff it represents, president Harvey Bischof has said negotiators will see how things are going by the end of day before deciding what happens next for all 60,000 members.

Amid a situation that’s growing increasingly tense, the province’s Catholic teachers published a scathing open letter to Premier Doug Ford and Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Wednesday, saying they are “appalled at how your government has bargained” and slammed them for continuing to insist on “drastic cuts.”

Lecce later told reporters that parents need to know “we have a strong, robust team and they are remaining in place,” and that talks continue with all education unions.

The province’s bargaining team is “going to continue to negotiate in good faith because we want to get good deals with all teachers in this province,” Lecce said.

He continued to urge all teacher unions to accept his offer of mediation. “It can help us drive a deal that's good for kids.”

With the help of a mediator, the government and school boards’ associations reached a three-year deal with support staff represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees last month. That agreement that was only reached the night before a full-out strike was set to begin.

The province’s public elementary and secondary teachers are now in legal strike positions, but must give five days’ notice before taking any job actions. Elementary teachers have previously announced they will begin a largely administrative work-to-rule campaign next week, meaning no meetings, no ministry workshops and no report cards (although teachers will provide principals with a list of grades).

It remains to be seen what the secondary school teachers’ union will do.

The union representing teachers in the province’s 12 French-language boards was the first to reject Lecce’s call for mediation, saying such a move would be useless given how far apart the two sides are.

Meanwhile, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association has applied for a conciliator to aid in bargaining, another step toward job action and following an overwhelming strike mandate vote from members.

Lecce said progress is being made in negotiations, and that “my hope is that they will reflect seriously before any form of escalation and consider mediation, allow it to proceed over some days to deliver a deal. With CUPE it took some time, but we were able to drive an outcome that was good for all the parties.”

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Talks were held Monday and Tuesday between the province and the OSSTF’s bargaining team for teachers and occasional teachers, but mediation “generated no movement on the part of the management team beyond the destructive positions that they had previously tabled,” said a union memo issued Tuesday night.

Liz Stuart, president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, wrote in the open letter that the government has “made comments through the media that have had a detrimental effect on negotiations, introduced regulations and legislation that violate teachers’ collective bargaining rights, and played games with the public to muddy the issues and deflect blame,” including a recent bill capping public sector wage increases to one per cent a year, she added.