Teachers and support workers will not be participating in any one-day strikes for two weeks

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario is in Phase 6 of work-to-rule as of Wednesday.

During this phase elementary teachers and education workers who are members of ETFO will not be spending money out of their own pockets for classroom supplies, doing internal coverage of classes, and uploading student data related to assessments to board systems.

This phase also means that union members will taking a two-week pause on province-wide and board strikes.

"Our members are staying in schools, focusing on the core parts of their responsibilities, provide instruction, assessment and evaluation of students. They continue to be available for special education meetings and communicating with parents," said Greg Weiler, President of ETFO Waterloo Region.

While there will be a two-week pause on strikes, they will be moving into Phase 7 if no agreement is reached centrally with the province by March 6.

"We were quite hopeful seeing that the government was bargaining with one of the other teachers' unions that this might be an opportunity to both recognize the support we have from parents and use a different tactic to hopefully get the government to move ahead with us, and we are waiting to see if that plays out the way we hope."

At this point, Weiler said no decision has been made about when they will be returning to the bargaining table with the provincial government.