More than 67,000 Ontario high school students are out of school Monday because of teacher strikes, and fears are growing they could lose their school year — which would be a first in Ontario, if not Canada.

In its first statement since the turmoil erupted, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association said Monday that the stumbling blocks include disputes over wiggle room on class size, how teachers use their time at school outside class, and principals’ ability to hire teachers based on factors beyond just seniority.

“The prospect of losing the school year must be unthinkable to both sides; none of the players can want to go to the brink,” said University of Toronto professor David Livingstone. “But if it comes to late May or early June with no resolution, that’s when back-to-work legislation might be a possibility.”

Yet many say the Liberals would be loath to be heavy-handed after the acrimony caused two years ago when they imposed a deal on teachers.

Bargaining continued late Sunday night, passing the midnight deadline. It was just before 1 a.m. Monday that it was announced some 42,000 teens in Peel Region would be out of school starting that day. Peel is the third school board targeted for a strategic strike in as many weeks by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF).

Roughly 21,000 of their peers in Durham Region have been out of class for two weeks, and 4,700 more in Sudbury-area high schools, where teachers walked out April 27.

In a statement released early Monday morning, Janet McDougald, chair of the Peel District School Board, said the OSSTF was “irresponsible” to allow the strike.

“In going ahead with the strike, they proved what boards have known all along,” McDougald said in the statement. “There’s no sincere commitment by provincial OSSTF to reach a local settlement.”

With progress appearing sluggish at the provincial bargaining table and four more OSSTF locals poised to hit the bricks, fear is mounting that nearly 130,000 high school students across seven school boards targeted for walkouts could become the first Ontario students ever prevented from finishing their school year by labour disruption. Durham’s strike could leave students without half of their second semester, and Peel students could lose the final six weeks of class if a deal is not reached. In Ontario, a high school credit requires 110 hours of instruction.

It is not clear whether, if a deal is reached later this term, catch-up classes could extend into summer.

“There are implications for other boards, too,” cautioned Livingstone, “because if all these students lose their year, it becomes a precedent for going down a very dark road in future negotiations. This should be an ideal situation for alternative dispute resolution; something our premier is an expert in. Let’s hope cooler heads prevail.”

Education Minister Liz Sandals recently said that, “Students want to know they can complete their school year, and our government wants to ensure Ontario’s excellent education system continues to serve the people of Ontario properly. That is why we remain committed to reaching a negotiated agreement at the central table that is in line with our fiscal plan and supports student success.”

However, the high school teachers’ union announced early Monday that it has walked away from provincial talks.

There have been few signs of agreement in the first round of Ontario’s new system of two-tiered bargaining among teachers’ unions, school boards and the ministry of education, which leaves money items to be hammered out at a central table, and other issues to be worked out locally.

“Collective bargaining is a two-way street,” said the OPSBA statement, obtained by the Star, which called on teachers to be flexible about caps on class size and how much supervision they do outside class, adding “our collective agreements must build public confidence by reducing barriers that impede learning.”

A spokesperson for OSSTF President Paul Elliott said he was not available for comment because he is focusing on negotiations.

The OSSTF chose seven union locals to go on strike locally, but few believe any deal can be reached until there is agreement at the central big-ticket tables.

“I’m very worried for students in Durham; we are being very creative and have staff working around the clock on how to alter the curriculum and compress the curriculum (for when teachers come back), but there is no good reason Durham or Peel is on strike and putting our children at a disadvantage,” said Michael Barrett, chair of the Durham District School Board and president of OPSBA.

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“Our Grade 12s need the foundations for college and university, so we’re working on developing independent study units — without anyone to mark them — and how do we salvage the school year for students in alternative schools who may have come back as adults to take a course to get back into the workforce? These courses change lives.”

Pine Ridge Secondary School student Cameron Penn said “that’s the scary thing — the uncertainty.” He and other Grade 12 students have written to the union, government and the board asking for a meeting “because no one knows that is going to happen” or how long the strike will last or how it will affect their post-secondary plans.

Barrett said one of the main sticking points is Regulation 274, a new rule that compels schools to hire teachers based on seniority alone, to avoid favoritism and nepotism. But Barrett said it makes it hard to choose teachers on nuanced grounds that might lead to a better fit.

School boards want the seniority rule scrapped, but say unions want it to stay.

“If I have an inner-city school with a large number of Somali students, for example, I’d like some of my teachers to reflect that, and I hear this from parents in the Jamaican community as well,” he said. “But with Regulation 274 you certainly can’t take into account things like diversity.

“We have 22 schools in Durham where family income is well below the poverty line and we need teachers whose skill sets are appropriate for them. I don’t support nepotism, but is it a systemic problem that needed a two-by-four (Reg 274) to solve? No.”

Another roadblock is that boards want the flexibility to exceed local caps on class size.

“If a board has a cap of, say, 25 students and we have a class in a core subject like math with 28 students, you have to break it into two classes of 14 students, but (to be able to afford the second math teacher) you’d have to cancel a smaller class like maybe auto mechanics.

“It happens all the time — we’ve had to cancel tech classes at Oshawa Central Collegiate and G L Roberts Collegiate because of this,” he said. “We’re not asking for classes of 40, but if you have flexibility you don’t have to lose the range of programming choices.”

OPSBA also wants principals to have more power to direct what teachers do during their prep time, or ask them to supervise students more outside class, which a recent report on safety at the Toronto District School Board recommended. However many local union contracts limit the number of hours teachers can be asked to supervise students outside of class, and teachers would be reluctant to give up those limits.

Meanwhile, Ontario’s 76,000 public elementary teachers will be in a legal strike position on May 10. English Catholic teachers recently voted 94.2 per cent in favour of a strike but won’t be in a legal strike position until at least mid-June.

With files from Sean Wetselaar