Deals with the province’s elementary teachers and support staff have put an immediate end to all job action, meaning fall report cards will be sent home to 817,000 elementary students — though slightly later than usual — extracurricular activities can resume and schools will now be fully cleaned.

Tentative agreements with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and CUPE were reached after tense, around-the-clock talks that began last week and went all weekend before the first real breakthrough came early Monday. CUPE, representing 55,000 education workers, was the first to announce a deal, and by midday some schools said their hallways had already been tidied by custodial staff.

News for the 78,000 public elementary teachers came around suppertime Monday, with Education Minister Liz Sandals saying “we have specifically agreed that the full progress reports — including comments — will be prepared for all the elementary students in the English public system” and go out by Dec. 11.

“I know that parents are very anxious to get that information,” she said at a hastily called news conference at Queen’s Park.

However, conceding the bargaining process “has not always been easy,” the minister has given school boards the power to dock the pay of 12,000 support staff represented by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which still has not settled their contract.

“Job action is negatively impacting our students. Schools have become increasingly dirty and we’re increasingly concerned about the health, safety and well-being of our students,” said Sandals, adding it’s up to each employer whether to slash 10 per cent of workers’ pay for not doing their job.

“This cannot go on.”

Michael Barrett, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, which bargained the deals with the government and public teacher unions, said boards are not yet looking at doing so in the hopes a deal will soon be reached with OSSTF, which represents staff in a number of Ontario boards, including Toronto and Peel.

As for talks with the elementary teachers and CUPE, he said “things started to fall into place around 2 to 3 o’clock (Monday morning) — there were a couple of snags along the way, but all of the parties didn’t give up, they kept at it.

“There were some frayed nerves and some concerns, but they kept at it.”

Barrett would only say that progress-report cards “were an essential piece, putting together the framework that ensured our families’ and communities’ needs were heard” after an outcry over the possibility students may not get them this fall, after receiving incomplete final reports last June because of teachers’ work-to-rule.

Teachers and support staff have been without contracts since last August, and after issues surrounding the province’s new two-tier bargaining were sorted out, talks were on-and-off during this past spring, summer and into the fall.

While details of the elementary teachers’ contract have not yet been made public, Sandals said it is “fairly similar” to the deals reached with public high school teachers, Catholic teachers and French-board teachers. Those included a 1 per cent bonus, a 1.5 per cent raise over three years and steps to have unions run their own benefits plans. Issues like class size are to be examined by a joint committee.

Sandals emphasized the deal is “still a net zero” like the other settlements because overall the education budget will not change, and said neither ETFO nor CUPE received any money to offset bargaining costs, unlike the controversial $2.5-million payout to the other three unions.

Sources have told the Star one issue, surrounding sick time, could not be sorted out between ETFO and the government and will be sent to arbitration as part of the tentative deal.

While the province still has to reach deals with a few, smaller education unions, the settlements with these two major unions are a much-needed political win for Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals, who had set Sunday as an initial deadline before slapping financial penalties for job action.

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“This round of bargaining has been exceptionally lengthy and difficult but in the end we achieved a tentative agreement that ETFO believes is fair and meets the needs of our members,” said Sam Hammond, president of the 78,000-member union, in a written statement, adding that a ratification vote will be held by mid-November.

Hammond advised teachers to suspend their work-to-rule, which has cancelled field trips, meet-the-teacher nights and other parent-teacher interviews, as well as banned extracurriculars.

Details of the CUPE settlement will not be released until it is ratified by its members, who work across all four public systems as education assistants, custodians, school staff and early childhood educators.

The impasse with the OSSTF-represented support staff is reportedly over benefits. As for the threat of docked pay, union president Paul Elliott said via Facebook that “we strongly believe in the collective bargaining process and we don’t respond to threats . . . We remain committed to a negotiated settlement and will continue work toward a fair agreement.”