Let them sleep in.

For Toronto teens, the once-a-week reprieve where classes start an hour later in the morning — usually 10 a.m. — has been on hold since high school teachers began job action last November. And they’ve been making it clear they miss it.

“When y’all planning on settling this beef with the teachers and giving us our late start back? Please,” a student asked the Toronto District School Board via social media.

Tweeted another: “@TDSB bring back late start you monsters.”

At one high school, students created a petition after the 6,000 members of District 12 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation began their work-to-rule, which mainly targets administrators. (The late-start for teens gave schools an opportunity to hold staff meetings, but under the job action teachers are no longer attending them and that’s why they’ve been cancelled.)

“It’s that time of the week where you know you have some sort of break and an hour class that’s not too much work,” said Arooj Naghman, a Grade 11 student at Sir Wilfrid Laurier Collegiate in Scarborough, which scheduled a 10 a.m. start and shorter classes on all Tuesdays but the first each month.

“Everyone looks forward to it. It’s a little bit of a break because you have so much to do, the higher the grade. In Grade 11 or 12, you are stressing so much as is, you want that break.”

Naghman said she used the time to “sleep in, or go early and catch up on some work. Anything to get that stress over with or get some work done.”

Although collective agreements have been reached and ratified provincially, Toronto is one of three OSSTF districts across the province where secondary teachers don’t yet have local agreements and are engaged in work sanctions.

District 12 president Doug Jolliffe said he’s not “overly encouraged” by what’s going on with talks, but the union has no plans to escalate the job action. A mediator is involved but no negotiations are scheduled, he added.

“What we are trying to do is put pressure on management — not the students or parents,” he said.

Key issues involve health and safety, as well as the salary amounts to be reimbursed for those teachers who are “released” to be a part of the union executive.

While he knows students miss the weekly late start, “it’s not a big imposition … we look forward to getting back to normal as soon as possible.”

TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said the board has “had no formal negotiation since prior to the Christmas holidays. We continue to look for opportunities to return to the bargaining table.”

Zach Kornberg, a Grade 10 student at Bloor Collegiate enrolled in the TOPS science program, said he would sleep in, have a bigger breakfast or take his time getting ready on Thursdays when classes began at 10 a.m.

“I remember for the first few weeks (after the job action started) … people were still showing up late, and there was a lineup outside the office,” he said, adding students at one point started a petition to have the delayed start reinstated.

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James Newman, who is in Grade 12 at Laurier and co-editor of the student newspaper, said the impact of the job action has been minimal and “under the radar,” and nothing like a few years ago when extracurriculars were cancelled.

“We’ve gotten used” to the loss of the weekly sleep-in day, he added. “But it does suck.”