Some 70,000 Ontario teens were scrambling to head back to school Wednesday after a sudden ruling by the Ontario Labour Relations Board declared their teachers’ strikes illegal and ordered them back to work immediately.

“What? This is insane! We were thinking we would go back Friday or Monday, but I have to go tomorrow? I don’t even know what (timetable) day it is,” said a gobsmacked Cameron Penn, in Grade 12 at Pine Ridge Secondary School in Pickering in Durham Region, where teachers at 24 high schools have been off work since April 20.

“But I guess it’s better to go back, even for a few weeks — it’s hard to teach yourself calculus at home, trust me.”

The 53-page labour relations board ruling handed down at 5 p.m. Tuesday by chair Bernard Fishbein found local strikes by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) in Durham, Peel and Sudbury’s Rainbow District were unlawful “at least in part” because they were focused on issues like class size that are bargained at a central, provincewide table, not locally. Under Ontario’s new two-tiered bargaining system, local strikes are allowed over only locally bargained issues and provincewide strikes are permitted over “central” issues.

Fishbein did not forbid the three local strikes permanently, but slapped a two-week “moratorium” on them until the OSSTF either goes back to local bargaining in those boards or takes step to “purify” or “cleanse” any strike action that pertains to central bargaining.

But the moratorium may be moot, given that the Wynne government has introduced back-to-work legislation — expected to pass Thursday — that will ban strikes in the three boards until the end of the school year. Earlier this week, an expert panel advised the province that the strikes were putting the school year in jeopardy.

“We need to get kids back in school, so until we know what the legal implications of the (ruling) are — until we’ve heard from OSSTF in terms of their intent for the whole rest of the school year — we are going to keep debating the back-to-work legislation and move forward on that,” Education Minister Liz Sandals told reporters.

“We want to make sure that when the kids go back to school that they stay there … for the rest of the year … we want that to be absolutely clear,” Sandals said, adding the OLRB ruling and back-to-work legislation don’t “change our intent to negotiate a central agreement.”

Paul Elliott, OSSTF president, said teachers will return to work, but added that the labour board ruling “does not change the fact that our members have grown increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress at both the local and central bargaining tables. If these school boards had just made an honest effort to engage in meaningful negotiations at their local bargaining tables, there would have been no strike” or a hearing.

Still, the abrupt timing of the ruling caught many off guard. Peel District School Board officials warned students that bus service may not fully resume Wednesday, and school cafeterias won’t be open yet because during the three-week strike the board was forced to lay off lunchroom supervisors.

As well, all three boards have cancelled final exams to allow more time for catch-up, and have permission from Sandals to waive the 110-hour requirement to earn a credit.

CP timeline of Ontario's current labour strife in schools

“It’s not nirvana — an OLRB ruling does not a relationship make — but it’s better not to miss one more day,” said Michael Barrett, head of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) and chair of the Durham District School Board, where teachers have walked the picket lines for 26 days.

Peel board spokesman Brian Woodland warned “this is not a normal return to school; it will take us a while to get back to normal” and schools won’t require any major assignments from students during the first week back.

Principals also will have to work at rebuilding relationships in their schools, said Woodland. “The teachers returning are our colleagues before, during and after” the labour dispute, he added. “We really value our teachers and are happy to have them back.”

Doreen Dewar, chair of the Rainbow District School Board, said she was “overjoyed” with the labour board ruling that will return some 4,700 students to class after being out since April 27. Board staff were working late into the night finalizing plans, including bus service which is widely used for schools in Sudbury, Espanola and Manitoulin Island.

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“Every day that kids have been out of school has been painful,” said Dewar.

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Meanwhile, there is also labour unrest at the elementary level.

An escalating work-to-rule campaign by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) means elementary teachers may not get the training experts say they need to deliver Ontario’s new sexual health curriculum this fall.

“We’re concerned about how prepared teachers will be this fall to teach the curriculum we’ve been waiting for for five years,” said Chris Markham, executive director of Ophea, a group of educators who advised Queen’s Park on the need for an updated curriculum that covers the issues of healthy relationships, consent and “sexting.”

With talks stalled between ETFO and the OPSBA, the union has told members to step up their administrative work-to-rule campaign to include a boycott of activities that includes “curriculum training for new and revised curriculum policy documents” such as the new health curriculum.

Sandals said the new health curriculum will still roll out this fall, but called the union’s tactics “appalling.”

“This really isn’t hurting boards or the government, this is hurting children,” she told reporters Tuesday.

“I really am quite appalled that they would refuse to participate in promotion meetings and the sort of meetings where you talk about arranging support (for) a child that is leaving your classroom . . . this is really hitting at kids.”

Refusing to attend workshops on how to teach the new sex-ed curriculum deprives teachers of the kind of sensitivity training called critical by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.

“It’s important teachers have a fairly sophisticated picture of the knowledge to be presented so they’re tuned in to what’s developmentally appropriate,” said Alex McKay, executive director of the independent agency.

“Whether you’re teaching Grade 1 or Grade 11, talking about sexual health education requires a comfort level that doesn’t necessarily come naturally,” he said, which is why teachers often seek training in these issues.

ETFO President Sam Hammond said while his union “has supported and continues to support the introduction of this revised curriculum, elementary teachers will not attend training on any ministry (of education) initiatives at this time.

“Teachers can review the new curriculum and resources as part of their preparation time in order to provide instruction to students, as they often do with new curriculum documents.”

The ETFO work-to-rule will continue, he said, “until the government and the Ontario Public School Board Association take the offensive concessions off the table.”

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