Schools in Mississauga and Brampton switch to online learning for education worker protest
Published November 2, 2022 at 10:01 am
Public school students in Mississauga and Brampton are preparing for asynchronous online learning as education workers across Ontario are staging a protest of forced contract legislation on Friday (Nov. 4).
Workers such as early childhood educators, educational assistants and custodians plan to walk off the job Friday, despite looming legislation introduced Monday by the Ontario PC government imposing contracts on approximately 55,000 education workers in the province, and banning them from going on strike.
For Mississauga and Brampton, this means approximately 2,500 education staff won’t be at work during the protest, leading the Peel District School Board (PDSB) to close all schools in Mississauga and Brampton for the day.
All K-12 students will participate in asynchronous learning at home on Friday.
Students will log onto their virtual learning environments to retrieve assignments on Friday, with teachers and support staff available remotely.
Athletic and extracurricular activities scheduled for Friday will be cancelled, as are international language programs scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
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All childcare, EarlyON centres and before- and after-school programs will also be closed.
Balanced Calendar schools will move forward with their P.A Day on Friday as scheduled.
The PDSB said it is monitoring the situation and will be updating parents on the board’s website.
The Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board said on Monday it is monitoring the situation and will share information with parents through SchoolMessenger, social media and its website.
CUPE has said it plans to fight the legislation, which sets out a strike ban with fines of up to $4,000 per employee per day and $500,000 for the union, with the union promising to foot the bill for any such fines.
The Ontario PC government’s offer to education workers consists of a wage increase of 2.5 per cent for employees earning less than $25.95 per hour, and 1.5 per cent for those earning more – an offer the union calls “inadequate” as a protection against job cuts.
The offer does not include paid prep time for education workers who work directly with students, and a cut to the sick leave/short-term disability plan.
The Ontario government says it intends to invoke the notwithstanding clause to prevent a strike, which gives provincial legislatures or Parliament the ability, through the passage of a law, to override certain portions of the charter for a five-year term.
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