Ontario reaches tentative deal with French-language school teachers: Lecce

Minister of Education Stephen Lecce says the province has reached a tentative agreement with the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), which represents about 8,200 elementary and secondary teachers at French-language school boards across the province.

“Our singular focus has always been to keep students learning in class without the disruption of a strike,” Lecce said in a release Thursday.

The Ministry of Education said the deal provides stability for families across the province and ensures there will be no province-wide job actions or strikes in all elementary and secondary schools in the 12 publicly funded French-language school boards for the next three years.

The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) remains without a deal.

“There is no justification for further delay,” the Ministry’s release states. “We are urging the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association to put students first and sign a deal that ensures all Ontario families benefit from three years of peace, stability, and a renewed focus on academic achievement.”

The OECTA fired back in a statement, blaming the province and board trustees for stalling.

“Catholic teachers’ next scheduled bargaining days are February 26, 27, and 28. As a result of the limited number of dates that the Ford Conservative government and the representatives of Catholic school boards have provided, it will be more than a month between our last meeting date in January and these upcoming bargaining dates – this is not a structure for success.”

“There are critical issues facing publicly funded schools in Ontario – issues that Catholic teachers identified and that can only be addressed at the bargaining table. This makes the apparent lack of urgency from the government and Catholic school board trustees to provide a sufficient number of bargaining dates all the more confusing and concerning.”

Lecce’s office, however, says it was the OECTA that requested a conciliator and it’s the conciliator who ultimately decides the bargaining dates.

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) have previously reached new deals with the province.

The unions announced last week that an arbitrator awarded them an additional 2.75 per cent for the third year of their deal — on top of the one per cent raises each year that were part of the previous contract under Bill 124.