Dear Parents and Guardians,

We are writing to update you on recently announced job actions by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO).

As you know, ETFO is currently in contract negotiations with the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, and the union has been taking part in a selected withdrawal of services since November 2019.

Today, ETFO announced that if no agreement is reached by January 31, ETFO members will be required to engage in a one-day rotating strike and a one-day full provincial strike each week.

ETFO has announced strikes on the following dates that will impact all TDSB elementary schools (JK-8):

 

• Thursday, February 6, 2020 – province-wide strike
• Friday, February 7, 2020 – rotating strike impacting the TDSB

Should the strikes take place, the TDSB would, once again, have no other option but to close all elementary schools to students on Thursday, February 6 and Friday, February 7 as there would not be sufficient supervision to ensure their safety. Parents/guardians should start making alternate arrangements for their children on these dates.

 

Child care centres located in elementary schools will be permitted to stay open. Please contact the child care provider directly for more information. TDSB Extended Day Programs will also be open to currently enrolled students for a full day of programs. EarlyON Child and Family Centres will operate during their regular hours.

Should the ETFO walkout take place, all International Languages Elementary and African Heritage classes would also be cancelled. However, all adult non-credit programs, such as Adult ESL and Learn4Life, will continue to run. 

In addition, ETFO also announced that, as of February 3, its members will no longer participate in extracurricular activities at any time. As part of previous work-to-rule sanctions, ETFO members only participated in extracurricular activities during the school day. With today’s announcement, we regret that, as of February 3, all elementary extracurricular activities that have continued to occur will no longer run.

We know that this information may be concerning to you and we appreciate your continued understanding. We remain hopeful that an agreement with ETFO can be achieved soon. Despite these challenges, learning continues in classrooms across the TDSB, taught by teachers who remain committed to the achievement and well-being of all students.

We will continue to keep parents/guardians informed throughout this process. As always, for ongoing labour updates, please visit the TDSB website and follow @tdsb on Twitter.

Sincerely,