OFSAA (the Ontario Federation of Secondary Athletic Associations) announced yesterday that it would be cancelling day two of the high school Nordic ski championships in downtown Huntsville due to the province-wide teachers’ strike.
In a media release issued on Feb. 14, the organization said, “We have been assessing this situation as it relates to the feasibility of the Championship. At this time, we are announcing that the individual distance races will proceed as scheduled on Thursday, February 20. Due to the strike, the team sprint relays on Friday, February 21 have been cancelled. There will be no competition on that day.”
The event banquet, which was to be held on Thursday evening at Deerhurst Resort, has also been cancelled. Instead, the awards ceremony will take place at Arrowhead Provincial Park following the final race of the day.
Members of the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF/FEESO) will all strike on February 21. The strike will include close to 200,000 teachers and education workers across the province.
The inaugural Huntsville SnowFest, hosted by the Huntsville Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, had events scheduled for Friday evening on Main Street. As a result of the OFSAA cancellation, snow will not be trucked into downtown Huntsville and spread along Main Street until Friday evening, according to HLOBCC executive director Kelly Haywood. The SnowFest activities that had been planned for Friday evening will now take place on Saturday instead. The Muskoka Fatbike Race, organized by the Huntsville Mountain Bike Association, will proceed on Saturday as scheduled.
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I’ll start by asking if anyone knows how much time a teacher spends at work? I have some calculations made by my friends working in one of the schools in Hamilton. It turned out that apart from the blackboard, the teacher has other tasks to perform: he gives opinions on programmes, takes part in conferences, prepares individual needs charts, prepares supporting action plans, works in subject and educational teams, conducts observations and pedagogical measurements – the average person does not even know about most of them. And what is more, we all know from the student reality: pedagogical councils, meetings with parents, creating a lesson plan, preparing students for the Olympics, writing out certificates. Of course, not all these activities are performed by the teacher every day. In every school we have the so-called “golden five”: conducting lessons, preparing lessons, conducting other classes with students, preparing extracurricular activities, checking works. These activities are performed daily by most teachers and on average take 34 hours per week. Adding the other activities, it results that a teacher works an average of 47 hours a week. Let’s not forget about this while trying to desecrate the position and authority of this social group.
William Brown, are you aware that ALL extra-curricular activities happen ONLY because teachers volunteer their time, with zero pay, to make these activities happen. Hours and hours and hours of practices, competitions and time spent away from their families to afford students the opportunity to participate in sports teams, drama productions, art displays, clubs etc. To increase class sizes and take away educational assistants will impact in a very negative way on classroom learning! This is NOT about more money for the teachers, this is about removing necessary services, packing more kids into the classroom and saving money at the expense of the children! It is NOT about “more for me”! Get your facts straight before bashing the teachers!
So much for the teachers claims that their strike is all about the kids! They will do whatever it takes to further their very selfish interests. The kids are merely a pawn in their crusade for “more for me”
What a huge disappointment for all of those student athletes and for all of the organizers who put in so much time and effort to set this up. Apparently people still talk about the last time we held OFSAA downton (2012 I think) and everyone was really looking forward to it. I am glad the snowfest and other activities planned around the snow are still going on. This dispute is really affecting our students and especially their extra-curricular activities – which in my opinion are more important than their academics.