I ended yesterday by lamenting the fact that the agreement reached by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and the Ontario Ministry of Education calls for teachers and administrators to take 3 unpaid days during the 2013/2014 school year. By scheduling this time on PD days, the government figures that it will have no impact on classroom instruction. By fixing these days as Fridays before existing holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and March Break), the political impact is also minimized.
I have to thank fellow tweep, @RChids, for reminding me that professional learning is most effective when it is self-directed. It was our exchange on Twitter last evening that got me thinking that this is a perfect opportunity to reclaim what should be both a right and a duty as professionals. So here’s my proposal:
1) We urge our union negotiators not to ratify the agreement as it stands.
2) We demand that the 3 PD days in question be moved away from the cusp of major holiday periods.
3) We plan to flood each of these days with as many edCamps, unconferences, PLN meetings, webinars, and other professional learning structures that we can possibly organize!
In other words, let’s agree to use these days as true professional learning opportunities, planned by teachers and administrators to meet the needs of teachers and administrators. The content will be ours, the format will be ours and the cost will be covered by members.
Instead of taking our protests to the streets, let’s take it to conference rooms, pubs and cafés, auditoriums and living rooms. Let’s show the government, our unions and the public that we are serious about professional learning and that we can actually do a pretty good job of it on our own.
This is serious stuff. Professional learning days have already been cut back, and the ones that remain have been appropriated for purposes that have little to do with professional learning. If we let this part of the agreement go by unchallenged, then what appears to be a temporary fiscal strategy this time could very well become a permanent reality.
I don’t expect that everyone will agree with me. Some may balk at the idea of giving up “unpaid” time to engage in something related to work. But I suspect that there are enough of us out there whose imaginations are tickled by the idea to give it a try.
But we have to respond quickly. We need to get on the phone to our union locals and present the idea as a possibility. There is a council of presidents meeting at OECTA central early next week, and if we could get enough support by then, we might be able to make a change and turn the tide on the erosion of our right to have professional learning opportunities built into our contract.
So, what do you think? You can find a list of local unit offices by visiting the OECTA website. Let’s act quickly. Let’s tell our association and our government that professional learning is important, and is not on the table when it comes to contract negotiations!
Make a call. Make a comment. Make a difference!
Think it’s called Downloading. That would lead to the end of any paid PD days at all.
You may be right, Maria. But we’ve gone from 9 to 6 and now to 3.
Steve:
Wow! This is powerful. I agree on the reclaiming our days part, but I’d still really like to be paid for them, thank you very much (I’m an ETFO member, by the way!). It’ll be interesting to watch Ms. Broten dance around her comment yesterday that no PA days are mandatory.
This is mindboggling. We negotiated for two (PD) report card witing days and an interview day. We now are okay in giving those days up. Wake up Catholics. We still have to complete report cards and interviews. These will now be done on our own time and we will not get paid.
Most young teachers will be happy to just have a job. Wow! What has our society come to? We negotiated in good faith all along and we are going to stand by and watch everything get swept away.
The Gov’t lowered business tax rates from 14% to 11%, watched money disappear (ornge, hospital execs, hydro) without accountability, gave police and firemen a raise, and now want teachers to fix the problem.
Moral will be at an all time low. Will unhappy teachers make for a good classroom?
I work with ETFO. The Catholic teachers have been thrown under the bus by their leaders. I cannot see a vote for this agreement. If it does pass then you have made your bed. Wait for two years from now. All of this reeks of New Zealand/ Australia/ Wisconsin. Public education has been effectively destroyed there.
I agree that this agreement, in its current form, leaves PD in a bit of a shambles. I also wish that our respective unions could have stuck together on this, and I don’t know enough about the relationship that ETFO and OECTA share to begin to understand what the dynamic between the two was, is, or will be in the future.
I obviously agree with most of your points. A profession that is not grounded in quality professional learning and development runs the risk of being de-professionalized. In the case of teachers, we are fighting with a labour/profession mindset and times like seem to shift focus to the latter, I’m afraid.
I’ve worked through many labour disputes in my career and I’ve always found that there a lot of choices here in terms of response, attitude and the overall level of morale that hangs over our work. We’ve been told that morale will be low, so it could very well be.
There is a lot of road to travel before this thing is finally settled; it may never be settled. I reference B.C. as a good example of where folks are just biding their time until a new government is elected.
I appreciate the comments; many of them resonate.
Glen you are absolutely correct in everything you said. We must stand against this attack on collective bargaining……..to honour those who have gone before, to respect our current teachers, and to protect future teachers . This will Not be easy but we must stand strong.
So David (and others), my question to you has to do with what an acceptable agreement would look like. The OECTA piece has not been ratified. I’m assuming that there will be more information and opportunities to discuss over the coming days.
But, what would you vote “yes” to? It’s clear to me that the terms of discussion and the framework for an agreement (for better or worse) has been established in the OECTA deal. What changes would you make?
Uh….. NO! No pay, no work. Come on, so you want teachers to keep on giving and giving and not get paid??? Those 3 days should be at the end of the year if they happen. Let’s see how we could actually save money….make one PUBLIC board, eliminate standardized testing, eliminate JK/SK full day funding until it can be afforded, twin schools, make bussing boundaries farther not shorter, start cutting from the top instead of the bottom. There are tons of ways to save but this gov’t isn’t interested. Police and firemen continue to get raises and have no cuts. We are going down a very slippery slope when we think it’s ok for the gov’t to strip contracts that were legally bargained. What we fought for we will never get back when we give in. So again, no pay, no work. DUH!
Thank you for the definite and passionate response. I won’t pretend that many would share your sentiments about the reality of working on unpaid days. It is interesting to note, however, that OECTA has agreed to the idea of 3 days in order to allow younger teachers continue some movement on the grid. So, if you’re still on the grid, “this Bud’s for you”.
There is lots to discuss in your comments including the issue of whether it’s possible to strip a contract that has expired. I honestly don’t know, but I’m spending the week with folks that do. You may, in fact, have an answer to that yourself.
But the real point of my post has to do with professiona learning, the importance of PD being built into our life as professionals, and the apparent “non-chalance” with which PD days were targeted as ideal days to take as unpaid days.
I just wanted to say with the current state of things that forcing people go into work and not pay them is the definition of slave labour. I do not agree with it. I coach, because I volunteer to do so. I am not forced to do it. I have spent days at school where I have not left to go home until after 7pm, I have given of my lunch periods so students could have activities to do, however, when it comes to the board and me being forced to work for no pay, that I do not agree with. Thank you.
I’m certainly in agreement with you Jim that nobody should be forced by their employer to work without being compensated.
Is this something that has in fact been initiated? If so, are these designated as specific days?
Jim,
The three unpaid days were part of the Memorandum of Understanding agreed to by OECTA back in the summer. I’m not sure if this will become part of other unions collective agreements, but there is every indication that it will. The unpaid days that were chosen were Professional Development days, a move that I thought was rather dismissive of the value of those days for our teachers.
It’s my understanding that the days selected are all Fridays and fall just before other longer holiday periods. We have been directed by our union not to show up for work or engage in any professional development on those days.
Thank you. I am definetly going to have no problem following those instructions.