Angry teachers take to social media to blast union over extracurricular activities

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Teachers walk the picket line outside Fallingbrook Community Elementary School during a one-day walkout in Ottawa on Dec. 12.

Photograph by: Chris Mikula , Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA ? Angry Ontario teachers took to social media Saturday to sound off about a surprise late evening statement on Friday from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers? Federation, recommending its members suspend their political action and resume providing extracurricular activities.

But student trustees, gathered in Ottawa for the groups?s annual board conferences, called the recommendation by the teachers group a welcome sign that relations between the government and teacher unions are heading in a positive direction.

?It means that the provincial leaders in education were listening to the student demonstrations in order to get these things back,? said Hirad Zafari, the president of the Ontario Student Trustees Association.

?It also says a lot about the future of the relations in this province because this minister of education and this premier took merely weeks to resolve such a huge problem.?

Zafari, a Grade 12 student at Don Mills Collegiate Institute in Toronto, said reinstating extracurriculars will help schools return to normal after months of ?uncertainty.? Zafari?s soccer team qualified for city finals before school sports stopped running. Now, he says his team has a chance to get back on the field before the finals in May.

?I truly believe that it?s never too late when it comes to stuff like this,? he said. ?Now we have a couple months (for extracurriculars) that actually will do a lot of good for students.?

The trustees association acts as an advocacy group for more than two million Ontario students through elected student representatives from both public and catholic schools.

Trustees communications officer and catholic school student Noah Parker said he still felt the effects of the ban even though his extracurriculars weren?t suspended.

The Grade 12 student at Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School in Burlington said his volleyball team has had to travel to Kitchener and Waterloo in order to find teams to play. The school?s Reach for the Top trivia team couldn?t compete in tournaments because there weren?t enough other teams,? he said.

Even though teachers in charge of extra curriculars are now permitted to run their clubs or sports teams, it?s not mandatory. But Zafari said he?s confident that most teachers will come around to the idea and start getting involved again.

?When one teacher begins to restart their club, restart their team, I think other teachers will follow suit,? he said. ?I also think students will be putting on the pressure in a good way, saying, ?Now that the union heads are no longer preventing (extracurriculars), if you truly do care about your students, you?ll be going back to these as well.?

While the OSSTF?s recommendation was welcomed by the student trustees, as well as parents, the news has apparently created a divide among teachers, many of whom feel that they have been betrayed by their union leadership.

Union members have been left with no details about the reasoning behind the decision to suspend political action. Members have been informed that a press conference will be held with OSSTF officials on Monday at 9:30 a.m. to answer all questions.

Calls to the OSSTF and the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, went unanswered Saturday.

With no comment coming from union leadership, many teachers took to Twitter, Facebook and other social media to voice their opinion on the matter, questioning union leadership and why the decision to halt all ongoing protests over extracurriculars was voted on by union executives and not by the union membership.

?The vote by the exec (sic) now puts the onus on individual teachers to make the decision. Pissed off enough, don?t volunteer your time, pretty simple really,? wrote one teacher with the Avon Maitland District School Board in Western Ontario, on a Facebook group for teachers called ?We ARE (sic) the Front Lines in Education?.

Some teachers even took to Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne?s official Facebook page to voice their anger over the OSSTF decision.

?I don?t trust the new Liberal leadership one bit ... Count on many teachers to not return to volunteering at school as our good will has been taken for granted,? wrote a teacher with the Thames Valley District School Board near London, Ont. in response to a post Wynne made that applauded the union?s announcement.

?Many of us feel disrespected and undervalued. I have already committed to coaching hockey and soccer outside of school and will not have time to do any more. Don?t count on me to come back until a fair contract is in place, one that is negotiated and not imposed on us.?

Twitter lit up with hundreds of comments from disgruntled educators.

Michael Jursic, a teacher at Ryerson Community Public School in Toronto, was one who wasn?t afraid to use the social media platform to voice his disappointment with the union.

?Liberals 1, Teachers 0. Way to divide and conquer, Premiere (sic). You sold out your members, (OSSTF president) #KenCoran!.? said a message posted under his account name.

By noon Saturday a hashtag, #nobackrooms, had been created on Twitter to collect angry messages from teachers directed at the OSSTF and the governing Liberals.

?OSSTF has sold out members in deal with OLP (Ontario Liberal Party). #Nobackrooms. No collectively bargained agreements, no ECs (extra curriculars),? wrote a teacher at Toronto?s Western Technical & Commercial School.

? Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

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Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F239/~3/S0GANJfImLw/story.html

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