Secondary school teachers shelving duties

Most public secondary school teachers in the northeast continue job action as teachers across the region are no longer attending staff meetings and have cut back on extra-curricular activities.

The president of the Rainbow local for the Ontario Secondary School Teacher's federation said teachers are focusing on the health and safety of students while still implementing strike action.

"They're continuing to do supervision in the hallways and in some common areas," James Clyke said.

"But they're not doing administrative supervision with regards to study hall periods and things like that."

Non-union staff members are filling in duties that teachers are not doing as a result of job action, according to Norm Blaseg, who is the director of education with the Rainbow School Board in Sudbury.

"We're pulling people away from their other duties and they're going to the schools and they're supporting the principals and staff," he said.

"Eventually, they have to come back and we have to carry out our other duties. So there is a certain amount of stress going forward."

Several boards in southern Ontario have reached tentative agreements.

Clyke said no negotiation talks are scheduled in Sudbury, however Blaseg said the board is willing to start talks with the union at any time.

Thousands of teachers across the province are protesting Bill 115, which gives the government the power to stop strikes and lockouts, and impose its own agreement if it doesn't like what the unions and school boards negotiate together.

The government says any tentative deal must be similar to the one it struck with English Catholic teachers, which froze the wages of most teachers and cut benefits, such as the banking of sick days that can be cashed out at retirement.