Around OECTA

We at the Catholic Teachers of Hamilton-Wentworth office and the leaders at the Provincial office understand the stress that the OT shortage has caused for teachers. So much is already being asked of you and planning time is the opportunity to take a pause and get some much-needed prep work completed. The loss of planning time, the last-minute notice causes further stress. I’m sure that the fact that the board has not solved this problem, feels like further disrespect. We also understand that as your advocates, members want us to be able to do something about this.   

We have informed members of this information through emails, newsletters and at General Meetings, to ensure awareness of the measures we have taken to push the board to resolve this issue. We will try to help you understand why we are having this issue in HWCDSB but also what we are doing about it.  

First, it is important to know that this problem is not unique to HWCDSB. There is a province wide shortage of OTs. This is happening across the province. It is worse in our board because of problems that we have drawn to the attention of the board for years. Some are under the impression we have OTs who want to work and they are sitting at home not working but this just isn’t the case. The board is dangerously short OTs.  

We have pushed the board to make changes in several areas. The first is that the OT list is inflated. For years we drew the board’s attention to this because we saw names on there of members who had retired or been hired with other boards. The board tried to point the finger to OTs declining jobs. But they were short OTs and their inaccurate list made it appear as if they had more OTs than they actually did. Through our conversations over the past few months, they have finally committed to cleaning up the list.  Another major area that the board needs to work on is how they recruit new grads to HWCDSB. We have said repeatedly that other boards have a better system of hiring new OTs and that the HWCDSB takes too long to contact them after they apply. We have provided specific examples of OTs who were waiting to hear from them, that took other jobs because they didn’t get a call back. They didn’t do anything about this. In fact, in April/May/June 2021 they only hired 5 new OTs during “prime time” graduation from teacher’s college. This is unacceptable. We specifically have made the suggestion that every student teacher in our schools right now, should be approached by the principal, invited to apply, and the board should be interviewing them and making a job offer during their placement, even before they graduate. From what we are hearing, the board doesn’t seem to be taking this suggestion seriously.    

We have raised with the board, how to make HWCDSB more enticing to OTs. We shared with them that HWDBS is paying OTs at 133% of the daily rate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how that would affect the number of OTs accepting jobs since it is not uncommon for them to be registered with more than one board for daily OT work. Some Boards pay all or some of the health and safety benefits. We have also made them aware of other incentives that boards in Ontario are using to bring OTs to their board. Some are offering benefits, $600 bonus for working a certain number of days in the school year, $300 bonus for work a certain number of Fridays in the school year. We haven’t seen any of these items implemented but are hoping the board has taken our suggestions seriously.    

We had a number of permanent and LTO positions that were unfilled this year. Our suggestion was that the board drop the requirement for AITs to have Arts qualifications, in order to get the position filled so teachers had their planning time. This also made sense since classroom teachers seemed able to teach the AIT curriculum all last year! They agreed to do this for LTOs and were able to fill some of the positions as a result. They would not do it for the permanent AIT positions. We suggested the board take any unfilled half-time positions (where no OTs applied for the job), and make them full-time positions. The other half of the day, we suggested, they could be used to pay back owed planning time. They did this. We suggested they call retired AITs to come back to fill the gap and they did. The board has also brought back retired SERTs and teachers to fill the gaps. This requires approval from OECTA, and we agreed to it. We are willing to agree to any reasonable band-aid measure to help get classrooms covered so members get their much-needed planning time.    

Last year’s missed planning time was in the process of a provincial grievance. Catholic Trustees were successful in arguing that the provincial arbitration should not be heard there but at a hearing at each individual Board. In a rare move OECTA Provincial is appealing it. The loss allowed us to file a local grievance which we just moved to arbitration. We made our position very clear to the board, that all of your AIT time is still owed, along with any outstanding PT. Primary virtual teachers are owed their AIT time and PPT since they had to teach all of that curriculum last year.  We also believe that paid back planning time during virtual instruction should not be counted as it required you to plan and assess for your planning time. Many had to be IT support while on “planning time”.  Both our office and the Provincial Association continue to work on a resolution of these grievances as a top priority.  

This year’s missed planning time is a little different. Our contract has a mechanism for payback that allows for a number of months to pay back the missed time. First, it can be paid back in the following month with any unassigned time in the PPT/FSL/AIT schedule. If it is still owed at the end of the next month then a principal calls in an OT until it is paid back. Due to the shortage, they ability to do this is challenging. The contract also states that owed planning time must be paid back by the end of the year in which it is owed. Any planning time still owed at the end of the year will be grieved if it is not resolved.  

We are doing everything we can, from our end, to come up with solutions for the Board, but in the end, the board has to agree and act. They are the employer. We hope this information helps you in understanding that we are doing everything in our power to deal with this issue. Unfortunately, some of those things simply require time. We know this doesn’t help you now. In the end, you need to take care of your mental health. If you can come up with a solution at your school, with your colleagues, then we would expect principals to be supportive of their staff. This could be a teacher taking 2 classes outside while the other takes planning time. Then they switch. Outside of the box thinking may not solve the shortage, but might be able to alleviate the pressure a little. If you are not supported by your principal, with some of these short-term measures, please let us know.

After much going back and forth with the Board to ensure that everything was letter perfect, we are happy to make available to members a digital copy of their contract. Please be sure to download a copy of the collective agreement for your reference.

Collective Agreement September 1, 2019 - August 31, 2022 (pdf)

OT Collective Agreement September 1, 2019 - August 31, 2022 (pdf)

In reflection upon the additional hours that teachers are putting in this week while conducting conferences with parents, a decision was made to postpone the OECTA General Meeting until December 8. To ask members to commit more after-hours time in such close proximity to conferences seemed too high of an ask at this time.

The meeting on December 8th will occur virtually and will begin at 4:30pm.

An email will be sent on the morning of Wednesday December 8 with a Webex link to the meeting.

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