Changes to education act favour cronyism over merit says local union

A change to teacher hiring practices by the Ontario government has upset teachers union representatives both locally and across the province.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce, on Thursday, Oct. 15,  announced the repealing of Regulation 274.

Lecce said the hiring of teachers under that regulation "rewards union seniority over one's merit," forcing the province’s school boards to hire from a pool of teachers with the most seniority.

"Merit will lead hiring in our schools," said Lecce of the repealing of Regulation 274.

The government and the Ontario Public School Boards Association (OPSBA) say repealing the regulation gives teachers a fairer deal, allowing new Teachers College grads a greater chance of landing that first job, occasional teachers a chance to get a long term job and also allowing school boards to hire based on merit, diversity and the unique needs of any board or individual school.

However, Sharon Indrevold, OSSTF Algoma District 2 occasional teachers president, said Lecce hasn’t read or understood the regulation.

“We’re really upset about the way this has evolved,” Indrevold said, speaking to SooToday.

“‘Reg 274’ was put in about eight years ago (by the former Liberal government in 2012) and the idea behind it was to actually do exactly what they (the Ford government) are saying it’s not doing, and that was to create equity within the workforce, it was to allow for fairness and rotation of positions so that there was equal work (for occasional teachers), so that there wasn’t favouritism and nepotism, which had been for many years.”

“If you were a son or a daughter of a principal, vice-principal or someone with the board, you had first dibs on the job,” Indrevold said.

The province has taken a big step backward, the OSSTF representative said.

“I was a contract teacher for many years and have worked as a teacher president and I can tell you (before Regulation 274) I got calls from people saying ‘I can never get a couple of days work, I can’t get working because nobody (with hiring authority) wants to call me, they don’t know me so they don’t call me,’ so with this new reg, we were able to get to the point where it was rotation to the schools based on your qualifications, and equity in terms of anyone on the list got (at least some occasional) work.”

“And then, when a job came up for a long term position, the reg said you had to interview the top, most senior five, but anyone could still apply for the job. The external job posting still went out, so at the end of the day if by chance the five most senior ones didn’t score the highest in the interviews, then they didn’t get the job (employers then moving on to interview other candidates).”

In short, Indrevold said “he (Lecce) is misleading the people by saying (the government wants to stop occasional teachers from saying) ‘because I’ve been on that list for five years I get a job first.’ That is not fact...and nepotism? It’s out there.”

Indrevold said OSSTF and the Algoma District School Board (ADSB), through Regulation 274, have worked well together to ensure every qualified occasional teacher gets a chance for at least some work and a chance for a long-term teaching position.  

“We’ll have to plan our next action,” Indrevold said.

That, the union rep told us, will not include any job action at this point, but Indrevold said “we certainly can ramp up our political activism with Mr. Romano (Sault MPP Ross Romano). I think he should own some of this.”

“I think it’s heartbreaking for a lot of occasional teachers, whether they’ve been in this as an occasional teacher for three, four or five years or just coming in. I think people are very disillusioned now because they think if they don’t know someone in the school they’re not going to get the calls for the jobs, and that’s sad. Very sad.” 

"Regulation 274 provided a fair, consistent and predictable pathway for hiring qualified educators. Revoking this regulation is yet another tactic by the Ford government to divert attention away from the crisis they have created in education. The government should be focused on the safety of students and staff, and ensuring schools have the proper resources they require to provide the best instruction possible," wrote Nicole Mitchell, Algoma District Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) president, in an email.

Administrators from the ADSB were not immediately available for comment. 

Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board (H-SCDSB) occasional teachers are represented by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA).

“35 per cent of new hires can come from outside the long term occasional teacher list,” said Darrell Czop, Ontario OECTA Huron-Superior president, making reference to an agreement negotiated in March (just before the COVID shutdown). 

Only 30 employees, mostly noon-hour aides (no occasional teachers), are represented by OSSTF within the Catholic board.

Rose Burton Spohn, H-SCDSB director of education, was not available for comment, but Joe Chilelli, H-SCDSB superintendent of education, replied “the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association (OCSTA) has been a very strong advocate for changes to the hiring practices regulation.”

“With all other Catholic boards in Ontario, we support OCSTA and are pleased that the government acted on some of their recommendations...at this point, we are unsure how the proposed changes will impact hiring practices in our board, but we look forward to receiving more information.”