Teachers' union wages legal battle to fight repeal of sex-ed curriculum

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) - one of Ontario’s largest teachers’ unions - is seeking an injunction to keep the modernized version of the province’s sex-ed curriculum, and stop what the union is calling a “snitch line” where parents can report teachers who aren’t complying with changes to curriculum across Ontario.

Lee Mason, president of the local ETFO chapter representing more than 400 members throughout the Algoma District, says that Premier Doug Ford - whose electoral campaign ran, in part, on pledges to find inefficiencies within the provincial government - and his government could end up spending more money in the long run by making the changes.

“They’re cutting back in health care, they’re cutting back in mental health support,” Mason said. “The reissuing of this curriculum and setting up a snitch line, seems to me unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible.”

The scrapped 2015 sex-ed curriculum was shunned by its opponents, objecting to portions of the curriculum which addressed same-sex relationships, gender identity and masturbation.

School boards in Ontario are now reverting back to a curriculum that dates back to 1998 - another move that was promised by Ford during his electoral campaign.

“There’s some semantics out there that the government’s playing about using the reissue of the 2010 [curriculum], but what we’re talking about, really, is going back to that 1998 curriculum, which was written before that,” Mason said. “We’re going back 20 years in time before we were aware of social media, before we were aware of mental health.”

There’s also concern from the teachers’ union that the snitch line will be a costly and haphazard replacement for pre-existing methods of dealing with conflict within Ontario schools.

Mason says there’s questions around how investigations would actually take place, and at what cost.

“We don’t know who’s going to be manning the line,” he said. “If it’s an anonymous line, we  believe it could be used for people to bully and intimidate teachers.”

“There are already policies and procedures in place in the school where if parents and educators have issues or have discussions, there are constructive processes - talking to the principal, talking to the teachers, talking to the board.”

The province also launched a website where parents can flag concerns about teachers who deviate from the government's curriculum.
Locally, Mason says that the local chapter of the ETFO will continue to inform and support its members, while engaging in consultations and discussion with the Algoma District School Board as to what the requirements are from their point of view.

“It’s a process that’s starting right now, and I think we want to make sure that everyone’s approaching it with kind of a calm and level head,” Mason said. “We as a union would not counsel people to break the law, or go against the government or do anything illegal.”

“That’s not what this was about.”

“We will be pushing to have it repealed, to have it brought back up to a modern day standard, and while we’re doing that, we’ll make sure that we’re supporting the students as best we need to through every issue in the school.”

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has also filed an injunction in an effort to stop the government from replacing the 2015 curriculum.