3 Articles: 1) Ontario Students’ Math And Literacy Scores Relatively Flat Or Up Slightly: EQAO
2) Ontario High School Teachers Approve Deal To Avoid Strikes, 3) Province Earmarks Nearly $24M For New Elementary School In Oro-Medonte
Courtesy Barie36.com and Canadian PressPublished: Sep 28th, 2023
Toronto
Ontario students’ math and literacy scores are either relatively flat or up slightly compared to last year, though math results in particular remain low, according to data released Thursday by the Education Quality and Accountability Office.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the results for the 2022-23 school year are positive and due to a revised curriculum and a lack of school closures due to COVID-19 and labour disruptions.
“After years of difficulty and following a global pandemic, we are seeing stability and some incremental gains in reading, writing and math scores that demonstrate our investments,” he said at a press conference.
“The back-to-basics focus and stability in schools is yielding some good results for kids.”
2) Ontario High School Teachers Approve Deal To Avoid Strikes
Courtesy of Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished: Sep 28th, 2023
By Allison Jones in Toronto
Ontario’s public high school teachers have agreed not to strike this year, or for the next three years, as they ratified a deal with the government to settle any unresolved contract bargaining issues through an arbitrator.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation reached a tentative deal with the government last month to continue negotiating until Oct. 27, then go to arbitration, giving up their right to strike. Union members voted on the proposal and it has now passed, with 78.4 per cent in favour.
President Karen Littlewood said the union had unsuccessfully tried to engage the Progressive Conservative government in good faith bargaining for 14 months, and she believes this pathway will get teachers the best deal.
“What we have found is the bargaining we’ve done in September has been substantial,” she said in an interview on Thursday.
“We’ve actually made some progress, so we don’t need a lot of dates. What we need is a government that’s going to commit to the students of the province and to the education workers of the province and now that we’re seeing some movement, I expect that to continue until the 27th of October.”
Littlewood said she believes the Greenbelt controversy contributed to the progress, after two independent reports found the process to select land for removal from the protected area favoured certain developers. The scandal cost Premier Doug Ford two cabinet ministers and two top staffers, before he ultimately reversed his plan last week.
“We spent really a year doing nothing and wasting time and money at the bargaining table. But the fact that the government really has struggled in the last few months, the fact that they are desperate for a good news story to cover up all the bad news that goes along with the Greenbelt, we thought we would take this opportunity,” she said.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce rejected the connection to the Greenbelt, saying the deal is good news for students.
“This is something we’ve been working on for some time and I’m really grateful that we can come together to put these kids first,” he said at a news conference.
“They deserve to be in school and by working together, we’ve achieved that priority of parents, listened to their number one priority, which is stability.”
Littlewood said the deal teachers have now agreed to also contains a remedy for lost wages under a wage restraint law known as Bill 124. That 2019 law capped salary increases for teachers and other public sector workers to one per cent a year for three years.
Lecce suggested that the members of other teachers’ unions could receive Bill 124 remedies too, if they agree to binding arbitration.
“Through this proposal, which includes negotiating for the next month and sending any outstanding issues to interest arbitration, this frame includes the resolution for 124,” he said.
“What we’ve offered OSSTF is fundamentally what we’re offering to the other unions, and we believe that frame can be achieved right across the board. It just requires them to accept and to move forward and get on with meeting with us to get this type of a deal like this signed.”
The three other major teachers’ unions have so far rejected the idea of using binding arbitration.
Bill 124 was ruled unconstitutional by an Ontario court, but the government has appealed.
3) Province Earmarks Nearly $24M For New Elementary School In Oro-Medonte
Courtesy of Barrie360.com
Ian MacLennanPublished: Sep 29th, 2023
The Ontario government is kicking in $23.8 million for a new Oro-Medonte Elementary School.
The province has given the Simcoe County District School Board the green light to issue the tender for the facility.
“Once completed, this project will deliver at least 357 elementary spaces for local families,” according to a news release from Doug Downey, MPP for Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte.
The school will be located just east of Craighurst at 739 Horseshoe Valley Road.
Patricia is the Business Mentor and owner of Grow Vantage and a Past President of the Barrie Chamber of Commerce. She applies over 30 years of business experience (from start-up to corporate) to mentor entrepreneurs. Since 2011, she has held over 6,500 coaching and training sessions in-person and online. Through Ask For Directions Training, her entrepreneurial training program (and parent company Grow Vantage), and as a business coach, she works with start-ups who are new (or who have lost traction) to design, launch and grow their businesses. Along with 20 other expert instructors she teaches strategies in marketing, sales, communications, and finance, as well as practical techniques to increase productivity, and manage their businesses. In other words, everything entrepreneurs need to learn to grow and run their businesses successfully, and avoid the costly mistakes they can't even see coming - that lead to delays in growth and getting stuck.
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