Ontario’s ‘back-to-basics’ bill demands school board transparency on teacher PD days, student attendance rates

Education Minister Stephen Lecce’s Bill 98 comes amid tense negotiations with teachers who’ve been without a contract for nearly a year.
Thestar.com

July 31, 2023
Kristin Rushowy

School boards will soon be expected to do a lot more sharing -- from exactly what teachers are learning on professional development days, to the number of students attending classes at least 90 per cent of the time.

As part of Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, which passed before the summer break -- and amid tense negotiations that continue with all of the province’s teacher unions -- the government is mandating that boards post details of educators’ PD activities to the ministry as well as parents, starting this fall.

The government is also requiring boards to report regularly on how they plan to boost the percentage of teens on track to graduate (the marker is 16 credits by age 16), the number who graduate within five years of starting high school, attendance rates, how many students are studying science in Grades 11 and 12 and math in Grade 12, as well as how many are aware of mental health supports and if they believe their learning prepared them for their post-high school plans.

“We are following through on our commitment to parents through new measures that will better refocus school boards on academic achievement and the development of life and job skills,” Education Minister Stephen Lecce said in a statement released Sunday.

The back-to-basics bill will allow the province to require boards to implement its goals “that focus on boosting student achievement focused on reading, writing and math,” Lecce also said.

“This sends a clear signal to Ontario’s school boards we’ve listened to the priorities of parents, putting common sense at the centre of our education system.”

While some have called Bill 98 a provincial power grab, some see it as a way for the government to address some parents’ concerns that boards have been distracted by non-academic issues at the expense of student achievement.

And the summer rollout of the new requirements could not come at a better time for a government trying to change the channel after a number of controversies, as well as last week’s loss of two byelections that the Ontario PCs had pulled out all the stops to win.

“It is great to set priorities, but without the programs or the people to back them up -- and the money that that takes -- they are little more than a target,” said Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation.

“Priorities will also be different across the province so I hope the government will take that into account this will be a lot for boards to have in place for September.”

Patrick Daly, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, said boards will need more details about the requirements to include provincial priorities in multi-year plans.

“I’m sure this will be a challenge and we are seeking more clarification,” he said. “But this supports parents as the primary educators of their children … (so) increased transparency and increased reporting to parents is a positive.”

Boards already, “in one form or another, have this information available to parents and some do it by sending out newsletters and some boards … just have it on their website,” added Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association. “There’s really not an issue with standardizing it to make the information more available to parents.”

The “whole thing is really designed to make everything we’re already doing more transparent to the community and to the public in general, and that’s not a bad thing,” Abraham said. “We know we have a really good public education system and the more that people understand and see what we’re doing, the more they’re going to support it.”

Stephen Lecce is ‘putting a Band-Aid on the situation’

Daly said boards are relieved the province is addressing the teacher shortage issue -- by allowing student-teachers to formally work in classrooms as they complete their degrees -- and are pleased about the addition of Holocaust education for students and training for teachers.

But Littlewood said that allowing teacher candidates to work in schools is “concerning” because they are not fully qualified.

Teacher unions would like to discuss both attracting and retaining educators “but the minister again is putting a Band-Aid on the situation,” she said.

“With 40,000 qualified teachers in the province we don’t need to have student teachers in the classroom. We need to have good working conditions so that we are attracting and retaining qualified professionals.”

In a memo sent to boards late Friday, Lecce and Deputy Education Minister Kate Manson-Smith noted their plans include early, consistent reading screening for the province’s youngest learners.

“School boards are expected to engage with students, staff, communities and parents, and to use quantitative and qualitative data to develop multi-year plans that are responsive to local needs,” the memo says. “This includes engaging parents within the first two months and last two months of the school year regarding their multi-year plan as it relates to addressing and reporting on provincial priorities.”

For professional activity day plans, the province now “requires school boards to publicly provide more detail on PA day topics or focus, entity hosting the activities, format, learning and delivery methods, content, presenter(s), and resources, at least 14 days in advance of the PA day. This information must be posted in a prominent location on the board’s public website or that of the participating school(s) and included in communication to parents.”

The memo says the PA day requirements “provide greater transparency for parents and families. Currently, the level of detail publicly shared about PA days varies among school boards. This means that families and communities receive inconsistent information across the province.”

Littlewood said there’s never been anything secretive about PA days, and in her experience they are “already very prescriptive and mostly directed by the ministry. The problem again is that in many cases, that direction was often sent out late. They are work days and it would be great if they were well-planned and meaningful.”

Annie Kidder, executive director of research and advocacy group People for Education, said professional development time is important for implementing new initiatives, though “in our annual Ontario school surveys principals have pointed to a lack of professional development time as a key challenge.”

However, she added, “it is also vital that there is a balance between centralization of control and local autonomy the policy for PD days is part of overall legislation and regulations that are significantly centralizing control and authority over education in Ontario.”

Meanwhile, the province, school board associations and the four main teacher unions continue to bargain on new contracts. Previous contracts expired 11 months ago.

In a July 20 memo to members, obtained by the Star, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association said it will be back at the negotiating table on Aug. 15, 16 and 23.

“While progress remains slow at the provincial bargaining table, the (bargaining team) continues to make every effort to move negotiations forward to achieve a fair collective agreement for Catholic teachers,” the memo said.

Given inflation as well as the recent court ruling that struck down provincial salary-capping legislation, wages are a key issue in this round of talks.