Many high school teachers with the Greater Essex County District School Board are still in the dark about what they are teaching Monday morning.
In-person secondary school classes are scheduled to start on Monday with a staggered approach, while virtual classes are scheduled to start on Wednesday.
But Ontario Secondary School Teacher Federation District 9 President Erin Roy said many teachers still didn't know what courses they were teaching as of Friday afternoon at 1:40 pm. For that reason, Roy requested the start of school be delayed for teachers to prepare properly for their teaching assignments.
As of Friday at 1:40 pm, there are secondary teachers that do not know what they are teaching on Monday. I have asked Director Kelly to delay the start of secondary classes so that teachers can properly prepare. There are significant staffing challenges to overcome & time is up.
— OSSTF District 9 (@OSSTF9) September 11, 2020
"We don't want to receive kids when we don't have things prepared for them, especially in the model that we have where we are teaching students a single period for four hours, that's a lot of time to fill when you're not sure yourself what you are doing," said Roy.
A representative with the Greater Essex County District School Board, Scott Scantlebury said all teachers should have their assignments by the end of the day Friday.
Roy isn't putting the blame on the school board. She said multiple changes at the Ministry of Education level along with the number of students who have chosen to learn online have caused major organizational problems.
"It's a lot to organize and we're working as much as we can, harder than I've ever worked, I'm more emotional than I've ever been and I've never seen the stress levels higher, so we're trying our best if we could buy another day or two that would really help out the vast majority of our members," said Roy.
As of Friday afternoon, there were no plans to delay the start of school further.
