ELEMENTARY TEACHERS’ FEDERATION OF ONTARIO

REPORT TO THE 2015 ANNUAL MEETING

Advancing and Protecting Our Union, Our Values and Our Profession

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Local and Provincial Workshops

There were several opportunities for staff to fur-
ther engage members and local leaders in health 
and safety. These included: workshops for school 
health and safety representatives on report-
ing hazards; the Health and Legal Conference for 
Women; the ETFO Virtual Academy Webinars on 
serious student incidents; and the fall Leadership 
workshop on risk assessment and safety planning. 

Cross Service Area Training, 

Programs and Other Initiatives

Collective Bargaining staff have collaborated with 
other executive staff from various service areas 
to develop and/or present at the following cross 
service area initiatives to date: FDK Pamphlet 
Work Group; Leaders for Tomorrow; Leadership 
Training Planning Team; Parliamentarian Training; 
Mentoring Program WP; Reflections on Practice 
Leadership Institute; Stewards’ Binder Revisions; 
Union School; Visions Program; Women’s Health 
and Legal Conference; and Women’s Programs 
Organizational Review.

Professional Relations Services

PRS Matters

Professional Relations Services (PRS) staff pro-
vides advice about legislative changes and legal 
and professional issues in regular publications, 
in steward mailings and on the ETFO website. 
This year’s topics included advice regarding alle-
gations, filling in for the absent principal, the 
student safety plan, shared workspaces, pro-
fessionalism and DECE performance appraisal 
and professional learning. See http://www.etfo.ca/
adviceformembers/prsmattersbulletins.

Lobby re College of Teachers 

Mandate Creep

The Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) has increas-
ingly strayed into areas within the responsibil-
ity of the teacher federations. The College has 
involved itself in professional learning activities 
and public advocacy initiatives, presenting itself as 
speaking on behalf of the profession. Along with 
spending time and money to curry favour with 
federation members, this “mandate creep” has led 
to a misguided use of College human and financial 
resources and to an increase in staff and budget 
that College registrants have been forced to fund. 
Such empire building led to an extensive protest by 
registrants to recent fee increases by the College.

Last fall, ETFO joined with the Ontario Teachers’ 
Federation and other teacher affiliates to launch 
a lobby effort to raise awareness of the OCT man-
date creep. The goal was to put pressure on the 
Ontario government to intervene to ensure the 
College focuses solely on its core mandate of regu-
lating the teaching profession in the public inter-
est. Materials were developed for locals to include 
the issue in fall meetings with MPPs and promoted 
through ETFO’s communication channels.

Photo: Christine Cousins