Ottawa public schools unlock front doors as support staff refuse to operate security systems
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Security systems at Ottawa’s public schools have been turned off and front doors left unlocked in response to a partial strike by support staff.
School office workers were advised by their union on Monday morning not to operate the buzzers that allow visitors entrance to schools. In response to the job action, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board ordered about 60 elementary and secondary schools to disable their security systems so students, visitors and parents could get in.
“Our goal is to be able to keep our schools open and to ensure safety of our students,” the board said in a statement. “We know that buzzer systems are an element of safety planning. We also know that although operation of the buzzer is struck work, the union and every one of our employees continues to put children safety first.”
Officials are working with other school boards across the province in a similar situation to compare strategies. “At this time we believe that other districts are taking a similar approach,” the board said.
In a tweet Tuesday morning, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson blasted the job action as “outrageous.”
Premier Kathleen Wynne blasted the job action.
“It’s not acceptable that kids’ safety should be used as a bargaining chip,” Wynne told reporters after hearing that school doors had been unlocked in the Halton region in southern Ontario. “It absolutely is not.”
Education Minister Liz Sandals said parents are right to be concerned.
“I was a little bit surprised that a union had chosen the safe entry system as the direction for disruption because obviously safety is important to us,” she said. “But there’s nothing in the Education Act or the regulations that even requires this system to be in place.”
Parents have voiced their concerns with the lack of security at public schools in the city. Theresa Bow-Hearn said she couldn’t believe that anyone could walk into W.E. Gowling Public School, where her six-year-old daughter, Destiny, attends.
The school on Anna Avenue is down the street from where 54-year-old Gail Fawcett was stabbed to death in the middle of the street on July 21.
Bow-Hearn worries that elementary schools in the city could become a target. “It could be that someone is sick in the brain out there waiting for something like this to happen and now there is the chance of it tomorrow,” Bow-Hearn said, adding she planned to keep her daughter home from school on Tuesday.
Bow-Hearn said that if the situation doesn’t change, she will try to enrol her daughter in the nearest Catholic school.
Two years ago, the provincial Liberal government created a $10-million fund so school boards could install buzzer systems and video cameras after publicity about school shootings in the United States, including the killing of 20 children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
But Sandals said there is no mandatory locked-door policy in Ontario schools.
In Ottawa, the schools that have disabled their security system will adopt the policy in place at the board’s 66 schools that don’t have buzzers. Visitors will be asked to sign in at the office and get a guest pass.
It’s one more labour disruption in a school year that’s been packed with work-to-rule campaigns by teachers. Monday’s withdrawal of services is by office and clerical staff, custodians, technicians, educational assistants, early childhood educators who work in kindergarten classes, social workers, psychologists and speech pathologists. Their union, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, represents about 2,700 staff at Ottawa’s public and French school boards.
Cindy Dubue, the union’s provincial vice-president, said she didn’t think that turning off front-door security systems was a safety problem. Many schools didn’t have security buzzers until several years ago, she said.
School administrators concerned about safety can ask someone else, such as the principal, to operate the buzzers, she said. “If they are choosing to keep the doors unlocked, that’s a decision they’ve made.”
Dubue said the union’s job action should have little effect on students in class.
Paperwork will be jammed up at the office. Support staff are being told not to fill in for absent colleagues, or attend staff or parent meetings and answer emails outside the work day. Custodians won’t fix equipment unless there is a formal work order asking for it to be done, or there’s a health and safety issue.
Support staff also won’t call students to the office during the day — for instance, if a parent picks up a child for an appointment. Parents should allow extra time if they are picking children up, as principals may not immediately be available to call the student to the office, the school board advises.
School staff will continue to supervise students and monitor whether they’ve arrived at school safely, said the school board statement. “We ask for your continued support and patience as we work through this legal strike action.”
Provincewide bargaining with the support staff union broke down Sept. 25. The main issue is job security, said Dubue. She said support staff want to feel valued. “When it’s time for cuts, it’s the support staff that are cut.” For instance, the number of educational assistants, who help children with learning and behavioural issues in classrooms, doesn’t meet the need, she said.
Ontario’s public elementary teachers are already on a work-to-rule campaign that has steadily escalated since the school year began. Field trips and meet-the-teacher nights have been cancelled, and teachers are refusing to handle permission forms, collect money, get involved with fundraising activities, send out class newsletters or update websites.
With files from Meghan Hurley and The Canadian Press
Support staff partial strike
Who: Support staff include office and clerical staff, custodians, technicians, educational assistants, early childhood educators who work in kindergarten classes, social workers, psychologists and speech pathologists.
Where: All Ottawa public elementary and secondary schools, some staff at French-language schools.
What: Here are some of the things support staff are being asked not to do:
• Operate the school front-door security buzzers.
• Call students to the office during the school day. (For instance, if a parent needs to take a child out of school for an appointment.)
• Send out newsletters or work on school websites. (Elementary teachers are also not helping with newsletters or websites during their work-to-rule. So that leaves principals to do the work.)
• Meet parents outside the school day.
• Fill in for absent colleagues.
• Take part in Ministry of Education initiatives.
• Fix equipment without a formal work order, unless it’s a health and safety issue (custodians).
• Administer and distribute keys to the school for occasional teachers and others, such as workmen (custodians).
• Use walkie-talkies or electronic communication such as cellphones for school business during breaks or after school hours.
• Send work-related emails outside the school day.
• Conduct checks for lice on students.
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