What teachers can and cannot do: no field trips, but decorating the bulletin board is OK

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The union representing Ottawa’s elementary public school teachers has a work-to-rule guide on its website. The rules will probably be expanded by Monday, when teachers are expected to announce they will refuse to prepare fall progress report cards or update class websites. But as of Friday here’s a sample of teacher dos and don’ts during the labour dispute:

Teachers cannot:

• Take kids on field trips. This includes outings to outdoor education centres.
• Collect money for anything, such as school fees, agenda fees, milk money, fees for extracurricular activities.
• Participate in activities such as meet-the-teacher, parent information nights for kids in Grade 8, or school barbecues, if they are outside of school hours.
• Hand out forms, such as the permission forms for technology and social media, forms to order milk, and information about class pictures.
• Plan, organize or participate in fundraising activities.
• Help write the school newsletter.
• Update the school Twitter or other social-media account.
• Communicate with the principal or administrators electronically outside of instructional hours during the school day. Teachers can use their class prep time for such communication, the union suggests. If there are too many messages to answer during the school day, “prioritize and respond only to what you are able to do.”
• Take part in meetings to develop new curriculum, even if they take place during the school day.
• Take part in professional development.

Teachers can:

• Take kids to extra-curricular activities like cross-country meets or chess tournaments. (As long as they don’t collect money for anything related to them, like hiring buses.)
• Take part in school breakfast clubs (free breakfasts for kids in poor neighbourhoods).
• Decorate their bulletin boards.
• Update individual education plans for students with special needs, and meet with special education teachers to discuss those plans. Take part in meetings about special education.
• Invite a guest speaker to class (as long as they don’t collect money to pay for any fees).
• Send out a class newsletter (as long as they don’t include any information from the school newsletter).
• Send an email to the principal outside of school hours is they are going to be sick or absent.
• Send an email to the principal, outside of school hours, if there’s been a fight in their classroom, or anything “related to safety of students and staff.”
• Take special needs children on activities involving life skills.

Source: The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario, etfocb.ca

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