Welcome Back to Reg. 274

Even in September, it seems no Occasional Teacher conversation is exempt from discussions regarding Regulation 274 and the confusion it has caused among the membership, the Principals, and Boards of Education across Ontario. It certainly was paramount when Occasional Teacher presidents met at the provincial OT Conference in June, and it will be at the forefront when we meet again Sunday to Wednesday of next week.  President Sam Hammond has given his word that the province will assist Locals in dealing with this "chaos" and as stipulated by the ETFO Memorandum of Understanding, a committee with the government and ETFO representation is to be struck to work this out.
The government's intention  was to make hiring accountable and transparent which is laudable for we have all witnessed arbitrary hiring practices. However, this is an unwieldy process for Boards the size of Thames Valley and all parties acknowledge that there have been oversights and errors. The Union need first-hand anecdotes to take to our monthly Labour Management meetings so that we can identify and resolve as many of these difficulties as possible. Also know that the Union has filed a grievance regarding the group interview process and our first hearing is scheduled for October 11, 2013.

We hope the following will provide some clarification but do not hesitate to contact us with your questions:

Subsets of the Membership per Regulation 274

OT Roster (seniority list)

- All members on the OT List are ranked according to accumulated teaching days with the Board as an elementary Occasional Teacher only.

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LTO List

- Those who successfully interviewed for a posted LTO position in 2012-2013, 2011-2012 or who were successful in the group interviews; and had worked as an elementary OT for the Board for 10 months as of March 1, 2013 and had taught a minimum of 20 days are included.

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LTO List for permanent hire

- Includes those from the LTO List who had successfully completed a long-term assignment of 4 months or longer (no evaluation requirement since that process is still being developed) and who are not part-time permanent Teachers (the opportunity to increase their FTE is governed by the TVTL permanent Teacher Collective Agreement).

• The original OT Roster (seniority list) was revised after consideration of additional information provided by the membership last spring. The revised OT Roster was posted at the end of July, but does not take into account days worked from March 1, 2013 to the end of the school year.  The Union will be advocating that this adjustment take place as soon as possible.
• The LTO List that was also posted at the end of July is different from the LTO List for permanent positions because of the factors listed in the above chart.