The Ontario Fail-to-Fill Issue

Danyal is setting up the student-made instruments from last week in preparation for his first class: kindergarten music. As he lays down the last instrument, the PA system crackles. “Mr. Sehr, please call the office. Mr. Sehr, please call the office.” Danyal sighs and rolls his eyes. He already knows what this conversation will be about. Before he picks up the classroom phone, his colleague Tracy storms into his classroom. “You are not being collapsed again!” she declares. “This is the third prep this week that I will be missing!”

Tracy continues to glare as Danyal returns the phone to the receiver and says, “I’m in Moira’s Grade 2 class today.” Exasperated, Tracy leaves the classroom. Danyal quickly puts the instruments away, grabs a few things and heads to the office to pick up the attendance for Moira’s class. You can tell by his walk that he feels unappreciated and that music in schools is expendable.

Danyal is not alone. Teachers, occasional teachers, families and the broader education sector are raising the alarm about the failure to replace teacher absences, also known as “fail-to-fills.” Nor is this a unique problem to Ontario. Headlines around the world indicate that there are an insufficient number of teachers. This problem is so pervasive that the United Nations (UN) issued a global alert regarding the teacher shortage in February 2024.

In addition to the global alert, the UN released a report, Transforming the Teaching Profession: Recommendations and Summary of Deliberations of the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession. It provides a comprehensive set of recommendations aimed at transforming the teaching profession. The report estimates there will be a need for 44 million more primary and secondary teachers worldwide by 2030 to meet educational demands.

Closer to home, results from People for Education’s annual Ontario school survey released in May 2024 highlighted that staff shortages are a significant provincial issue. Based on responses from 1,030 principals representing all regions of the province and 70 of Ontario’s 72 school boards, 24 per cent of elementary schools reported unfilled teacher absences daily, 46 per cent weekly, and 25 per cent monthly. Significantly, only four per cent reported never experiencing unfilled teacher absences.

Although a variety of Ontario education stakeholders, including the Education Ministry, faculties of education, school boards and unions, have also provided glimpses of data across the sector, we still do not have a clear picture of what is happening and why. What is clear is that the fail-to-fill issue is complex and will require a concerted effort to resolve, as all the reasons for this global phenomenon are not fully understood.

What is the Impact on Educators When Our Schools Have Fail-to-Fill Issues?

As in the scenario with Moira’s Grade 2 class, when a qualified occasional teacher is not available through the board’s occasional teacher dispatch system, there are several consequences:

• Members, like Tracy, lose preparation time. Although collective agreements provide a way for members to have the preparation time restored, by the time it is received, it’s generally too late to conduct the work originally planned.
• Members, like Danyal, lose continuity and momentum within their programs, and subjects like music, special education, or health and physical education appear to be expendable. Students lose precious learning.
• All educators experience increased workload, stress and burnout when schools are short staffed.
• Vulnerable students lose their supports when special education or English language learner teachers are pulled to cover classes for absent colleagues. Some members report that self-contained classes are collapsed for the day and/or parents are asked to keep their children home. These requests to keep students home are often undocumented and have become an issue for advocacy groups when demanding more funding and supports from the government.
• Unqualified or uncertified instructors may be hired to “teach” students. This leads to a loss of program continuity, loss of learning for students, and a de-valuing of teachers and occasional teachers.
• With little to no release time provided for it, professional learning - which is essential to supporting effective instruction and assessment - is now considered a luxury.

The overall consequences of fail-to-fills are ongoing and result in a systemic erosion of the profession. And the situation is getting worse in Ontario, despite all the talk and attention, in part due to the failure of school boards and the Ford government to take the necessary steps to fix the issues that lead to fail-to-fills.

Recruitment and Retention Issues

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world. Students have greater needs than ever before. Members are dealing with the dysregulation of learners and the long-term impacts of isolation and virtual learning. Everyone, including teachers and teacher candidates, came out of the pandemic re-evaluating their priorities. For educators, this reality has been compounded by poor decisions made by the Ontario government and continued underfunding of public education.

When considering the legislation and regulatory changes, there is evidence of a pattern that is not only making the public education system weaker but also making the teaching profession less attractive.

For example, some may argue that the current teacher crisis is partially a long-term result of the former Ontario Liberal government’s decision to lengthen the initial teacher education program from one year to two years in 2015, cutting the number of teacher candidates graduating per year and increasing the cost of the degree.

Add to that Bill 124, the Ford government’s unconstitutional wage suppression legislation, which may have further eroded interest in the teaching profession. The bill led to teachers and education workers being underpaid and undervalued for years.

Shortly after Bill 124 passed, in October 2020 the Ford government revoked Regulation 274, which drastically changed occasional teacher hiring practices in the province. This left many teachers feeling that there is no longer a clear path into long-term occasional and permanent teaching positions.

Additionally, poorly implemented curriculum policy changes, such as to Mathematics in 2020 and Language in 2023, made without necessary job-embedded professional learning and resources, have burdened educators with the need to meet ministry expectations and the needs of their students without proper supports. These unsupported education policies, in conjunction with the heavy workload associated with large class sizes and a lack of paraprofessionals in schools, are further exacerbating issues with respect to teacher attraction and retention.

Finally, Ford’s re-introduction of a math proficiency test for teachers is yet another example of policy that may continue to deter people from entering a teacher education program.

• Local surveys of occasional teachers contribute to our understanding of why, even after completing a bachelor of education, teachers are leaving the profession:
• dealing with dysregulation or violence without the support of administration
• poor working conditions
• not being paid enough for the incredible responsibility and demands in these situations
• having their collective agreement entitlements infringed upon by school administrators, such as loss of preparation time, excessive supervision duties, and reassignment from the assignment they selected and booked

Even the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) has echoed the issues our members and local leaders are reporting. In a 2023 survey of its members, the OCT asked teachers for reasons they would opt for early retirement. The majority cited challenging working conditions, including work volume and complexity, lack of respect and recognition, safety, mental health and lack of work-life balance.

Globally, the UN Secretary General's High-Level Panel on the Teaching Profession identified several key factors contributing to worldwide teacher shortages, which echo what we are experiencing in Ontario. The main causes are:

• high attrition rates
• insufficient recruitment and training
• poor working conditions and low pay
• lack of professional development
• the impact of socioeconomic factors

The UN report also indicates that there needs to be greater emphasis on professional development, support, resources, and more focus on equity and inclusion. Recommendations are aimed at ensuring that worldwide, every learner has access to professionally trained, qualified, and well-supported teachers, which is vital for improving educational outcomes and achieving global education goals.

Despite Ontario’s relative wealth, our public education system is experiencing many of the issues reported by the UN. This crisis could have been mitigated by informed, collaborative and focused public education supports from the provincial government and education stakeholders.

What is Your Union Doing About All of This?

For more than a year, ETFO has been working with other education stakeholders at the Ministry of Education-OTF Joint Action Table on Teacher Supply and Demand to gather, understand and interpret available information regarding the teacher supply crisis in the province. It was hoped that an implementable plan would be ready during the 2023-24 school year. As of the time of this story’s writing, however, a plan to address fail-to-fills had yet to be released.

The fail-to-fill issue continues to evolve and ETFO continues to advocate for our members. The Federation has consistently fought for the investments and meaningful consultation required for a strong school system and will continue to do so moving forward. You can join our campaign and learn more about ETFO’s Building Better Schools plan at BuildingBetterSchools.ca.

This year, ETFO and the other education affiliates supported the OTF’s decision not to extend the re-employment limit for retired teachers and administrators from 50 to 95 days. Just like transitional certificates for teacher candidates who have not yet graduated, extending the re-employment limit is not effective. The data proves that retired teachers are not picking up the jobs, and the problem is only getting worse.

At the local level, leaders continue to meet with school board personnel to assess the issue of ongoing fail-to-fills to mitigate the situation and ensure collective agreements are followed. Teacher collective agreements, through preparation payback provisions, provide a mechanism to deal with fail-to-fills without the need to resort to hiring unqualified instructors, provided there is enough teacher preparation time to cover the level of unfilled teacher absences in a school on a given day.

ETFO understands that losing preparation time is not a sustainable solution; it leaves teachers like Danyal feeling expendable, teachers like Tracy exhausted and frustrated, and teachers like Moira feeling guilty for taking a needed sick day. However, while difficult for permanent teacher members in the short term, the prep time provision is arguably better than allowing for the erosion of the profession through the hiring of unqualified instructors. ETFO is working to address the increased use of unqualified instructors by relying upon language in the “scope and recognition” clauses of teacher and occasional teacher collective agreements, as well as associated definitions in the Education Act.

Should the Federation become aware of the use of unqualified instructors beyond the narrow scope permitted under the collective agreement and relevant laws and regulations, the matter is addressed with the board and, where needed, through the grievance arbitration process.

The future of quality public education is at stake when there is a chronic fail-to-fill issue across the province. This systemic problem requires a systemic solution. This means authentic, collaborative consultations based on real data (qualitative and quantitative) with all partners involved, along with investments in the supports and resources educators and students need.

ETFO will continue to raise this issue and advocate for our members through our public campaigns, our lobby efforts, and through meetings and working groups. Ultimately, however, as we head into the next provincial election, it will be up to all of us to organize to elect a government that is willing to prioritize and value public education.

Zaiba Beg and Todd Rimmington are members of ETFO executive staff.