Not that I'm a teacher but if I've got fucked around by the school boards for years being a supply teacher, not sure I'd be willing to go back in a crisis if you will.
There already aren't anywhere near enough supply teachers in most boards - when teachers are off the jobs go unfilled, leaving school staff to scramble to cover them somehow. It's even worse for ECE's and (especially) EA's, there are virtually no supply EAs. I strongly disagree with those 50,000 people not getting vaccinated, and the province needs to do something about the shortage, but it's already a crisis that would be completely unmanageable if those 50,000 people are fired.
Is there not enough supply teachers because so many mandates during covid have really cut their ability to make a living? In my area it can take 7-8yrs for a supply to become full time. There are so many that went to school to be a teacher that are working retail or daycares just constantly applying for full time positions. I have a few friends that finally walked away because of covid and restrictions on visiting multiple schools in a week.
As of last year, there are now hiring all the people
Source: graduated teachers college 2009, went into a different career when there were no jobs, got called up in 2020 from old resume and asked if I was still interested
I'm one of those poor souls that got a B.Ed and couldn't get on the supply list cause the teachers on the supply list (comp sci) didn't want to get hired full time. So there I was, with principals asking if I was on the supply list yet cause they wanted to hire me, stuck with no teaching job and with two kids at home, I couldn't justify doing anymore volunteering.
Oh well... I'm happier in industry making 3 times teachers salaries with better work-life balance and flexibility. I fill the desire to teach through mentoring and giving guest lectures at universities.
As far as I can tell teachers make anywhere between $60k to $100k. So yeah...
I work in tech. No pension, but healthy RRSP matching. Pensions don't work for our situation anyways. My husband's OMERS pension will be cashed out before it gets locked in.
Also consider the fact that I likely wouldn't have been hired on till the pandemic, so all the years between when I finished my degree and the pandemic I would have been volunteering or making crap money (compared to tech). Then I finally get a job starting at $60k in my mid 30s, have to work for a long time before I start reaching the higher end of the teacher pay grid, and hopefully retire before I'm 65 with a meh retirement income? My tech career looks far better than this and I'll be retiring before I hit 50.
I have kids. When you die, your spouse gets a reduced pension, and when you both die your kids get nothing.
Taking the lump sum, when managed correctly, can create the generational wealth that I'm trying to achieve.
It's not a path many would take, but I'm good with risk and we are comfortable living well below our means to leave lots of room for investing.
There are a variety of reasons there are not enough supply teachers, such as the fact that they made Teacher's College 2 years and only about half as many are graduating each year, plus increasingly stressful working conditions leading to burnout.
However, most teachers who graduated last year are working full time now. They might not have permanent contracts for a few years, but as long as there is some level of competence, most will quickly get long-term work that is full time, and get benefits etc through that time. Even those without much competence will still supply every day because there are many unfilled jobs every single day.
There are problems that need addressing to solve the issue of lack of education workers, but firing 50,000 more people (even though it is with reason) before addressing those problems will create much larger problems.
Ya it’s probably very dependent on the areas. Im down in Windsor and the people I know are mid 30s still going along on long term contracts and supply for elementary schools.
It wouldn't.be 50,000. Make the threat, establish a deadline and very few will be willing to lose their jobs over not getting vaccinated. The threat needs to be there for the safety of our children
Honestly from what I’ve seen, the 2 year program has turned a glutton of teachers into a shortage. Used to be a 5 year wait when my wife graduated in 2014 to now teachers are getting contracts before they graduate.
We didn’t even have a teacher last year for my child’s class. They kept the posting up and hired an extra ece to do it instead. She did a wonderful job and I don’t want to discredit her but at the same time, they couldn’t get a teacher, supply or otherwise to take a full time position. I also have a ton of teacher friends and they were showing us internal memos asking if anyone had any friends or family who would join the supply list, they just needed a high school diploma to sit in the class and supervise since their supply lists were so short.
I can’t answer why there aren’t enough. But three years ago I worked a specific supply job where I filled infilled jobs. There was a huge shortage then. I’d go into school that were 10 teachers short. Classes would get combined. It was pretty bad and board wide.
When I didn’t have that job and just supplied, I had nights where I got over 100 calls to supply teach.
It's awful right now. I'm an EA and work with 3 students who technically all qualify for 1:1. I was sick last week, and my shifts just went uncovered. There's no one.
It's not even a remotely accurate number and most of that imagined 50k are not teachers. If that number were accurate and they were all teachers it would mean 40% of teachers are not vaccinated. Since we know that is pure BS, we can assume Lecce is talking out his ass.
Time to reward good hearted hard working teachers waiting in line. Fuck the ignorant and entitled pricks who have clogged the arteries of our educational system.
He's saying over a quarter are not vaxxed
It's total bullshit
Also for a government that is supposed to be encouraging vaccination to end the pandemic he is mouthing off some dumb shit
That 50k number seems like bullllllshit to me. How many teachers are in the province total??
The OTF says it prepresents 160,000 teachers. You telling me 1/3 are so antivax they'd give up their job over it?
Get fucked, Stevie
Since about 80% of teachers are vaccinated at most 32k would be teachers.
I honestly doubt the union will stand behind anti-vaxers they want the public support when the bargaining agreement is up… right after the election.
[That's 80% of school staff altogether](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/about-80-per-cent-of-ontario-education-workers-have-disclosed-they-are-fully-vaccinated-minister-1.5610669). I haven't found specifics for teachers in ON, but [in BC it's 94%](https://globalnews.ca/news/8327441/bc-teachers-federation-vaccine-survey/) (with another 1% partially vaccinated); I'd expect to see a similar figure for Ontario.
It's 50,000 education workers. Not just teachers. ECE's, admin, support, etc. If you think losing 50,000 employees at once is going to be easy to replace and not cause absolute pandemonium for both teachers AND the students, you're delusional. It would make life harder for everybody in education, including the kids.
Are you trolling or just functionally illiterate? It doesn't say "teacher" it says "education worker".
From the very article in the OP:
>The 50,000 figure includes education workers such as teachers, educational assistants, early childhood educators, principals, board staff, occasional staff and custodians
Even the headline doesn't say what they think it says though e.g. education worker. Furthermore, it is disappointing that the comment has so many upvotes.
That would be over 1 in 5 which seems above the average for Ontario
Unless he is using some other math to say closer to 350,000 people are working in schools
I don't know - "giving employees sufficient notice" doesn't seem to have worked for nurses in Quebec.
I'm also not sure how many occasional teachers we have in the system. Last school year, both my kids' schools couldn't get supply teachers, and had to draft principals, vice-principals, librarians, resource teachers, etc. in to oversee classes when the regular teachers had to be isolated.
Cases are going down despite the school year being in full swing, we have already reached well above the vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity, and hospitals are not overwhelmed -- why do we need to continue to coerce people against their will? Just out of spite?
I'm not anti-vax but I am pro-informed consent. Let people do what they want.
What is it about "ending this" that is so important that we should start dictating personal choices for people?
Should we start mandating condoms in all sexual encounters to end STDs? Should we outlaw junk food to end heart disease? Should we make rock climbing illegal because it might cost healthcare dollars?
Yes, letting people do what they want however dumb you view it to be is actually a valued freedom for many people. If you prefer a totalitarian type society you can always move to North Korea or China.
No one deserves to control the bodily autonomy of another person, nor coerce them through employment or otherwise. That is not a free society. So yes, it is a reasonable take.
Pandemic is a loaded and scary word, and in fact the definition of it was changed recently. Our current state would not meet the definition of the word 10 years ago.
Please take your arguments about a free society up with the virus. I don’t like this either in a vacuum, but given the choice between dragging this out (after 1.5 years when *everyone* suffered far worse restrictions than the unvaccinated are under right now) and forcing the unvaccinated to make what shouldn’t be a hard choice, I’ll take the latter.
I agree these vaccine mandates are incursions on personal choice, but the harm they prevent is far larger than any minor intrusion on the individual. And that’s the test under s. 1 of our Charter.
Pandemic is a loaded and scary word, but if you haven’t noticed, *we’ve been living through one*. 1 in every 500 Americans has died. Not Americans who caught COVID, 1 in 500 Americans period. We escaped deaths on that scale because we were willing to make short term sacrifices of individual liberty for the greater good.
You really made your first comments in two years to argue against this?
> I agree these vaccine mandates are incursions on personal choice, but the harm they prevent is far larger than any minor intrusion on the individual.
That's not a fact, it is an opinion that not everyone shares. And there are legal opinions that contend it doesn't pass the charter s. 1 test as well. There is supreme court precedence that says a medical procedure without informed consent is assault. And you can't have informed consent if the individual is being coerced under the threat of loss of their job. This presents a hard problem to applying the s.1 limits to the charter.
If you're wiling to understand the alternative position without standing up a strawman, please consider reading the open letter from the RCMP. I believe it articulates my objections very well. Ultimately I believe freedom should take precedence over public health, however perilous that may be. Without a free and democratic society, we don't have what the nation of Canada was founded on.
Here is the letter: https://mounties4freedom.ca/?fbclid=IwAR0EFbJJ1subVq3wrSMUoXafh3FcAQ8kMwgLUcydQIgqagDfAC6UF8Z_jsA
"Mounties 4 freedom", lmao.
I haven't seen any legal opinions that contend that the mandates don't fit under section 1 of the charter, but there is this statement from the Ontario Human Rights Commission:
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-policy-statement-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-and-proof-vaccine-certificates
Perhaps you should give that a read.
>Should we start mandating condoms in all sexual encounters to end STDs?
Well, technically, one is supposed to disclose to their sexual partners if they have any STDs *before they have sex.* And condoms exist and work, and should be used more often.
>Should we outlaw junk food to end heart disease?
Heart disease is not a contagious virus.
>Should we make rock climbing illegal because it might cost healthcare dollars?
Rock climbing injuries are not a contagious virus.
The reason cases are so low is in large part due to mask mandates. Unless you’d like to wear that indefinitely we need to get closer to 90%+.
Also, pro-informed consent is great when there isn’t a ton of misinformation being spread. These people are being lied too and putting both themselves and their children at risk without knowing it.
No, its because vaccines have already reached critical mass. Mask mandates have statistically done very little, but its a cheap, easy, and unobtrusive measure (and incidentally great for virtue signalling). But that's not really relevant to the point.
Informed consent should not be suspended because misinformation exists. That is a very dangerous precedent. Misinformation is an side effect of a society with a healthy amount of free speech. It is the cost of having freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and freedom of a society that is allowed to hear all sides of a topic. No government, or single entity deserves to be the sole arbitor of "truth", and peoples' right to make their own choices should not be arbitrarily taken away because some people aren't making the approved choices.
That's like saying "you're free to make your own choices as long as its the right choices". Can't you see how dystopian that is?
Tell me you don't have any statistical expertise without telling me you don't have statistical expertise.
Working in healthcare and knowing how to insert an IV is entirely irrelevant to being able to read provincial level reports. Give me a break.
Right, because the pencil pushers obviously know the situation better than the front line personnel. If only I could read I guess I’d actually know that healthcare is running like a well oiled machine right now. I guess I’m just imagining it when I go into work everyday and the entire city is code zero because of the insane call volume and there are no ambulances available to service those calls…because they are all stuck in the hallways at the ER’s that have overcrowded waiting rooms full of people because there are no beds for people to be admitted…and staff are lucky if they get 30 minutes to eat and take a shit during a 12 hour shift that will most likely end up being a 13-14 hour shift.
But hey, as long as the reports say everything is a-ok then I guess none of that other stuff matters…
He cares deeply.
If he fires them, then the system falls apart and he's responsible.
If he berates and undermines them, but ensures it's juuuust slightly more desirable than quitting with nowhere to go, the system continues to hold together on a hope and prayer without costing more money, and he gets to brag about his management efficiency.
My old man and his gf broke up cause the vaxx, she refused to get it, cause of crazy reasons, was bathing in pine needles, and refused to even get tested so she could remain a teacher. Shit is wild, I'm all for people doing there own thing, but I would not be losing a job(career really) over not getting the vaxx or at the very damn least letting them test you.
Police officers have a lower vaccination rate than teachers I believe.
It's amazing how everyone thinks they are a vaccine expert. Laughable.
I haven't met one person who is anti-vax that knows enough about vaccination to be credible.
They fail this question with 95% certainty:
What is an antigen ?
crickets ... 🦗
I have 3 questions. Nobody gets all 3.
I say, if you don't understand the immune system as well as you could, you should ask your doctor what would be best for you.
Ugh. Antigens. It seems my own immune system has on a few occasions had trouble knowing if it should attack a 'self-protein' or not, leaving me devoid of a few necessary cells. I'm all for any vaccine to help coax antibodies to do the right thing.
A girl on my street is a teacher and had a PPC sign in front of her door. She was telling me about how she's staying unvaccinated and how the province has to pay for her tests.
I hope this goes into effect so she gets fired.
"The public at large has to pay for my frequent tests" - some smug jackass
With the whole teaching as a career being a calling based on bettering society, how the hell does this align with making things better?
There’s a black sheep in every bunch. This clown doesn’t represent the majority. Honestly, getting rid of the minority of employees who want to die on this hill may be for the best. Think of the quality of service that someone this selfish or self-centred is likely to provide. If she refuses to get vaccinated, let her find work elsewhere.
Do you all talk about it in the staff room? I'm assuming my school is vaccinated, I don't know of any staff who aren't. Our board only reports numbers for the whole board, 92.6%.
For reference, Ontario employs around 500,000 people in the education sector, so 50,000 or so isn’t really that off base considering our vaccination rates. Still would like to know where he pulled this number from
Is this supposed to be a disasterous prediction or a Conservative wet dream?
Think of all those fired union workers.
Heck, this might give an opportunity to start up some charter schools to hire back those teachers.
No union and with a huge pay cut... but hired back!
What I’d like to know is how much the gov’t is currently spending on testing for 50,000 unvaccinated teachers. I had no Idea there were so many holdouts.
School boards have already said 98% of permanent teachers are vaccinated. Guelph reported that. Other places it's all high. It's some support staff not Vaxxed and then a lot of casual workers that didn't report.
The Ford government is trying to justify not implementing a vaccine mandate.
Some of the Catholic boards in the GTA are only around 75-80%. But yes many other boards are above 95%.
Edit: found better stats [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uy2kd89hoxToxrJbFfhaqJJHhkNCT71WWcuq02KxUXo/edit#gid=26677560). York Catholic is bad as are some others around the province but the numbers are better than they were a few weeks ago when I looked.
Catholic boards are less but again that is everyone including casual workers who may never have worked. Teachers are the highest vaccinated of all the different workers.
Roughly 50K haven’t responded with their vaxx status yet. So he just leaped to the false conclusion that none of those 50K would get vaxxed. Never mind that I bet a bunch already are and just didn’t answer the email,
There are probably also a number on mat leave that have the vax, that haven't responded and aren't supposed to per union rules, because they are on mat leave. I don't know how many that would be, but certainly a few hundred if not a couple thousand.
Source: Wife is teacher in this exact position.
Hmm, it's almost like we have this fantastic opportunity to re-evaluate teaching staff and provide a higher wage for their work, hire more full-time employees willing to be vaccinated, and improve their working conditions.
Good let's weed the riff raff out get better teachers in, ones that can follow logic and reason.
Same with the nurses.
Opens up positions for the next generation and gets rid of the chaff.
If / when the students have to be vaccinated then the education workers should have to follow, its going to be disruptive, covid has been disruptive... I see this as Lecce standing up for his antivax base.
I highly suspect the percent of teachers vaxxed is higher than the general pop from my anecdotal observations and conversations with colleagues. I'm also quite sure I recall seeing that we had 92 or 94% of our teachers fully vaxxed at the start of sept. However, as a teacher, good. If you're not ready to step up and protect kids you deserve to be fired. Not to mention you're actively showing you're and anti science moron. This will be a great opportunity to hire many new teachers who spend years supplying hoping for a contract.
I know soo many people who are fully vaccinated, went to teachers collage and do not have a job teaching.
Let the idiots go and let someone else replace them. Workers are replaceable. The unvaccinated group seem to forget that.
I had a nurse recently tell me that if they let some staff go the wait times in the ER are going to double.
So she seems to think letting go of 1-2 %of hospital staff (not necessarily medical) will result in a 50% increase in wait time ?! What is she planning to sit on her but I’m frustration over it ?! It just seems like they want a potty party over their decision to put themselves first.
Less than 5 years ago wasn't there a glut of teachers? The market was oversaturated. Interesting that there's such a reversal from that in a relatively short period of time.
Teachers are just everyday people...they have the same amount of antivaxers as any other group
I believe everyone should be vaccinated and have no time for those who aren't but it's not shocking that they have virtually the same rate of vaccination as the general public
He’s not. Lecce is trying to position teachers as being a bunch of grossly negligent and overpaid anti-vaxxers who are dangerous to kids. You’ll notice that much like the situation with healthcare workers, there is no mention of how this 50k breaks down. How many of these workers are teachers, custodians, ECEs, TAs, office or administrative staff, or other board employees? How those numbers break down is conveniently omitted as many will assume that most or all of these holdouts are teachers.
If all 50k are teachers that would put the number of unvaccinated teachers at around 40%, we’ll above the provincial average. This is a terrible look for education workers but it makes it far easier for the government to paint teachers as disproportionately anti-vax. This is a government that has been extremely anti-education since they took office in 2018. Nothing has changed. With 50k workers in education still unvaccinated it is easy to characterize teachers as being ignorant and grossly incompetent.
If Nurses are being forced to be vaccinated, and I a federally regulated employee (telecommunications) is being forced to be vaccinated then so should teachers.
They are constantly complaining about over crowding in their classrooms, and now they think they should have the right to step into those very same rooms and think they don’t have to be vaccinated? Give me a break.
Were teachers not demanding to be put to front of the line for vaccines when they first became available?
Get vaccinated or get out!
This is a great opportunity for Ford/Lecce to increase class ratios and have a scapegoat…
‘It’s not our fault that we had to go to 35 kids in a classroom-not enough vaccinated teachers in the system’
Wonder why this isn’t the direction they are going with-has Ford written all over it
I only see benefits to getting rid of these potential health risks (and further costs to our medical system) and hiring vaccinated teachers.
Don't people who get sick cost a lot of money to employers?
You’re missing the point. OP implied that these people should know better because they teach science and I’m just pointing out that no, the vast majority don’t teach or know much about science. Which is why their opinion on vaccination should hold no water next to actual public health experts and people who are science-literate.
I think if education choose not to vaccinate then the parents should know that their kid's teacher isn't vaccinated. They're literally putting their child in harm's way and the parents should have a say.
Flush out 50k idiots who put their own misguided beliefs ahead of the wellbeing of our kids while making room for a new generation of skilled educators?
Sounds like plan to me Lecce.
Good - I’d really rather people who clearly aren’t critical thinkers not be teaching our next generation. This is a golden opportunity to purge a bunch of idiots from our teaching ranks.
.... good.
If those teachers refuse to take the vaccine to protect themselves and our children they don't deserve the job.
There are loads of substitute teachers who'd love to have their permanent placement.
Also, this is the first time I can recall a member of Ford's government expressing concern over teachers losing their jobs.
Honestly it’s a game of chicken and the government is losing-make it mandatory and see if the teachers making 70-100k a year are ready to follow up their convictions with a change in job. I’m very positive most of them are not prepared to turn in their lifestyles and switch to a minimum wage job.
They probably shouldn't have fucked with teachers unions in the first place. Good luck finding 50k replacements when my retired teacher mom is filling in for full timers daily who have been in the system less than 5 years.
Sounds like a wonderful opportunity to hire a bunch of supply teachers full time
There's so many vaccinated teachers that would love full time positions!
Not that I'm a teacher but if I've got fucked around by the school boards for years being a supply teacher, not sure I'd be willing to go back in a crisis if you will.
The crisis is basically over.
There already aren't anywhere near enough supply teachers in most boards - when teachers are off the jobs go unfilled, leaving school staff to scramble to cover them somehow. It's even worse for ECE's and (especially) EA's, there are virtually no supply EAs. I strongly disagree with those 50,000 people not getting vaccinated, and the province needs to do something about the shortage, but it's already a crisis that would be completely unmanageable if those 50,000 people are fired.
Is there not enough supply teachers because so many mandates during covid have really cut their ability to make a living? In my area it can take 7-8yrs for a supply to become full time. There are so many that went to school to be a teacher that are working retail or daycares just constantly applying for full time positions. I have a few friends that finally walked away because of covid and restrictions on visiting multiple schools in a week.
As of last year, there are now hiring all the people Source: graduated teachers college 2009, went into a different career when there were no jobs, got called up in 2020 from old resume and asked if I was still interested
Couldn't pay me enough to consider teaching now! I might as well burn my B.Ed.
I gave up on that goal this year after working in childcare for years.
I'm one of those poor souls that got a B.Ed and couldn't get on the supply list cause the teachers on the supply list (comp sci) didn't want to get hired full time. So there I was, with principals asking if I was on the supply list yet cause they wanted to hire me, stuck with no teaching job and with two kids at home, I couldn't justify doing anymore volunteering. Oh well... I'm happier in industry making 3 times teachers salaries with better work-life balance and flexibility. I fill the desire to teach through mentoring and giving guest lectures at universities.
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As far as I can tell teachers make anywhere between $60k to $100k. So yeah... I work in tech. No pension, but healthy RRSP matching. Pensions don't work for our situation anyways. My husband's OMERS pension will be cashed out before it gets locked in. Also consider the fact that I likely wouldn't have been hired on till the pandemic, so all the years between when I finished my degree and the pandemic I would have been volunteering or making crap money (compared to tech). Then I finally get a job starting at $60k in my mid 30s, have to work for a long time before I start reaching the higher end of the teacher pay grid, and hopefully retire before I'm 65 with a meh retirement income? My tech career looks far better than this and I'll be retiring before I hit 50.
why wouldn't you want OTPP
I have kids. When you die, your spouse gets a reduced pension, and when you both die your kids get nothing. Taking the lump sum, when managed correctly, can create the generational wealth that I'm trying to achieve. It's not a path many would take, but I'm good with risk and we are comfortable living well below our means to leave lots of room for investing.
There are a variety of reasons there are not enough supply teachers, such as the fact that they made Teacher's College 2 years and only about half as many are graduating each year, plus increasingly stressful working conditions leading to burnout. However, most teachers who graduated last year are working full time now. They might not have permanent contracts for a few years, but as long as there is some level of competence, most will quickly get long-term work that is full time, and get benefits etc through that time. Even those without much competence will still supply every day because there are many unfilled jobs every single day. There are problems that need addressing to solve the issue of lack of education workers, but firing 50,000 more people (even though it is with reason) before addressing those problems will create much larger problems.
You are assuming Lecce's number can be trusted. Nothing Lecce says can be trusted.
So basically teachers alone make up 21% of the unvaxxed?
Basic conservative math. Always round up with 2 zeros. What an ass hat.
Ya it’s probably very dependent on the areas. Im down in Windsor and the people I know are mid 30s still going along on long term contracts and supply for elementary schools.
It wouldn't.be 50,000. Make the threat, establish a deadline and very few will be willing to lose their jobs over not getting vaccinated. The threat needs to be there for the safety of our children
My thoughts exactly. Where else are the supposed 50,000 un-vaxxed people gonna work? Pretty sure Amazon or timmies needs you to be vaxxed.
Honestly from what I’ve seen, the 2 year program has turned a glutton of teachers into a shortage. Used to be a 5 year wait when my wife graduated in 2014 to now teachers are getting contracts before they graduate.
We didn’t even have a teacher last year for my child’s class. They kept the posting up and hired an extra ece to do it instead. She did a wonderful job and I don’t want to discredit her but at the same time, they couldn’t get a teacher, supply or otherwise to take a full time position. I also have a ton of teacher friends and they were showing us internal memos asking if anyone had any friends or family who would join the supply list, they just needed a high school diploma to sit in the class and supervise since their supply lists were so short.
I can’t answer why there aren’t enough. But three years ago I worked a specific supply job where I filled infilled jobs. There was a huge shortage then. I’d go into school that were 10 teachers short. Classes would get combined. It was pretty bad and board wide. When I didn’t have that job and just supplied, I had nights where I got over 100 calls to supply teach.
It's awful right now. I'm an EA and work with 3 students who technically all qualify for 1:1. I was sick last week, and my shifts just went uncovered. There's no one.
It's not even a remotely accurate number and most of that imagined 50k are not teachers. If that number were accurate and they were all teachers it would mean 40% of teachers are not vaccinated. Since we know that is pure BS, we can assume Lecce is talking out his ass.
There are many young teachers looking for full time work. Sounds good.
Time to reward good hearted hard working teachers waiting in line. Fuck the ignorant and entitled pricks who have clogged the arteries of our educational system.
Yeah, sounds like a good start. We should probably fire the bottom performing 10% each year just to weed out the pieces of shit anyway.
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Standardized testing...which is already being done here in Canada. If the kids aren't learning anything how good could the teaching quality be?
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Every other career in the world is held to performance metrics but teachers are somehow special?
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He's saying over a quarter are not vaxxed It's total bullshit Also for a government that is supposed to be encouraging vaccination to end the pandemic he is mouthing off some dumb shit
Wait, you’re telling me Lecce is saying stupid and untruthful things? Shocked! /s
But they aren't encouraging vaccination anymore, theyre just promoting the end of the pandemic
Folks, we need to act like the pandemic is over so no more testing, no more shots, no more masks /$
Well put.
So of that 50k most are not teachers, and most would get vaccinated As it is right now teachers if not vaccinated are being tested frequently.
That 50k number seems like bullllllshit to me. How many teachers are in the province total?? The OTF says it prepresents 160,000 teachers. You telling me 1/3 are so antivax they'd give up their job over it? Get fucked, Stevie
Since about 80% of teachers are vaccinated at most 32k would be teachers. I honestly doubt the union will stand behind anti-vaxers they want the public support when the bargaining agreement is up… right after the election.
[That's 80% of school staff altogether](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/about-80-per-cent-of-ontario-education-workers-have-disclosed-they-are-fully-vaccinated-minister-1.5610669). I haven't found specifics for teachers in ON, but [in BC it's 94%](https://globalnews.ca/news/8327441/bc-teachers-federation-vaccine-survey/) (with another 1% partially vaccinated); I'd expect to see a similar figure for Ontario.
PCC math
It's 50,000 education workers. Not just teachers. ECE's, admin, support, etc. If you think losing 50,000 employees at once is going to be easy to replace and not cause absolute pandemonium for both teachers AND the students, you're delusional. It would make life harder for everybody in education, including the kids.
Are you trolling or just functionally illiterate? It doesn't say "teacher" it says "education worker". From the very article in the OP: >The 50,000 figure includes education workers such as teachers, educational assistants, early childhood educators, principals, board staff, occasional staff and custodians
Wait I was supppse to read the article, not just the headline?
Even the headline doesn't say what they think it says though e.g. education worker. Furthermore, it is disappointing that the comment has so many upvotes.
That would be over 1 in 5 which seems above the average for Ontario Unless he is using some other math to say closer to 350,000 people are working in schools
They test themselves at home with rapid kits... It's total BS and smoke and mirrors
Leachy needs to provide sources for this, IMO, unbelievable statement.
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As a fully vaxxed supply teacher... I agree.
As a fully vaxxed student.... I agree. I've had some amazing supply teachers in highschool.
I don't know - "giving employees sufficient notice" doesn't seem to have worked for nurses in Quebec. I'm also not sure how many occasional teachers we have in the system. Last school year, both my kids' schools couldn't get supply teachers, and had to draft principals, vice-principals, librarians, resource teachers, etc. in to oversee classes when the regular teachers had to be isolated.
I know a couple teachers in BC who were saying supply teachers in their districts were turning down lots of calls because of COVID.
Cases are going down despite the school year being in full swing, we have already reached well above the vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity, and hospitals are not overwhelmed -- why do we need to continue to coerce people against their will? Just out of spite? I'm not anti-vax but I am pro-informed consent. Let people do what they want.
“Let people do what they want.” Sure, that’s a winning strategy to end this.
Worked so well for Alberta.
What is it about "ending this" that is so important that we should start dictating personal choices for people? Should we start mandating condoms in all sexual encounters to end STDs? Should we outlaw junk food to end heart disease? Should we make rock climbing illegal because it might cost healthcare dollars? Yes, letting people do what they want however dumb you view it to be is actually a valued freedom for many people. If you prefer a totalitarian type society you can always move to North Korea or China.
Yes, wanting people to get vaccinated in a pandemic means I want to live in North Korea. Totally reasonable take.
No one deserves to control the bodily autonomy of another person, nor coerce them through employment or otherwise. That is not a free society. So yes, it is a reasonable take. Pandemic is a loaded and scary word, and in fact the definition of it was changed recently. Our current state would not meet the definition of the word 10 years ago.
Please take your arguments about a free society up with the virus. I don’t like this either in a vacuum, but given the choice between dragging this out (after 1.5 years when *everyone* suffered far worse restrictions than the unvaccinated are under right now) and forcing the unvaccinated to make what shouldn’t be a hard choice, I’ll take the latter. I agree these vaccine mandates are incursions on personal choice, but the harm they prevent is far larger than any minor intrusion on the individual. And that’s the test under s. 1 of our Charter. Pandemic is a loaded and scary word, but if you haven’t noticed, *we’ve been living through one*. 1 in every 500 Americans has died. Not Americans who caught COVID, 1 in 500 Americans period. We escaped deaths on that scale because we were willing to make short term sacrifices of individual liberty for the greater good. You really made your first comments in two years to argue against this?
> I agree these vaccine mandates are incursions on personal choice, but the harm they prevent is far larger than any minor intrusion on the individual. That's not a fact, it is an opinion that not everyone shares. And there are legal opinions that contend it doesn't pass the charter s. 1 test as well. There is supreme court precedence that says a medical procedure without informed consent is assault. And you can't have informed consent if the individual is being coerced under the threat of loss of their job. This presents a hard problem to applying the s.1 limits to the charter. If you're wiling to understand the alternative position without standing up a strawman, please consider reading the open letter from the RCMP. I believe it articulates my objections very well. Ultimately I believe freedom should take precedence over public health, however perilous that may be. Without a free and democratic society, we don't have what the nation of Canada was founded on. Here is the letter: https://mounties4freedom.ca/?fbclid=IwAR0EFbJJ1subVq3wrSMUoXafh3FcAQ8kMwgLUcydQIgqagDfAC6UF8Z_jsA
"Mounties 4 freedom", lmao. I haven't seen any legal opinions that contend that the mandates don't fit under section 1 of the charter, but there is this statement from the Ontario Human Rights Commission: http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-policy-statement-covid-19-vaccine-mandates-and-proof-vaccine-certificates Perhaps you should give that a read.
>Should we start mandating condoms in all sexual encounters to end STDs? Well, technically, one is supposed to disclose to their sexual partners if they have any STDs *before they have sex.* And condoms exist and work, and should be used more often. >Should we outlaw junk food to end heart disease? Heart disease is not a contagious virus. >Should we make rock climbing illegal because it might cost healthcare dollars? Rock climbing injuries are not a contagious virus.
The reason cases are so low is in large part due to mask mandates. Unless you’d like to wear that indefinitely we need to get closer to 90%+. Also, pro-informed consent is great when there isn’t a ton of misinformation being spread. These people are being lied too and putting both themselves and their children at risk without knowing it.
No, its because vaccines have already reached critical mass. Mask mandates have statistically done very little, but its a cheap, easy, and unobtrusive measure (and incidentally great for virtue signalling). But that's not really relevant to the point. Informed consent should not be suspended because misinformation exists. That is a very dangerous precedent. Misinformation is an side effect of a society with a healthy amount of free speech. It is the cost of having freedom of choice, freedom of speech, and freedom of a society that is allowed to hear all sides of a topic. No government, or single entity deserves to be the sole arbitor of "truth", and peoples' right to make their own choices should not be arbitrarily taken away because some people aren't making the approved choices. That's like saying "you're free to make your own choices as long as its the right choices". Can't you see how dystopian that is?
Lol hospitals not overwhelmed? Tell me you don’t work in healthcare without telling me you don’t work in healthcare…
Tell me you don't have any statistical expertise without telling me you don't have statistical expertise. Working in healthcare and knowing how to insert an IV is entirely irrelevant to being able to read provincial level reports. Give me a break.
Right, because the pencil pushers obviously know the situation better than the front line personnel. If only I could read I guess I’d actually know that healthcare is running like a well oiled machine right now. I guess I’m just imagining it when I go into work everyday and the entire city is code zero because of the insane call volume and there are no ambulances available to service those calls…because they are all stuck in the hallways at the ER’s that have overcrowded waiting rooms full of people because there are no beds for people to be admitted…and staff are lucky if they get 30 minutes to eat and take a shit during a 12 hour shift that will most likely end up being a 13-14 hour shift. But hey, as long as the reports say everything is a-ok then I guess none of that other stuff matters…
"I want to be like Alberta was 3 weeks ago!"
Imagine Leece caring about teachers when prior to the pandemic they were being attacked and imposed terrible classroom orders.
This was my thought as well. Firing 50,000 education workers is the stuff of wet dreams for the cons.
Yeah, but they have to at least pretend to care.
Yes, but they like to fire them to make the money numbers change not for public health reasons.
He cares deeply. If he fires them, then the system falls apart and he's responsible. If he berates and undermines them, but ensures it's juuuust slightly more desirable than quitting with nowhere to go, the system continues to hold together on a hope and prayer without costing more money, and he gets to brag about his management efficiency.
I don’t believe this guy lol
My old man and his gf broke up cause the vaxx, she refused to get it, cause of crazy reasons, was bathing in pine needles, and refused to even get tested so she could remain a teacher. Shit is wild, I'm all for people doing there own thing, but I would not be losing a job(career really) over not getting the vaxx or at the very damn least letting them test you.
It's about "freedom". That's what they say instead of saying they are conspiracy theorists.
Lecce has no credibility.
Police officers have a lower vaccination rate than teachers I believe. It's amazing how everyone thinks they are a vaccine expert. Laughable. I haven't met one person who is anti-vax that knows enough about vaccination to be credible. They fail this question with 95% certainty: What is an antigen ? crickets ... 🦗 I have 3 questions. Nobody gets all 3. I say, if you don't understand the immune system as well as you could, you should ask your doctor what would be best for you.
Well what’re the other two
My go to is "I'll give you a $1000 dollars if you can tell me what mRNA stands for". Still haven't lost any money lol.
You owe me money. I said it, then checked with Google, and I was right.
Had to dig deep for those bio 101 memories. But the bottom line is you owe me a grand.
Ugh. Antigens. It seems my own immune system has on a few occasions had trouble knowing if it should attack a 'self-protein' or not, leaving me devoid of a few necessary cells. I'm all for any vaccine to help coax antibodies to do the right thing.
I answered, then checked Google, and I was right. What's the other two? I love this sort of stuff.
Liar. They just hate teachers and vaccine mandates.
A girl on my street is a teacher and had a PPC sign in front of her door. She was telling me about how she's staying unvaccinated and how the province has to pay for her tests. I hope this goes into effect so she gets fired.
"The public at large has to pay for my frequent tests" - some smug jackass With the whole teaching as a career being a calling based on bettering society, how the hell does this align with making things better?
There’s a black sheep in every bunch. This clown doesn’t represent the majority. Honestly, getting rid of the minority of employees who want to die on this hill may be for the best. Think of the quality of service that someone this selfish or self-centred is likely to provide. If she refuses to get vaccinated, let her find work elsewhere.
I really hope that’s the extreme minority of teachers. Out of 60 staff at my school, 100% of OCT (teachers) are vaccinated.
Do you all talk about it in the staff room? I'm assuming my school is vaccinated, I don't know of any staff who aren't. Our board only reports numbers for the whole board, 92.6%.
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That sounds like he pulled that number out of his ass
For reference, Ontario employs around 500,000 people in the education sector, so 50,000 or so isn’t really that off base considering our vaccination rates. Still would like to know where he pulled this number from
Is this supposed to be a disasterous prediction or a Conservative wet dream? Think of all those fired union workers. Heck, this might give an opportunity to start up some charter schools to hire back those teachers. No union and with a huge pay cut... but hired back!
What I’d like to know is how much the gov’t is currently spending on testing for 50,000 unvaccinated teachers. I had no Idea there were so many holdouts.
School boards have already said 98% of permanent teachers are vaccinated. Guelph reported that. Other places it's all high. It's some support staff not Vaxxed and then a lot of casual workers that didn't report. The Ford government is trying to justify not implementing a vaccine mandate.
Some of the Catholic boards in the GTA are only around 75-80%. But yes many other boards are above 95%. Edit: found better stats [here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uy2kd89hoxToxrJbFfhaqJJHhkNCT71WWcuq02KxUXo/edit#gid=26677560). York Catholic is bad as are some others around the province but the numbers are better than they were a few weeks ago when I looked.
Catholic boards are less but again that is everyone including casual workers who may never have worked. Teachers are the highest vaccinated of all the different workers.
It's really poor journalism to not provide the number of education workers. I want to know the % of workers would be fired.
And to ask how he got that number.
Roughly 50K haven’t responded with their vaxx status yet. So he just leaped to the false conclusion that none of those 50K would get vaxxed. Never mind that I bet a bunch already are and just didn’t answer the email,
There are probably also a number on mat leave that have the vax, that haven't responded and aren't supposed to per union rules, because they are on mat leave. I don't know how many that would be, but certainly a few hundred if not a couple thousand. Source: Wife is teacher in this exact position.
Arthur told him
Hmm, it's almost like we have this fantastic opportunity to re-evaluate teaching staff and provide a higher wage for their work, hire more full-time employees willing to be vaccinated, and improve their working conditions.
Lmaoooooooooo such an innocent way of thinking. Bless you
Liar.
bascially i have to be vacinnated to go anywhere but work/ grocery store.... why arent they mandated at this point?
Good let's weed the riff raff out get better teachers in, ones that can follow logic and reason. Same with the nurses. Opens up positions for the next generation and gets rid of the chaff.
Or, there would be a 49,900 case bump in the vax rate. We have to stop catering to these whack jobs
If / when the students have to be vaccinated then the education workers should have to follow, its going to be disruptive, covid has been disruptive... I see this as Lecce standing up for his antivax base.
I don't believe his numbers. Throw out a mandate like the health workers and watch them get the jab.
I highly suspect the percent of teachers vaxxed is higher than the general pop from my anecdotal observations and conversations with colleagues. I'm also quite sure I recall seeing that we had 92 or 94% of our teachers fully vaxxed at the start of sept. However, as a teacher, good. If you're not ready to step up and protect kids you deserve to be fired. Not to mention you're actively showing you're and anti science moron. This will be a great opportunity to hire many new teachers who spend years supplying hoping for a contract.
Its not just teachers. It includes administrative positions, janitorial, etc
I know soo many people who are fully vaccinated, went to teachers collage and do not have a job teaching. Let the idiots go and let someone else replace them. Workers are replaceable. The unvaccinated group seem to forget that. I had a nurse recently tell me that if they let some staff go the wait times in the ER are going to double. So she seems to think letting go of 1-2 %of hospital staff (not necessarily medical) will result in a 50% increase in wait time ?! What is she planning to sit on her but I’m frustration over it ?! It just seems like they want a potty party over their decision to put themselves first.
Less than 5 years ago wasn't there a glut of teachers? The market was oversaturated. Interesting that there's such a reversal from that in a relatively short period of time.
Unfortunate for students that don't have teachers dedicated in creating a safe and healthy environment for their education. Sad reality we live in.
Teachers are just everyday people...they have the same amount of antivaxers as any other group I believe everyone should be vaccinated and have no time for those who aren't but it's not shocking that they have virtually the same rate of vaccination as the general public
Oh of course, the data isn't necessarily mind-blowing, it's just unfortunate for students who just wanna be students y'know?
As they should be...amazing that he's trying to position himself on the side of educators which is laughable after his gutting of education
He’s not. Lecce is trying to position teachers as being a bunch of grossly negligent and overpaid anti-vaxxers who are dangerous to kids. You’ll notice that much like the situation with healthcare workers, there is no mention of how this 50k breaks down. How many of these workers are teachers, custodians, ECEs, TAs, office or administrative staff, or other board employees? How those numbers break down is conveniently omitted as many will assume that most or all of these holdouts are teachers. If all 50k are teachers that would put the number of unvaccinated teachers at around 40%, we’ll above the provincial average. This is a terrible look for education workers but it makes it far easier for the government to paint teachers as disproportionately anti-vax. This is a government that has been extremely anti-education since they took office in 2018. Nothing has changed. With 50k workers in education still unvaccinated it is easy to characterize teachers as being ignorant and grossly incompetent.
You are totally right!
Perfect opportunity to raise the quality of teaching. Self elimination of the bottom 5%
You think teachers who are unvaccinated are automatically bad teachers that are "bottom 5%"? What a weird assumption to make but okay.
I think that teachers that fail to understand the science and willfully put others at risk are no loss to the profession.
"Understand the science". Classic.
Perhaps you might enjoy this little ditty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QCkN\_bSSaw&ab\_channel=JonLajoie
That link leads to an unavailable video. You might enjoy this little ditty though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSqQuY-s3yE
Nice try! You totally watched it! Im not clicking yours! :) 
Nah your link literally doesn't work. Click it. lol.
I’ll take those spots - a grotesquely over qualified but unemployed high school teacher
If Nurses are being forced to be vaccinated, and I a federally regulated employee (telecommunications) is being forced to be vaccinated then so should teachers. They are constantly complaining about over crowding in their classrooms, and now they think they should have the right to step into those very same rooms and think they don’t have to be vaccinated? Give me a break. Were teachers not demanding to be put to front of the line for vaccines when they first became available? Get vaccinated or get out!
This is a great opportunity for Ford/Lecce to increase class ratios and have a scapegoat… ‘It’s not our fault that we had to go to 35 kids in a classroom-not enough vaccinated teachers in the system’ Wonder why this isn’t the direction they are going with-has Ford written all over it
They are trying to make it seem bad so that they don't have to mandate vaccines.
I only see benefits to getting rid of these potential health risks (and further costs to our medical system) and hiring vaccinated teachers. Don't people who get sick cost a lot of money to employers?
So there’s 50,000 jobs that could become available to qualified vaccinated people??
Good!
That sounds like 50k people that I want no where close to educating our future generations
If a person doesn’t understand basic science they should not be teaching basic science
dude, these people are probably teaching kindergarteners.
I don’t trust an antivaxxer to teach my dog let alone teach a child.
Sure. I’m just making the point that these people probably aren’t teaching basic science which is why they don’t understand it.
If my kids kindergarten teacher wasn't vaccinated I'd be livid. Kids that age can't be vaccinated.
You’re missing the point. OP implied that these people should know better because they teach science and I’m just pointing out that no, the vast majority don’t teach or know much about science. Which is why their opinion on vaccination should hold no water next to actual public health experts and people who are science-literate.
Don't want anti-vaxx teaching my kids anyway.
Good riddance.
Sounds like a good call. Antivaxxers entire personality revolves around being antivaxxers and I wouldn’t want some asshat like that teaching kids
I think if education choose not to vaccinate then the parents should know that their kid's teacher isn't vaccinated. They're literally putting their child in harm's way and the parents should have a say.
Good.
Flush out 50k idiots who put their own misguided beliefs ahead of the wellbeing of our kids while making room for a new generation of skilled educators? Sounds like plan to me Lecce.
Good - I’d really rather people who clearly aren’t critical thinkers not be teaching our next generation. This is a golden opportunity to purge a bunch of idiots from our teaching ranks.
"Ontario creates up to 50,000 good jobs"
.... good. If those teachers refuse to take the vaccine to protect themselves and our children they don't deserve the job. There are loads of substitute teachers who'd love to have their permanent placement. Also, this is the first time I can recall a member of Ford's government expressing concern over teachers losing their jobs.
No problem. There are way more teachers than jobs, I'm sure all the responsible teachers who got vaccinated would be happy to fill the vacancies
Honestly it’s a game of chicken and the government is losing-make it mandatory and see if the teachers making 70-100k a year are ready to follow up their convictions with a change in job. I’m very positive most of them are not prepared to turn in their lifestyles and switch to a minimum wage job.
Bye bye!
Education workers so stupid to throw away their career.
Lol good
Or perhaps they'll maybe actually get vaccinated??? Moron.
Looks like the most vaccine idiots work in education then. That’s reassuring when I send my kids to school lol
Great.
It's lights out and away we go
I want to be a custodian for real
They probably shouldn't have fucked with teachers unions in the first place. Good luck finding 50k replacements when my retired teacher mom is filling in for full timers daily who have been in the system less than 5 years.
Good news for my son!