For thousands of Ontario students, rotating strikes and lost extracurricular activities aren’t on the radar map.
That’s because the province’s Catholic elementary schools struck a deal with the province back in August, allowing classes to continue normally even as public school job action ramps up.
“There’s no job action being taken by anybody in our school system right now. We’re steaming ahead and looking forward to Christmas,” says John Shewchuk, a spokesperson for the Waterloo Catholic District School Board.
With so much in the news about students missing out on classes and activities, parents of kids at Catholic school say they’re glad to know they don’t have to have the same worries.
“We are relieved to know that it has not affected us at all,” says Dawn Shuh, a mother of two kids at a Kitchener Catholic elementary school.
Catholic students aren’t fully immune from the dispute, though. While the Waterloo Cathlic board runs its own leagues for volleyball, basketball and other sports, Shewchuk says sports like hockey and curling are run in conjunction with the public board, so any disruption to those schedules affects Catholic students as well.
