Kitchener family manages turmoil of potential strikes

The labour uncertainty of CUPE education workers has one family of a five-year-old girl managing the turmoil.

On late Sunday afternoon, the Ontario government and CUPE reached a tentative agreement that would keep education workers in school on Monday. However, the deal still needs to be ratified by CUPE members.

For Andrew Ostrander and Rachel Verhoeven, they've been washing dishes to keep their mind off the labour dispute impacting their child's school.

The Kitchener couple are concerned the tense contract negotiations between the union representing educational support workers and the province will drag on and leave their five-year-old daughter Amelia to learn remotely instead of in class.

"She just thrives so much better overall [in person] and what we want is for her to have a great education," said father Andrew Ostrander.

Amelia attends St. Bernadette Catholic School and switching to remote learning is a concern for the family.

"I mean, what learning are you really teaching a five-year-old online?" said mother Rachel Verhoeven. "We’ve already seen it, you’re going to put a five-year-old online for an hour, what learning are they really doing there?"

KW Playgrounds Movement Training Centre, which already holds PD Day camps and summer camps, is offering a day camp for parents looking for childcare options should a strike take place.

 

 

 

 

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“We have a lot of our stuff on-hand and ready to go, it’s a matter of saying we’re going to run a camp this day and going for it,” said Jessica Stone, program coordinator at KW Playgrounds.

In order to properly prepare, Stone says the camp won’t start until Tuesday.

“We start the day with a warm up, we do some parkour with the kids in smaller groups, run games and then we split the day with other things as well,” said Stone.

For Ostrander and Verhoeven, they say their budget won’t allow them to send Amelia to a camp, and will instead have to take matters into their own hands.

“Honestly, even if there are strike camps, they’re going to be something that’s out of our budget because of how high inflation is," said Verhoeven. "We are already working to just get though our bills and day-to-day things so I will probably end up staying at home with her."

Finding a spot at available camps may be difficult as evidenced by a day camp offered by the City of Cambridge at the John Dolson Centre, where staff are encouraging families to join a wait list.