KITCHENER -- Elementary school students in the Waterloo Region District School Board will miss three days of school next week as teachers' unions continue strikes around the province.

Unless a tentative deal is reached between the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation or the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and the government, elementary schools will be closed on Feb. 4, 6 and 7.

The OSSTF announced that it would be holding another strike on Feb. 4 unless progress was made in negotiations.

That strike will also affect the Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, which announced on Thursday afternoon that it would be closing five schools and a daycare in Waterloo and Cambridge for the strike.

The rotating strike is set to hit Waterloo Region District School Board, both secondary and elementary.

That's on top of two other days of strikes that ETFO announced it would hold next week.

Under new strike measures, they'll hold a province-wide walkout on Feb. 6. The next day, a rotating strike is set to hit Waterloo Region too.

That means that elementary school students will only be in the classroom for two days next week.

ETFO returned to the bargaining table with government negotiators on Wednesday for the first time in more than a month.

On Thursday evening, the province announced that those renewed talks with ETFO will continue for a third straight day on Friday.

The union is looking to remove further cuts, increase support for students with special needs and preserve the current kindergarten model, among other things.

ETFO, like other unions, is seeking inflationary raises of two per cent annually, but the government has offered one per cent.

The escalation for ETFO has come quick: the union began its rotating strikes just last week, with plans to escalate and add province-wide strikes next week.

At this time, no new talks with the OSSTF have been scheduled.

Meanwhile, the province's English Catholic teachers say they will return to the bargaining table after talks broke off earlier this month.

With files from the Canadian Press