Officials with the Waterloo Region District School Board say about 15,000 elementary school students weren’t in class Friday.

That’s about 30 per cent of the board’s total elementary enrollment, and it comes after the Ontario Labour Relations Board’s ruling, reached early Friday morning, that a planned one-day walkout by public elementary teachers constituted an illegal strike and any teachers taking part could be fined $2,000 each.

School boards across the province, which had originally planned to close their schools for the day, changed course and announced that classes would go on as scheduled.

“We received word and verification that teachers would be reporting to their schools, and at that point we had assurance that students would be safe if they arrived at school, so we made a decision to open our schools,” said Mark Schinkel, executive superintendent of the Waterloo Region District School Board.

Parents said school or no school, they’d have liked to go to bed Thursday night knowing whether they had to wake their children for school in the morning.

“I just kind of felt that it held everyone hostage for the night,” one parent told CTV.

Colleen Stevens has a daughter in elementary school. She kept Emily home as her own form of protest against the continuing battle between teachers and the province.

Colleen also spent the day looking after Tyler, a friend of Emily’s.

To her surprise, Tyler’s parents got a call from the school asking where Tyler was and informing them he would be marked absent.

“Which is somewhat pathetic, I think,” Colleen told CTV.

At the Avon Maitland District School Board, officials say about 3,000 children missed classes Friday.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation had been planning its own one-day walkout for Jan. 16. Following the OLRB ruling, it told its members to spend the day in the classroom instead.

Instead, teachers will continue to express their frustration through other methods, such as a boycott of extracurricular activities.

“If we could have done this any other way, we would have,” said OSSTF Waterloo Region president Rob Gascho.

“The government has legislated away every other avenue, and so this is what we’re left with.”

Clark Melville, a Kitchener lawyer experienced in labour law, says the unions’ next step could include a court challenge as to the constitutionality of Bill 115, the controversial legislation used by the province to impose new contracts on several teaching unions.