Dear Elementary Parents/Guardians,

As we approach this week’s PA Day for parent-teacher interviews, we wanted to remind you of some of the changes that you will notice as a result of job actions currently being taken by members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO).

Elementary Report Cards and Kindergarten Communication of Learning
Teachers are continuing to evaluate and assess students but will not be entering marks and/or learning skills electronically. As we’ve previously indicated, due to the significant time and resources required to input accurate marks and learning skills for the TDSB’s approximately 174,000 elementary students, the TDSB is not able to produce Term 1 report cards.

Kindergarten teachers will write one brief comment per section for the Kindergarten Communication of Learning, and will not input it electronically. As a result, the TDSB is not able to produce Kindergarten Communication of Learning for students at this time.

Parent-Teacher Interviews
Elementary parent-teacher interviews scheduled to take place during the PA day this Friday, February 14 will continue. Parents/guardians are encouraged to contact their child’s teachers directly to make arrangements to receive a progress update on their child.

In addition to the PA day, parents/guardians can also contact their child’s teachers to set up an interview/phone call as long as it falls within the reduced workday as per ETFO’s sanctions (30 minutes before the start of the instructional day and 15 minutes after the end of the instructional day). As always, if teachers have concerns about a student’s progress/achievement, they will proactively contact parents/guardians to discuss.

As part of ongoing job sanctions, teachers will not be providing marks during parent-teacher interviews. Teachers will be providing school administrators with a class list of marks and learning skills, however Principals will not be able to provide these marks to parents/guardians. Given the number of students and subjects involved, it is not possible for the Principal or Vice Principal to provide what could potentially be thousands of marks and/or learning skills to parents in addition to their current duties.

Individual Education Plans
Teachers will continue to update Individual Education Plans (IEPs). For students who are on alternative expectations, teachers will provide a comment to administrators for each of the expectations. IEPs will be updated, but will not be provided to families at this time. Parents/guardians can contact their child’s teachers directly to learn about their progress.

Thank you for your understanding during this time of labour action. Once again, I want to reiterate that learning continues in classrooms across the TDSB and all staff continue to support the achievement and well-being of all students.

Sincerely,