The kids nobody is bargaining for

On June 3, 2026, five unions — ETFO, OSSTF/FEESO, OECTA, AEFO, CUPE-OSBCU — each served notice to bargain. Together they represent more than 255,000 teachers and education workers. Once notice is served, the parties must meet within 15 days.

Their central agreements expire August 31, 2026. That date matters, but not in the way most headlines imply. Expiry does not permit a strike. Under the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, central and local bargaining run as separate rounds, and each has its own statutory steps before any lawful withdrawal of services: conciliation first, then a no-board report, then a countdown, then a strike vote and notice.

As of August 4, 2026: No strike vote has been held and no strike has been scheduled. Unions have said they are preparing for possible strike votes.

There is also a live scope dispute. After four days at the central table, CUPE-OSBCU rejected a Ministry proposal to move historically local items — leave, layoff and recall language, allowances — to the central table, and referred the question to the Ontario Labour Relations Board. OSBCU says this could delay bargaining by several months. A delay is not de-escalation; it pushes any possible disruption deeper into the school year.

We are publishing the status honestly, and updating it weekly, because the alternative is what parents are getting everywhere else: a countdown clock to an event that has not been called.

See the live bargaining tracker, table by table →

The Ontario Human Rights Commission publishes a fact sheet specifically about equal access to education for students with disabilities during strikes. Its position is not ambiguous.

Students with disabilities have a Code-protected right to equal treatment in education under section 1 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, and the duty to accommodate under section 17 continues to apply during a work stoppage. Responsibility is shared: government, school boards and unions are each expected to take an active role as accommodation partners, and to work cooperatively to put contingency plans in place so that students with disabilities can continue to attend school and receive appropriate accommodation.

Read that twice, because it disposes of the answer most parents will be given. “We can’t, because of the collective agreement” is not a lawful reason to stop accommodating a disabled child. Neither is “everyone is affected equally.” Withdrawing supports that only disabled students rely on does not affect everyone equally — that is the entire point.

None of this is an argument against the right to strike, which is constitutionally protected. It is an argument that the duty to accommodate runs alongside it, and that all three parties already know this.

Get your school’s continuity plan in writing — free tool →

We are not a union and we are not the government. We represent families whose children are the subject of this dispute and parties to none of it.

Our position has three parts, and we will hold all of them at once:

1. The special education demands are supported by the evidence. The Auditor General found what families have been reporting for years. Staffing is the binding constraint on whether disabled children can attend school.
2. Disabled students must not be the cost of the dispute. If job action comes, the duty to accommodate does not pause, and all three parties know it.
3. Neither side gets to use these children as leverage. Not as a bargaining chip, and not as a reason to override rights by legislation.

Everything we publish on this file will carry its source. Where a figure is a party’s claim rather than an established finding, we will say so — including when it is a claim we are sympathetic to.