Teachers ask province to close schools whenever snow days called

If it’s not safe enough to have buses ferry kids to and from school, should teachers be required to come to work?

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario doesn’t think so.

Its members passed a resolution this week to ask the province to enact legislation that would close schools entirely whenever buses are cancelled.

Supporters of the resolution say teachers often don’t live in the neighbourhoods where they work, putting them at just as much risk as students on the road – only without being allowed to stay home on bad-weather days.

In February, a Peterborough-area teacher was killed in a crash while driving to school on a stormy day.

Marg Macfarlane, president of the ETFO’s Halton Region chapter, says she’s had her own close calls over her 25-plus years of teaching.

“There have been, over my career, many nerve-wracking drives in,” she told CTV Toronto.

“If the board feels that it’s unsafe on the roads for buses to drive students, then we just want our teachers to have the same consideration.”

Currently, individual school boards set their own policies for expectations of teachers on days buses aren’t running.

At the Waterloo Region District School Board, teachers are required to show up at school as long as they can get there safely.

A similar policy is in place at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, where employees aren’t represented by ETFO.

“The safety of our employees is very important,” said WCDSB superintendent of learning Derek Haime.

“Our administrative procedure has always been … that all employees are to make a reasonable effort to report to their place of work.”