Paul Calandra

But I do find it a little hard to believe that it's not going to be talked about at all in the classroom or with students in any way.

So I do feel like when Education Minister Paul Calandra says that he wants to keep the kids out of it, I think that that's going to resonate a lot with parents but at the end of the day this is a tactic that the teachers have used before and as we all know we do this every four years negotiations with the teachers unions and there's always some drama there but i i do think that you know this is uh this is one of their ways of getting their point across but a lot of these issues end up getting you know hammered out in the court of public opinion so i think for the most part it's not going to go over well with parents because yeah politics should not be in the classroom

And Bob Reed, you're a comms guy, so I like that there is not— And a principal.

And a principal? Oh, I get it.

Number three, Ontario teachers stage a day of action today.

And the education minister, Paul Calandra, says keep the kids out of it.

I have no

tolerance for it.

And maybe I'll get in trouble later on for saying this from some lawyer in the Ministry of Education, but it is not the place for it.

That was Paul Calandra on Deb Hutton's show on the first day back at school in anticipation of today's day of protest and the possibility of labor disruptions as the fall continues.

It's time for the morning brief.

Amanda Galbraith is here, co-founder and partner at the reputation management company Oyster Group.

Their request comes as the Ontario Principals Council and the Toronto District School Board both said Tuesday they expect situations such as family vacations to fall under excused absences and students not to be penalized following some initial confusion given that some administrators had signaled they did not consider such trips a valid reason to miss classes.

This fall, under changes brought in by Education Minister Paul Calandra, attendance and participation now count for 15% of a final grade in all classes in grades 9 and 10, and 10% in grades 11 and 12, as part of a bid to curb soaring absenteeism.

Now that grades can be affected, the Ontario Student Trustees Association wants clear, province-wide criteria for excused absences, clear communication of those criteria to students, families and educators and school leaders, and consistent guidance on how they should be applied, President Jay Zou said in a recent interview.

The Oakville High School student heads the organization that represents student leaders who sit as non-voting members on school boards.

But if in the absence of having me as a mother, she would say to her teacher, why are you all wearing red? And so to me, whether the answer is as confined as the one you just gave me or not, that is still taking your labor issues into the classroom.

It doesn't mean you're going to spew off and say because Paul Calandra doesn't allow me to feed my kids at home or whatever.

It's still politics for me, Michael.

We're caught between a rock and a hard place.

As a parent with a kid in our publicly funded education system, I have been expressing my angst since much earlier this summer that I am very, very concerned that my child will not see a full school year, that there will not be labor disruptions that will impact her time in the classroom.

Last Tuesday, on the first day of school, the Minister of Education, Paul Calandra, joined me in studio and I put it to him very clearly that And I know you're going to say that he's optimistic, but do you really see that there is any way that we can get through the 26-27 school year without some disruption, whether it's work to rule, whether it is a full-on strike? And I asked the same question of the Elementary Teachers Federation president, David Mastin, that same day.

And while both expressed their optimism that we would have a full school year and that we can come to a negotiated settlement, the language, particularly on the part of the union leader, was not as reassuring as it could be.

That angst sort of ratcheted up even more this week when one of the major unions in this province announced that they would be holding a strike vote in November.