Don't forget about our 2nd annual Christmas dinner at the Red Lobster on Dec 12th (6 pm start time). It was a huge success last year, so we've decided to repeat it.
See details below:

OCCASIONAL  TEACHERS’  BARGAINING  UNIT
OSSTF     District # 17     SCDSB    
Unit’s 6&7 – 51 King Street   BARRIE     705-726-1722   Web Site: www.d17otbu.ca   Facebook: D17 OTBU OSSTF

Christmas Dinner

This invitation is extended to you, a Secondary Panel Occasional Teacher, to attend our, now 2nd annual “Holiday Dinner” put on by your Occasional Teachers’ Bargaining Unit (OSSTF).  Our supper/get together will be held on Tuesday, December 12 starting @ 6 pm at Barrie’s Red Lobster on Bayfield Street.
Our intent, along with a great dinner of course, is to have a laid back night of camaraderie amongst SCDSB high school Occasional Teachers. Our OT Executive will be there to answer any querie you may have throughout the night, be it a daily/casual or LTO question. I’m sure the interaction between members will garner lots of pertinent information on a myriad of topics. Undoubtedly ATE EasyConnect will be a main concern.
RED LOBSTER DETAILS:  You will start off the night off with some prime appetizers and their famous biscuits. After that; a choice of soup or salad, followed by 6 entree choices, topped off with a choice of 2 desserts.  Tea/coffee or soft drinks are also included in your meal package.  Along with the above menu items you will be allowed 1 alcoholic beverage.
PLEASW NOTE:  *There is absolutely no charge to you for the above meal except if you choose to have additional alcoholic beverages.
*Remember there is limited seating, so book in early with us.
    * As a result we do require you to RSVP us so as to help the restaurant out and us out in various ways. Please  
      contact Chris Petersen at [email protected] to reserve your spot. 

Here we are back in the fold gang, another school year has begun.

Hoping this blog sees you into a nice transition between summer play and fall work. Speaking of work, it will no doubt be slow in the month of September, as it's been every year as long as I've known. LTOs are at 91 FTE right now, but that will probably go up as it usually does. We were down 2.3% in casual work last year compared to the year before, so not critical numbers at all. Hopefully supply work will pick up sooner than later. 

Our biggest challenge right now is the change over to the new absence manager, that being the transition from SCARRI to EasyConnect on October 1. SCARRI has been with us for 19.5 years now, so it will no doubt be a bit of a scary change up for some (no pun intended). The best way to deal with the transition is to make sure you are constantly checking your Board emails, as there will be constant updates in the next few weeks before the actual big day of Friday Sept 29; as you will get calls for Monday Oct 2 on that night.

Enjoy the school year and keep checking back here for regular Blog updates.

Jeff Parton
Prez 

Well folks, we've made it to the end of another school year. Things started off very slowly for our casual members in the fall, but gradually picked up throughout the second semester. Please remember that you must complete your offence declaration and mandatory training before the end of the semester. Also, please look for the final newsletter of the year being sent out very shortly. If you are planning on applying for Employment Insurance over the summer months, you can find the application codes in the newsletter, but for your convenience, the summertime code is 3511012017201706. 

If you have not yet signed up for our members-only Facebook group, we encourage you to do so. It is a quick and easy way to get important updates. You can access the group by searching for D17 OTBU OSSTF.

Have an incredible, relaxing summer, and as always, feel free to contact your executive if you have any questions!

Just wanted to say thank you to the membership for a well attended AGM this year. I know a few of my Exec members put in a tremendous amount of work into making our AGM a smoothly run event.
 
48 members attended this year, an all time record in OTBU land, beating last year's numbers by one (1).
44 made it to the Red Lobster for a well received supper.
 
Would like to sincerely thank Richard Jessome for being an Exec member over the past few years. His insight into problem solving was stellar and highly appreciated. Good luck in future career moves. Also, a tremendous thanks goes out to Ty Walkland who is off to do his Doctorate, all the best. Your insight has helped us out on many OT issues over the years.
 
A welcome goes out to Matt Boyd moving up to 2nd VP status from CPAC representation last year. He now has voting privileges. Also, coming aboard is Paul Cudney, who is making a return to the Exec after a short sojourn.
 
jeff d parton

Be sure to check out this year's Annual General Meeting on May 18th at 4:30 PM at the district office. Please check out the map on the main page for directions.

This event is an important opportunity for you to meet who represents you, vote on changes to the Constitution and vote on who will make up your executive for the next school year. Also, there is a nice dinner that follows the meeting to celebrate the year's end!

Hope to see you all there :)

Hopefully you have all had a chance to read the emails hitting your inboxes about the pending contract extension that is in the process of being ratified. If you have not had a chance to vote yet, please take a moment to read the instructions below and then make your opinion count. 

We are continuing to have problems with inclement weather issues and supply teachers.

Below are 2 associated Articles from our contract that should clear things up for you:

14.02      Inclement Weather
 
               (a)     All daily occasional teacher assignments will be cancelled in the zones where buses are cancelled due to inclement weather.  All occasional teachers are expected to check the media outlets regarding bus cancellations.  Daily occasional teachers will not be paid for the day if assignments are cancelled due to inclement weather.  Principals may call in an occasional teacher for individual programs if necessary.
 
(a)      In the event that a long-term occasional teacher cannot report to work due to extreme weather conditions and has notified the principal of such, on the recommendation of the principal, the long-term occasional teacher may, after the twentieth (20th) day of each assignment, utilize allocated absence credit in order to avoid loss of salary for the day. 
 
(c)     An unpaid absence due to extreme weather conditions will not count towards an occasional teacher’s ten-day assignment; however, it will also not interrupt the continuity of the assignment.

AND

15.10    (a)       If an assignment is cancelled in SCARRI a minimum of seventy five (75) minutes before the start time, the occasional teacher will not be paid for the assignment.  With the exception of inclement weather as stated in (14.02.a), in the event the assignment has not been cancelled in SCARRI with a minimum of seventy five (75) minutes before the start time and upon reporting to the school, the occasional teacher may be offered an alternative teacher/supervision assignment at that location.  Upon acceptance the occasional teacher shall be paid for the portion of the day that the assignment entailed, which shall not be less than one-half day.
 
(b)     Notwithstanding 16.10 (a), a casual occasional teacher will not be paid for a day where a school has been closed and such closure has been broadcast by the media. 

As you are no doubt aware we have a new system running parallel with SCARRI right now called Job Shopping. At this point we don't know if it is helpful or a hindrance. We will keep you abreast of its inception and subsequent usage.  Below, please find an analysis of it that I first sent you on January 9. 

JOB SHOPPING PRECIS:

• Your Simcoe County District School Board has introduced “Job Shopping” to act in conjunction with SCARRI call outs and will work in parallel with it.  This new procedure started for daily occasional jobs on Monday January 9th.  A robo notification call was sent out the week of Dec 12th telling one to review their email accounts for recent messages.  All of the instructional information pertaining to this new form of hiring is found in that email in your Board’s email account sent out on Wednesday December 21.
• The decision to do this by the Board was done arbitrarily without any Union group’s input. SCDSB first consulted with us regarding job shopping in September 2015, but did not act on it until now.
• The Board initiated this move because of a large amount of unfilled temp jobs, primarily within other employee groups, most notably; Custodial, EAs, and Elementary OTs. Our Unit’s unfilled jobs were not the problem, as there were only 9 unfilled jobs from Sept start up to the first week of Dec.  Again, we, as your OSSTF Union, have not endorsed its inception.  A restrictive technical glitch with the eschool software (SCARRI version) is it has to be applied to all groups unilaterally.
• From a Union perspective, we see 3 major items related to its introduction:
• Those that are tech savvy will no doubt find it handy to manage future job selections, having a much greater control over job offerings, including requests.
• Another group of supply teachers are ones that are non-techies per say or that don’t have up to date technology for its usage.  As a result, this demographic will see the greatest challenge with the new system and will see huge disadvantages.  They may even see job shopping as punitive towards them. 
• The last thing is it will be life style altering to a high degree. Persons will now be tethered to their technology and will no doubt be getting up very early and staying up very late to search for jobs via computer, tablet, or cell phone.  It essentially puts the onus now on the supply teacher to hunt for jobs at different times when it is open for shopping.  Its hours are between 5pm – 11:59pm for future jobs and 12:00am – 6am for current day jobs.
• From a Union aspect is the obvious inequity to certain individuals/groups within our Secondary Panel Supply Teachers.
• One thing we were told in a Teacher Liaison meeting with the Board on Dec 21st is that there may be new eschool software coming out in the spring, which may allow job shopping to be selective in nature. In other words, groups can determine if they truly want to use it or not, but that will ultimately be a Board decision.
• We, as your Union, will be analyzing its impact over the next while, including a survey, and will report on it continually in our upcoming newsletters.

   *Please peruse the instructions in your Board email so you are aware and are, more importantly, comfortable with its usage.

I haven't posted a blog in quite a while as things are beyond busy in Union land, so I do apologize.

Supply work and, for that matter, LTO work has been challenging this semester to say the least. We are down -14% in daily jobs and -19% in LTO work days. These are numbers from October 31 and I have heard that work in November is off as well.

Some folks are getting ample work, whereas others are struggling to get a few days a month. The number of Contract teachers is down about 7% and, therefore, our work is down. This is due mostly to declining enrollment.  Some other factors are found in our recent newsletter.

Christmas holidays are coming up to add a bit of a positive spin on things, but with that unfortunately comes a revenue stream drop.

​

Well, it's that time of year again; anxieties start to mount and the school buses take over the hyways and byways of the County; yes it's a new school year once more.

Welcome back to the new school year here in Simcoe County.  Hopefully you have all had a wonderfully restful summer. Some of you of course have not, upgrading in subject areas, doing summer school assignments, secondary job scenarios etc.  But LTOs are now in class and casual supplys are reading and waiting by the phones.

Not much to report so far this first week except for a bit of a pay raise of 1%.

I'm going to try and do a blog a week this year, so keep checking here for updates.  Also, we're going to attempt an Occasional Teacher Facebook group this year.

Keep your head up, your stick on the ice, and hopefully the phones will start ringing sooner than later.

Jeff Parton