The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) say teachers and paraprofessionals throughout the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) are extremely concerned about privacy and safety of students with school starting.
In a letter to parents, Adrienne McEwen, Teacher Bargaining Unit President, wrote on behalf of 1000 teachers in the UCDSB. McEwen says there is no way to guarantee that this system is fully encrypted and secure.
McEwen says there’s potentially up to 27,000 students at Upper Canada elementary and secondary that are going to be live 2-way streamed, via video and audio, to homes where you can’t control the audience at home and you also can’t control necessarily what the audience does in the classroom.
“I do have concerns that there are students that will be at risk of privacy violations and I’m not sure that this is what parents have signed up for. I don’t think they realize that their children may be at risk at that point.”
McEwen says another issue is the board’s current plan to have in-class teachers teaching students in school and at home at the same time.
“Stephen Lecce, the Minister of Education, did tell schools specifically that they are to create, in a sense, virtual schools where remote learners (and 20-percent of the Upper Canada District School Board secondary students will be remote learners) are to have their own individualized teacher who is dedicated specifically to learning strategies that will help support them in an online environment.”
McEwen says this is really important because students can support each other because they are learning the same way and can work collaboratively which she says is impossible in a classroom where they are being thrown in as essentially extras. McEwen says she has concerns because this individualized instruction is happening in almost every other school board in the province but not in Upper Canada.
“Why are our kids being treated less than what they deserve and what the ministry has told the Upper Canada board to do?”
McEwen says parents need to think about the consent form they signed when their kids went into grade nine. McEwen says parents consented to their student’s photo, now there will be 2-way video and audio. She says parents need to think if they want their child to be videotaped, audio taped and live streamed for five hours a day. McEwen feels that is a lot of hours for kids to be vulnerable to audiences that parents don’t know about.
McEwen says people can write to their school’s principal and advise the school that they don’t consent to having this done. Another option is to write to the local board trustee and advise them of their disappointment with the school board and ask why the board’s not doing what other boards are doing.
“Parents have the power here to speak up and say it’s not good enough for my child.”
McEwen says she would like to see online kids and in school kids treated as they should be and given instructional strategy and the ability to have success because they’re treated separately as cohorts. She adds that their goal as secondary teachers is to ensure a safe working environment for the teachers and a safe learning environment for the students.