Teachers’ Organizations Responses to COVID-19 in Canada: Balancing Resistance, Rapprochement, and Renewal

Pamela Osmond-Johnson,Lucrécia Fuhrmann

doi:10.7202/1083331ar

Pamela Osmond-Johnson, Lucrécia Fuhrmann

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7202/1083331ar

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Abstract

Teacher federations are often criticized as “roadblocks” to educational change. It is arguable, however, that their advocacy work has been paramount in securing safer return to school conditions across Canadian Educational jurisdictions. Utilizing Carter et al. (2010) framework of union responses to changing policy environments, this paper draws on publicly available documents and social media posts from March through to October of 2020 to examine the ways in which teacher unions in various Canadian contexts have responded to the issue of school reopening plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the paper analyzes the extent to which Canadian teacher unions have been able to move into the realm of union renewal as a means of building internal capacity and developing external networks to strengthen their public advocacy work.

Highlights

Like other educational jurisdictions around the world, Canadian school systems first began closing schools in March of 2020 in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19
In June, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) released results from a national survey of teachers in which 74% of respondents cited being concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of their students and 83% reported being concerned about returning to schools after the first phase of the pandemic (CTF, 2020)
The purpose of this paper is to examine the responses of Canadian teachers’ organizations to the challenging policy environment surrounding the issue of school reopening plans

Summary

Introduction

Like other educational jurisdictions around the world, Canadian school systems first began closing schools in March of 2020 in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. In June, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) (the national association for teacher organizations in Canada) released results from a national survey of teachers in which 74% of respondents cited being concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of their students and 83% reported being concerned about returning to schools after the first phase of the pandemic (CTF, 2020). Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the responses of Canadian teachers’ organizations to the challenging policy environment surrounding the issue of school reopening plans. The vast majority of students and teachers closed out the 2019/2020 school year ‘at a distance’, with a few provinces (like Quebec and British Columbia) choosing to reopen schools at partial capacity for May and June (Hunter, 2020; Lowrie, 2020)

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