Newsletters

The newsletters are sent to your school and posted in the newsletter section to the right. Lost your ETFOInfo and want to check something? No problem, just look right here.

Professional Development

New ETFO credit courses are coming up! Find details in Professional Development on the right.

Pension Shortfall Addressed with Rate Increases and Change in Inflation Protection

If you have any questions please feel free to call the ETFO Office.

Moovin’ and Groovin’ – Save Our Prison Farms benefit dance, with Heatwave

There is a time to demonstrate — and then, there is a time to dance!

For Save Our Prison Farm supporters, that time to dance is Friday, June 10, at Zorbas on Bath Road, Kingston. 

Heatwave, Kingston’s Motown band, will provide the motivation to get onto the dance floor. 

Proceeds from the dance will go to the legal defence fund for people who were arrested last August, attempting to block the removal of dairy cattle from the prison farm at Frontenac Institution.  A judicial pre-trial for the arrestees will be held Thursday, June 9, in Kingston.

WATER PUMPS AND “SCHOOL IN A BOX” - FROM “and Still We Rise”

Madame Dallaire sent the following letter thanking us for our impromptu fundraising.

Need to know about the elections? Check out “Election Tidbits” under Political Action on the right.

As teachers, we pay attention to what’s happening, but there are people out there who go beyond reading the paper and have researched and written on the issues that are important. This website will post articles that may be helpful when we discuss the elections with neighbours, colleagues, friends or parents. The first issue is the suggestion that income splitting will enable either Mom or Dad to stay home and take care of kids.

Canadian International Development Agency Cut by Conservatives

Project Overseas is one of several programmes that supports education internationally. Where there is a need, Canadian teachers have offered their expertise and enthusiasm to help train teachers to provide a better education to children in many countries. CIDA has pulled all funding from the Canadian Teachers’ Federation’s International Development programmes. Sign the petition urging the government to restore this funding. It will only take a minute and will make a difference to thousands of children.

Good classrooms start with good teachers - letter from our President

Re: Giving Better Teachers the Money They Deserve, editorial, Jan. 6.

From reading your editorial, one would think that teachers are neither evaluated nor accountable for their performance. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teachers in Ontario, for example, work in a highly regulated environment and face a rigorous performance appraisal system involving classroom observation, reports and in-depth reviews with evaluators.

And like doctors and lawyers, they are accountable to their professional regulatory body. Differences in teacher pay are not just based on years of experience and degrees obtained. Those teachers who continually upgrade their teaching skills in professional development courses during the school year and summer months may receive additional financial rewards.

Just as doctors aren’t paid based on the number of patients who live or die, teachers aren’t paid by the number of students that pass or fail. Rather, we highly regulate these professions to ensure the highest levels of competency to support, nurture, and educate whole societies with differing needs and abilities. That’s why it’s illogical to measure success, and base pay, on narrowly defined outcomes.

Sam Hammond, president, Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, Toronto.

National Post/Monday, Jan. 10, 2011