Welcome to all new PVNC OECTA members and welcome back to all occasional and permanent members.

We are entering a new school year with provincial and local bargaining completed, but we are still waiting for arbitration decisions in a number of key areas including salary and benefits. The Association has two more days scheduled for arbitration: September 30 and October 3.

Please make sure that you have signed up for Provincial updates in our OECTA Provincial member section in order to receive timely bargaining updates.

We are still working off our Bill 124 salary adjustments ending in August 2022. When we receive an arbitrated ruling on our 2022 - 2026 collective agreement, salary increases and retroactive pay will happen again. 

Cell Phones:

As per the recent Ministry of Education directive on cell phones: 

All members of the school community must not use personal mobile devices during instructional time except under the following circumstances: 

• for educational purposes, as directed by an educator
• for health and medical purposes 
• to support special education needs 

For students in grades 6 and below their personal mobile devices must be stored out of view and powered off or set to silent mode throughout the full instructional day, except when their use is explicitly permitted by the educator.

For students in grades 7 to 12, their personal mobile devices must be stored out of view and powered off or set to silent mode during instructional time, except when their use is explicitly permitted by the educator. 

We would like to wish you all a successful start to the 2024-25 school year. We look forward to seeing you in person during our school visits.

Bart Scollard

PVNC Unit President