School Board Research

School Board Research. Ontario’s Education Unions: What the Public Record Shows. Teacher pay, union dues, public money and how Ontario compares.

Ontario’s Education Unions: What the Public Record Shows

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What Ontario’s education unions are, what teachers are paid, what they pay their unions, and how Ontario’s results compare.

Summary

Ontario’s education unions are holding strike votes this month. This primer sets out, from public sources, what teachers earn and pay in dues, how public money reaches the unions, how Ontario’s results compare with other provinces, with England and with American states, and what the record shows on safety and job action. Five findings stand out.

  1. Membership and dues are not optional. Every teacher in a school board belongs to the Ontario Teachers’ Federation by law, and union dues are deducted from every teacher’s pay whether or not they join. OSSTF dues are 1.6 per cent of gross earnings, about $1,921 a year at the top of the Toronto secondary grid.
  2. Ontario teachers are among the best paid in Canada. An experienced teacher at the top of the grid earns about $117,000 to $120,000, more than the top of the published grids or pay range in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador; many teachers are below the top step. That one salary is at about the line for the top 10 per cent of Ontario tax filers and a third more than the median Ontario family or single person, but about three-quarters of what the typical Ontario couple with children earns together.
  3. Public money still reaches the unions. Direct grants to the unions stopped after 2018-19. School boards still keep union officers on their payrolls: at least 55 people and $7.6 million in 2025. That is what boards paid before any repayment: for provincial office the agreements School Board Research read require the union to repay in full, for local officers some do and some do not, and boards do not publish the totals. At the Toronto District School Board, the board keeps paying ten released officers their full salaries and OSSTF repays only the starting rate, so for officers at the top of the grid the board, not the union, carries up to about $500,000 a year of their salaries, on release terms the board agreed to in bargaining. After the Court of Appeal found Bill 124 unconstitutional as it applied to unionized workers, the province, which lost, also agreed to pay $3.45 million toward the legal costs of the ten unions, not all in education, that brought the case. Separately, the unions spend their own money in elections: ETFO, OECTA and OSSTF reported $1.86 million in political advertising around the 2022 provincial election.
  4. Ontario’s results have fallen, as they have across Canada. Ontario scores at the Canadian average, not above it, though above the OECD average and above the United States in mathematics. On the international PISA test, Ontario’s average score has fallen 39 points in reading since 2000 and 46 points in mathematics since 2003; every province declined, and Ontario’s drop in reading was the second-smallest of the ten. On the provincial EQAO tests, results have improved since 2021-22, but about one in four Grade 3 students still do not meet the standard in reading, about one in three do not meet it in mathematics, and nearly half of Grade 6 students do not meet it in mathematics; 86 per cent of Grade 6 students meet it in reading. England’s PISA scores have held steady, and Ontario’s are now about level with England’s. Mississippi now scores above the American public school average in Grade 4 reading after a decade of structured literacy reform, though its Grade 8 reading scores are about where they were in 1998.
  5. Reported violence has risen, and parents see little of it. Violent incidents reported by school boards to the Ministry rose from 2,499 in 2018-19 to 4,424 in 2023-24; the counts were obtained by Global News through freedom of information requests, and the Ministry’s memorandum on reporting them says nothing about publishing them. In ETFO’s 2023 survey, 77 per cent of members said they had experienced or witnessed violence against staff. At no board do the code of conduct documents name both a role and a method for reporting unacceptable behaviour.

1. Introduction

Ontario’s collective agreements with teachers and education workers expired on 31 August 2026. When they served notice to bargain in June, the five major education unions said classrooms face growing student needs, violence in schools, inadequate supports for students with special education needs, large class sizes, insufficient staffing, and challenges in retaining and recruiting staff (ETFO 2026b). Bargaining has since stalled while the Ontario Labour Relations Board decides which issues are bargained provincially and which locally (Jones 2026). The unions say the province is trying to move items now bargained locally, such as staffing timelines for transfer, surplus and redundancy and local professional development funding, to the provincial table, and they oppose the change (ETFO 2026c). The Minister has said the government remains “committed to getting a negotiated settlement so teachers have certainty” (Callan and D’Mello 2026).

All five are holding strike votes in November: CUPE’s school board workers from 4 to 18 November, OSSTF from 6 to 16 November, ETFO from 9 to 18 November, OECTA on 12 and 13 November, and AEFO on 16 and 17 November (Jones 2026; NOW Toronto 2026). A strike vote is not a strike, but it is the point at which parents are most often asked to take a side.

This primer does not take a side in bargaining. It sets out what a parent would need to know to judge the arguments: who the unions are, what teachers are paid and pay in dues, how public money reaches the unions, how Ontario’s results compare, and what the record shows on safety and job action. Two companion articles give the background: “Strike Votes and Strikes: What the Public Record Shows” counts strike votes, strikes and the laws that ended them, and “How We Got Here: Eighty Years of Fights Between Ontario and Its Education Unions” sets out the history of the disputes.

2. What a Union Is, and Who Belongs

A union is an organization that bargains wages and working conditions on behalf of a group of employees and represents them in disputes with the employer. In Ontario’s schools there are four teachers’ unions: the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) for public elementary teachers, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) for public secondary teachers and many support staff, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) for Catholic teachers, and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO) for French-language teachers. Most custodians, educational assistants and office staff belong to CUPE’s Ontario School Board Council of Unions.

Three other bodies are often confused with the unions. The Ontario Teachers’ Federation is the umbrella body to which the four teachers’ unions belong. The Ontario College of Teachers is the regulator that licenses and disciplines teachers; it is not a union, and its annual fee is $200 (Ontario College of Teachers n.d.). Principals and vice-principals were removed from the teachers’ unions in 1997 and belong to separate principals’ associations.

A teacher cannot opt out. The Teaching Profession Act provides: “Every teacher is a member of the Federation.” The Labour Relations Act, 1995, which applies to school board bargaining through the School Boards Collective Bargaining Act, 2014, requires the employer to deduct dues from each employee in the unit “whether or not the employee is a member of the union” (s. 47(1)). An exemption for religious objectors exists, but it “does not apply to employees whose employment commences after” the union-security clause was first agreed (s. 52(2)), so in practice it is closed to teachers hired today. The other side of compulsory dues is a legal duty: the union “shall not act in a manner that is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith in the representation of any of the employees in the unit, whether or not members of the trade union” (s. 74).

3. What Teachers Are Paid

Teachers are paid on a grid: they move up a step each year of experience, to a top step after about ten years, and higher qualifications place them in a higher category. At the Toronto District School Board, a secondary teacher in the highest category at the top step earns $120,057 from 1 September 2025 (TDSB and OSSTF 2023, L7.1). At the Thames Valley District School Board, an elementary teacher in the highest category started at $64,903 in 2024-25 and reached $117,048 at the top step (Thames Valley DSB and ETFO 2024, L8.01). The arbitrated increases for 2022 to 2026 were 3, 3, 2.75 and 2.5 per cent (YGK News 2024).

Salary is not the whole package. Teachers belong to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a defined benefit plan: members contribute 10.4 per cent of salary up to the Canada Pension Plan limit and 12 per cent above it, and contributions “are matched by the Ontario government and participating employers on behalf of all members” (Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan n.d.). The school year has a minimum of 194 school days, including the professional activity days (Ontario Ministry of Education 2022).

How that compares with Ontario families

Statistics Canada publishes the income at which Ontario’s top earners begin. In 2023, the latest year published, the top 10 per cent of Ontario tax filers had total income of $119,900 or more, the top 5 per cent $158,000 or more, and the top 1 per cent $313,100 or more; the median tax filer had $43,400 (Statistics Canada 2025). A teacher at the top of the grid is therefore at about the line for the top 10 per cent, well short of the top 5 or top 1 per cent, and earns nearly three times what the median tax filer reports. The comparison flatters the teacher somewhat, because tax filers include students, retirees and part-time workers, and incomes have risen since 2023.

Comparing one salary with a family’s income is a different question (Figure 1). In 2024, the median Ontario couple with children had total income of $158,500 before tax, counting both partners; the median one-parent family had $72,700; and the median across all Ontario families and people not living in a family was $90,200 (Statistics Canada 2026). One top-of-grid salary is about three-quarters of a typical two-parent family’s combined income, a third more than the median family or single person, and well above the typical one-parent family. A household with two teachers at the top of the grid earns about $240,000 before tax, half as much again as the typical couple with children. Statistics Canada does not publish incomes for the families of school-age children in a way that would show whether a teacher earns more than the parents of most students.

Bar chart of incomes before tax. Median Ontario couple with children, both partners combined: $158,500. One teacher at the top of the grid: $120,057. Median Ontario family or person not in a family: $90,200. Median Ontario one-parent family: $72,700. One teacher at the start of the grid: $70,234. Median Ontario tax filer: $43,400. A dashed line marks $119,900, where the top 10 per cent of Ontario tax filers began in 2023.
Figure 1. One teacher’s salary against Ontario incomes. Teacher salaries are the 2025-26 Toronto District School Board secondary grid (Group 4); family incomes are Ontario medians of total income before tax for 2024; the median tax filer and the top 10 per cent line are for 2023. Grid tops are not averages; many teachers are below the top step. Sources: TDSB and OSSTF (2023); Statistics Canada (2025; 2026).

How that compares with other provinces, states and countries

Jurisdiction (grid)YearStarting salaryTop of grid
Ontario (TDSB secondary, Group 4)2025-26$70,234$120,057
Ontario (Thames Valley elementary, A4)2024-25$64,903$117,048
British Columbia (Vancouver, Category 6)2025-26$74,814$111,329
Alberta (Calgary Public, TQS 6)2025$73,197$111,578
Saskatchewan (provincial grid, Class VI)2025-26$76,292$111,501
Newfoundland and Labrador (Level VII)2025-26$80,959$106,478
Quebec (posted salary range, all categories)2025-26$54,119$105,432
Table 1. Published teacher salary grids, highest standard category. Sources: TDSB and OSSTF (2023); Thames Valley DSB and ETFO (2024); BCPSEA (2026); Alberta Teachers’ Association (2025); Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (2025); Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association (2024); Centre de services scolaire des Premières-Seigneuries (2025), a job posting that gives a pay range, not a grid. Years and categories differ; see the annex.

American figures are reported differently. The National Education Association reports an average teacher salary of US$74,495 in 2024-25, about $104,000 in Canadian dollars at the 2025 exchange rate (Bank of Canada 2026). State averages range from US$54,975 in Mississippi, the lowest of any state, to US$103,552 in California, about $145,000 (National Education Association 2026). These are averages across all steps, not the top of a grid, so they are not directly comparable with Table 1. Exchange rates also do not capture differences in living costs, pensions or health benefits, so these figures show orders of magnitude, not exact comparisons.

From September 2026, a classroom teacher in England outside London is paid between £34,069 and £52,835, about $62,800 to $97,300 in Canadian dollars. In inner London the top of the classroom range is £64,684, about $119,100, close to the top of an Ontario grid (Department for Education 2026b, 21 to 22, 64; Bank of Canada 2026). The English figures are for 2026-27, a year newer than the Ontario grids in Table 1. Taxes, living costs, pensions and benefits differ, so these figures are a rough guide only.

4. What Teachers Pay the Unions

Each union sets its own dues, which are deducted from teachers’ pay (Table 2).

UnionPublished rateAbout, at $120,057
OSSTF1.6 per cent of gross earnings, plus local levies$1,921 plus a local levy
ETFO1.36 per cent plus two small levies, 1.40 per cent in all$1,681
OECTABase fee of $1,100, indexed each year from 1 July 2017, plus 0.12 to 0.25 per centCurrent indexed amount not published
AEFONot publishedNot known
Table 2. Teachers’ union dues. Sources: OSSTF (n.d.); ETFO (2026a, By-law I); OECTA (2024, By-law 2.154). ETFO adds 0.2 per cent if its defence fund falls below set balances.

Only OSSTF publishes its revenue. In the year ended 30 June 2025 it took in $60.2 million in member fees and $13.9 million from a special levy, and its Member Protection Account, the fund that pays members during a strike, held an accumulated surplus of $123.3 million (OSSTF 2026, 10 to 13). AEFO’s annual report gives its spending, $16.5 million in 2024-25, not yet approved by its board when the report was published, but not its revenue (AEFO 2025, 41). ETFO and OECTA do not publish comparable figures, although any member is entitled to a copy of the union’s audited financial statement (Labour Relations Act, 1995, s. 92(1)).

5. Union Officers on School Board Payrolls

Union presidents and other officers are usually teachers on leave from the classroom. Many stay on their school board’s payroll, so their pay appears on Ontario’s public sector salary disclosure (the Sunshine List) under the board’s name. In 2025, at least 55 people on school board payrolls had a union post in their job title, paid a total of $7.6 million before any repayment; in 2024 the count was at least 89 people and $13.0 million (Ontario 2025; Ontario 2026). These are minimums: most boards list released officers simply as teachers.

The four people who were provincial teachers’ union presidents at the end of 2025 all appear on the 2025 list under a school board, at amounts from $120,024 to $232,962 (Ontario 2026). The list shows what the board paid in the year, which can include time in another union office. It does not show what a president earned in total or what the union repaid. Where an agreement covers leave for provincial office, as at Thames Valley, the union repays the full salary, allowances and benefits (Thames Valley DSB and ETFO 2024, L30.05).

For local officers, who pays depends on the local agreement. At York Catholic, the union pays back the full salary and benefits of its released officers (York Catholic DSB and OECTA 2025, 9.20). At the Toronto District School Board, OSSTF pays back ten officers’ salaries only “at Group 4, Step 0 of the Salary Scale”, the starting rate of $70,234 (TDSB and OSSTF 2023, L36.13). At Thames Valley, ETFO pays the “replacement costs” of six released officers at the A3 starting rate of $60,920, plus benefits and allowances (Thames Valley DSB and ETFO 2024, L30.01). Either way, the board keeps paying the officer’s full salary and the union pays back only a starting teacher’s salary. For an officer at the top of the grid, the board rather than the union carries up to about $49,800 a year at TDSB and up to about $56,100 at Thames Valley. At Thames Valley, because the union’s repayment, with benefits, is close to what a beginning teacher costs to take the officer’s place, the board’s total spending is about what it would be if the officer were teaching; at TDSB, where the agreement sets the repayment at a starting salary, the board may also carry the cost of benefits. What changes is who pays for the officer’s experience. Release on these terms is part of the agreement each board signed.

6. Public Money and the Unions

For years the province paid the unions directly. The Auditor General found that the government committed $3.8 million to unions for their bargaining costs between 2008 and 2015, and gave teachers’ unions and the Teachers’ Federation a further $80.5 million between 2000-01 and 2015-16, much of it for professional development, including $22 million “with no strings attached” (Auditor General of Ontario 2016). The Ministry said it would not make such payments in future. One further $1 million payment for bargaining costs was made to OECTA in August 2017, and from April 2016 to May 2018 the Ministry paid the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and teachers’ unions $13.1 million for training and professional development, most of it to the Federation (Auditor General of Ontario 2018, 247, 252). No ministry program payments to the unions appear in the Public Accounts after 2018-19 (Ontario n.d.).

Two arrangements remain. The first is the union officers on board payrolls described above. The second is the benefits trusts, which the province funds and the unions help govern: the province funds a set amount per full-time teacher into a health and dental trust for each union, $6,681.68 per OSSTF teacher from 2025 (TDSB and OSSTF 2023, C7.3). ETFO appoints five of the nine members of its trust’s board (Public Appointments Secretariat n.d.).

Where the money comes from and goes

The unions’ advertising, strike funds and court cases are paid for from members’ dues and fees. Dues are deducted from salaries that public money pays, but once paid they are the teachers’ own money, and bargaining, advertising and going to court are lawful activities. Public money is involved in two ways: the province paid part of the unions’ legal costs, and boards carry part of released officers’ salaries. The unions’ own spending comes from members’ dues (Figure 2).

  • Through school boards. Where a union pays back only a starting teacher’s salary for its released officers, the board carries the part of the officers’ salaries above the repayment rate (Section 5). On the agreements School Board Research read, that is up to about $500,000 a year at the Toronto District School Board (ten officers) and up to about $340,000 at Thames Valley (six officers, 2024-25) (TDSB and OSSTF 2023, L36.13; Thames Valley DSB and ETFO 2024, L30.01). These officers run the local union, including representing members and local bargaining.
  • Through the courts. After the Court of Appeal found that Bill 124, the province’s wage-restraint law, violated the Charter right to freedom of association of the unionized workers it covered, the province agreed to pay $3.45 million in legal costs to the ten unions that brought the case, which is named for the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association. The province also paid $856,482 to its own outside lawyers for the appeal (The Canadian Press 2024; Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2024 ONCA 101).
  • From members’ dues. OSSTF alone took in $60.2 million in member fees and $13.9 million in a special levy in 2024-25, and held $123.3 million in its strike fund (OSSTF 2026, 10 to 13). From such funds the unions pay for bargaining, strike pay, political advertising and court challenges to provincial laws.

Some of that money goes into elections. Around the 2022 provincial election, ETFO reported $721,081 in political advertising, OECTA $643,200 and OSSTF $499,998, most of it before the campaign began (Elections Ontario 2022a; 2022b; 2022c). ETFO reported $111,550 for the 2025 election (Elections Ontario 2025). The Supreme Court of Canada struck down Ontario’s limit on spending in the year before an election in March 2025, in a case brought by third-party groups including the Working Families Coalition and teachers’ unions, after the province had re-enacted the limit using the notwithstanding clause (CP24 2025; Ontario (Attorney General) v. Working Families Coalition (Canada) Inc., 2025 SCC 5).

Flow diagram titled Where the teachers' unions' money comes from and goes. The province funds school boards, which pay teachers' salaries and released union officers; teachers pay union dues to the unions. Public money paid to the unions: $3.45 million in legal costs agreed in 2024 to ten unions, not all in education, after the Bill 124 court ruling. Salary the board carries for released officers, with no payment to the union: the part of released officers' salaries above the starting rate the union repays, up to about $500,000 a year at the Toronto District School Board. Paid from members' dues and fees: bargaining and union staff, strike pay (OSSTF strike fund $123.3 million), political ads ($1.86 million by three unions in 2022) and court challenges. Separately, the province funds benefits trusts per teacher, $6,681.68 per OSSTF teacher in 2025, which pay teachers' health and dental benefits.
Figure 2. Where the teachers’ unions’ money comes from and goes. Board amounts are maximums on the agreements read, for officers at the top of the grid. Sources: TDSB and OSSTF (2023); Thames Valley DSB and ETFO (2024); OSSTF (2026); Elections Ontario (2022a; 2022b; 2022c); The Canadian Press (2024).

The benefits trusts are different: the province’s payments there fund teachers’ health and dental benefits, not union campaigns.

7. How Ontario’s Results Compare

Ontario spent $15,012 per student in 2022-23, close to the Canadian average of $15,313; Alberta spent $13,627 and Quebec $18,617. That was the fourth lowest among the provinces, and the Financial Accountability Office found the province’s operating funding per student in 2024-25, after inflation, at “the lowest level over the last 10 years” (Financial Accountability Office of Ontario 2025, Figures 4.1 and 5.1). On the provincial EQAO tests, the share of students meeting the standard has risen a few points since 2021-22, but the gains are small next to the gaps that remain. In 2025-26, one in four Grade 3 students who wrote the test did not meet the provincial standard in reading, about one in three did not meet it in mathematics, and nearly half of Grade 6 students did not meet it in mathematics (Figure 3). Counting every Grade 6 student, including those who were absent or exempted, fewer than half (49 per cent) met the mathematics standard (EQAO 2026).

Four bar charts, one for each EQAO test, showing the per cent of Ontario students in English-language schools who wrote the test and did not meet the provincial standard, 2021-22 to 2025-26. Grade 3 reading: 27, 27, 29, 26 and 25 per cent. Grade 3 mathematics: 41, 40, 39, 36 and 35 per cent. Grade 6 reading: 15, 16, 18, 14 and 14 per cent. Grade 6 mathematics: 53, 50, 50, 49 and 48 per cent.
Figure 3. Per cent of students who wrote the EQAO test and did not meet the provincial standard, English-language schools, 2021-22 to 2025-26. Source: EQAO (2026), provincial results.

The international picture is starker. PISA, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), tests 15-year-olds every few years. Ontario’s average reading score has fallen from 533 in 2000 to 494 in 2025, and its mathematics score from 530 in 2003 to 484 (Figure 4). Most of the drop came after 2018: 30 points in reading and 29 in mathematics (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 100, 224, 227). Between 2022 and 2025, the share of Ontario students below the OECD’s baseline level rose from 17 to 21 per cent in reading and from 22 to 27 per cent in mathematics (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 231 to 232). Ontario still scores above the OECD average and at the Canadian average in both subjects, and the decline is not Ontario’s alone: scores fell across Canada and across OECD countries, and the pandemic disrupted schooling, to different degrees, in every country and province (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 83, 99, 224, 227). Ontario’s lead over the OECD average has held in reading and narrowed in mathematics, from 30 points in 2003 to 21 points in 2025. No province improved. Between 2022 and 2025, no province’s score rose significantly in either subject, and every province scored lower in 2025 than in the first year each subject was measured. Ontario’s decline is smaller than or close to Canada’s overall: its drop in reading since 2000 is the second-smallest of the ten provinces, and its drop in mathematics since 2003 is the fourth-smallest (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 99, 101, 224, 227).

England offers a useful contrast. Its 15-year-olds scored 497 in reading and 492 in mathematics in 2025, not significantly different from their 2015 scores of 500 and 493 (Department for Education 2026a, 53, 70, 152 to 153), and close to their 2006 scores of 496 and 495 (Wheater and others 2014, 148, 166). In 2006, Ontario was 38 points ahead of England in reading and 31 points ahead in mathematics. By 2025, Ontario’s scores were 3 points below England’s in reading and 8 points below in mathematics (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 224, 227; Figure 4). Neither gap is large: the reading gap is within the margin of error (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 74), and England’s own report finds that Canada’s 2025 mathematics score of 485, one point above Ontario’s, is not significantly different from England’s (Department for Education 2026a, 10).

Scores did not fall everywhere, but PISA cannot show why England’s held: England’s school system differs from Ontario’s in many ways, and one comparison cannot show which differences matter. England’s results also carry caveats: the overall exclusion rate for schools in the United Kingdom, excluding Scotland, was 7.6 per cent in 2025, above the OECD’s 5 per cent target, and the England report itself advises caution on trends (Department for Education 2026a, 8, 25).

Two line charts of average PISA scores. Reading: Ontario 533 in 2000 falling to 494 in 2025; Canada 534 falling to 490; England 496 in 2006, 495 in 2009, 500 in 2012, 500 in 2015, 505 in 2018, 496 in 2022 and 497 in 2025. Mathematics: Ontario 530 in 2003 falling to 484 in 2025; Canada 532 falling to 485; England 495 in 2006, 493 in 2009, 495 in 2012, 493 in 2015, 504 in 2018, 492 in 2022 and 492 in 2025.
Figure 4. Average PISA scores in reading and mathematics, Ontario, Canada and England. England’s scores are shown from 2006. CMEC advises caution for Ontario and Canada in 2022 and 2025, and the England report advises caution on trends (see the Annex). Sources: Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2026), Tables B.3.21a and B.3.22a; Department for Education (2026a), Figures 3.1 and 4.1; Wheater and others (2014), Appendices B21 and D6.

Mississippi cannot be compared with Ontario on PISA. PISA reports results for the United States as a whole, and only a few states have taken part separately: Massachusetts, Connecticut and Florida in 2012, and Massachusetts and North Carolina in 2015 (Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education 2016). In 2025 the United States as a whole scored 490 in reading and 463 in mathematics, against Ontario’s 494 and 484 (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 74, 80). The American measure that reports each state is the national NAEP test.

On that measure the American comparison is instructive. Mississippi’s Grade 4 reading score on the national NAEP test rose from 208.5 in 2013 to 218.5 in 2024, above the American public school average of 214.3; the state spends about US$13,000 per student (National Center for Education Statistics 2025; National Education Association 2026). The gains followed a 2013 law and a set of related measures: phonics-based reading instruction, training for teachers, literacy coaches in schools, and holding back third graders who could not read (Associated Press 2023). Holding students back can itself raise later test scores: “A number of studies have found that retention does improve test scores,” though its long-run effects are debated (Barnum 2025). Mississippi also gave its teachers an average raise of about US$5,100, more than 10 per cent, in 2022 (Pettus 2022). After adjusting for student demographics, the Urban Institute ranks Mississippi first in Grade 4 reading and mathematics (Chingos and Blagg 2025). The gains have not carried into the higher grades: “Mississippi’s eighth grade reading scores are about the same as they were in 1998” (Barnum 2025).

The research does not say money is irrelevant. A widely cited American study found that a 10 per cent increase in spending throughout a child’s schooling raised later wages, with effects “much more pronounced for children from low-income families” (Jackson, Johnson and Persico 2015). Other work finds that spending levels on their own predict little about achievement (Hanushek 2002). On class size, the unions’ central demand, the best-known experiment, Tennessee’s STAR study, randomly assigned students to smaller or regular classes; the research based on it finds that smaller classes raise achievement, particularly for low-income and minority children (Schanzenbach 2014). Both lines of research point to what money is spent on, not only how much. Ontario has adopted part of the Mississippi approach: a new language curriculum from 2023 and, under Policy/Program Memorandum 168, “explicit and systematic instruction in foundational reading” with early reading screening in Kindergarten to Grade 2 (Ontario 2023). School Board Research found no provincial requirement for retraining teachers in reading instruction, for literacy coaches or for holding back third graders, the other parts of the Mississippi approach.

Ontario also changed what teachers must teach before it changed how they are trained. The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s 2024 review of its Right to Read recommendations rated teacher education “In Progress” and Additional Qualification courses “Little to No Progress”. It found many new and experienced teacher candidates still “not equipped to apply the Science of Reading”, and noted that the province had not passed detailed regulations “specifying the knowledge and skills future teachers must attain to teach foundational word-reading skills” (Ontario Human Rights Commission 2024). School Board Research raised the same gap when the province shortened the Bachelor of Education program in April 2026 (School Board Research 2026a).

8. Violence in Schools

Both sides of the bargaining table say safety matters, and both point to more violence. Two kinds of numbers are used, and they measure different things.

The first is what boards report to the province. Under Policy/Program Memorandum 120, “Boards are required to report the total number of violent incidents on an annual basis” to the Ministry. The memorandum defines a violent incident narrowly, as “the occurrence of any one of the following or the occurrence of a combination of any of the following” (Ontario 2011):

  • “possessing a weapon, including possessing a firearm”
  • “physical assault causing bodily harm requiring medical attention”
  • “sexual assault”
  • “robbery”
  • “using a weapon to cause or to threaten bodily harm to another person”
  • “extortion”
  • “hate and/or bias-motivated occurrences”

On that measure, violent incidents reported by school boards rose from 2,499 in 2018-19 to 4,424 in 2023-24 (Global News 2025a). Peel reported the most in 2023-24, 431, and the Toronto District School Board 410; the five boards with the most incidents reported 1,497 between them (Global News 2025b). Global News obtained these counts, provincial and board by board, through freedom of information requests. The memorandum also requires boards to “collect and analyse data on the nature of violent incidents” to inform their own policies and improvement plans, but it says nothing about publishing the counts. A parent can see their board’s number only because Global News obtained and published it. The Minister’s office told Global News in 2025 that the Minister “is currently considering updates to the provincial policy memorandum” on reporting, and that the current approach to the data may be outdated (Global News 2025c).

The second is what staff report in union surveys, which count far more than the Ministry’s list. In ETFO’s 2023 survey of its members, 77 per cent said they had “personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against another staff person”, up from 70 per cent in 2017, and 42 per cent reported a physical or psychological injury or illness from workplace violence in 2022-23. Only 41 per cent said they always made a written or online report, and 36 per cent of those who reported said there was follow-up in all or some cases, down from 50 per cent in 2017 (ETFO 2023). These are a union’s figures from its own members, but they point the same way as the board reports.

Staff and students are protected by different laws. Teachers and other staff are workers under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, so boards must have a workplace violence policy and program, assess the risk of violence, and give workers information, including personal information, about a person with a history of violent behaviour if the worker can be expected to encounter that person and the risk is likely to expose the worker to physical injury (Occupational Health and Safety Act; Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development 2023). Teachers may refuse unsafe work, but not “where the circumstances are such that the life, health or safety of a pupil is in imminent jeopardy” (R.R.O. 1990, Reg. 857, s. 3). Students’ protections are set out instead in the Education Act and the Ministry’s memoranda on codes of conduct (PPM 128) and bullying (PPM 144) (Ontario 2021; Ontario 2024).

Those are the documents School Board Research reviewed at all 72 boards in September and October 2026. No board met all eight code of conduct requirements tested, and at no board do the code documents name both a role and a method by which any member of the school community reports unacceptable behaviour (School Board Research 2026b). No board met all fourteen bullying requirements tested, and 25 boards publish neither the plan nor the policy the memorandum describes (School Board Research 2026c). Five boards’ bullying documents say where a parent reports and with whom (School Board Research 2026d). For a parent whose child has been hurt, that means the board’s own documents often do not say who to tell or what happens next.

The province has required phones to be put away during instructional time from September 2024 (Ontario 2024), and the Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025 adds a requirement for boards to work with local police services (Legislative Assembly of Ontario 2025). The disagreement is about the remedy. The unions argue that violence follows from too few staff and too little special education support, and they want the province to invest in smaller classes and supports (ETFO 2025). Critics argue that more spending will not by itself make classrooms safer and that principals need firmer discipline powers and police partnerships (Zwaagstra 2025). Students’ safety is not at stake in one position and absent from the other; the question for parents is which measures each side proposes, and whether those measures have worked where they have been tried. School Board Research’s guide for parents, “The Parent Playbook“, sets out how to put concerns in writing, ask for the board’s policies and request records.

9. Job Action, Absences and Accountability

Bargaining also bears on how schools run from day to day. The public record shows the following.

  • Job action. In 2015, the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled that OSSTF strikes in Durham, Rainbow and Peel were illegal; more than 70,000 students had been out for weeks (Global News 2015). In 2019-20, all four teachers’ unions took job action, from work-to-rule to one-day strikes, including a strike by all four on 21 February 2020; agreements followed between 12 March and 20 April 2020 (Global News 2020). The dispute centred on the province’s plans to raise the secondary student-to-teacher ratio to 28 to 1 and to require four online courses; during the talks the province moved to 23 to 1 and two online courses (CTV News 2020). In November 2022, thousands of CUPE’s education workers stopped work after the province passed Bill 28, which banned their strike and used the notwithstanding clause, closing hundreds of schools to in-person learning for two days; the legislature then repealed the law unanimously (Casey 2022).
  • Absences. The Auditor General found that sick days taken by all permanent Toronto District School Board employees, including teachers, educational assistants and custodians, rose 58 per cent between 2014-15 and 2022-23, from 12.5 to 19.7 a year, a period that includes the pandemic years, against a provincial estimate of 15.3, and linked the rise partly to the board’s lack of a formal attendance management program. In 2022-23, no supply teacher was available for 84,381 of 437,672 teacher absences (Auditor General of Ontario 2024, 5, 33 to 36).
  • Evaluation. Under the province’s appraisal rules, an experienced teacher “must be appraised once every 5 years” (Ontario Ministry of Education 2010, 10).
  • Testing. ETFO “maintains its call to end this costly testing program”, meaning EQAO, the province-wide test that lets parents compare their school’s results. ETFO says classroom assessments by educators are “the best source of information about student progress” and wants the money moved to smaller classes and supports (ETFO 2025).

The record has another side. The extra pay teachers received for 2019 to 2022 was awarded by an arbitrator after the courts ruled against Bill 124, the province’s wage cap (OSSTF 2024), and the increases for 2022 to 2026 were set by interest arbitration (YGK News 2024); neither was won by strike. In 2016 the Superior Court found that the process the province used to put contracts in place for education unions under the Putting Students First Act, 2012, which allowed it to impose them, had infringed the unions’ Charter right to freedom of association (OPSEU v. Ontario, 2016 ONSC 2197). Teachers report rising violence and large class sizes (ETFO 2023; ETFO 2026b). Most teachers do not hold union office.

10. Conclusion: What Parents Can Ask For

Some of what parents most need to know is not published. School boards do not publish what they pay in total for released union officers, or what the unions pay back. Only OSSTF publishes its revenue and strike fund. Boards report violent incidents to the province, but the memorandum that requires the reports does not require anyone to publish them. And Ontario’s international scores have fallen, while on the provincial tests one in four Grade 3 students still does not meet the reading standard and nearly half of Grade 6 students do not meet it in mathematics. Parents do not need to take a side in the strike votes to ask for the facts.

  1. Ask your board for its numbers. Write to your trustees and ask how many violent incidents your board reported to the Ministry last year, and how many staff your board paid in 2025-26 while they were released or seconded to a union or another outside organization, what it paid them, and how much was repaid. Your board’s collective agreements are public documents; if they are not posted, ask for them. If the board does not answer, you can ask for the records under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
  2. Ask the province to publish them. Find your MPP by street address and postal code at ola.org, and ask whether the government will require boards to publish two things: their yearly count of violent incidents, and every employee on paid leave or secondment to an outside organization (unions, principals’ associations, trustee associations and the Ministry), with what the board pays and what the organization repays. Staff who stay on a board’s payroll and are paid $100,000 or more already appear on the Sunshine List, though most boards do not name the post; the repayments are the missing half.
  3. Ask both sides what their proposals will do for safety, reading and mathematics. The unions are bargaining for smaller classes and more support. The unions say the province is seeking to settle more issues at the provincial table, and the province sets the curriculum, the tests and the requirements for teacher training. Write to the Minister of Education, your MPP and your local teachers’ union, and ask what results their proposals should produce, and how parents will know.
  4. Check your own board. See your board’s published results on the Board Report Card, and read “Outside the Room” for how parents have changed provincial policy before.

A strike vote is when parents hear the most from both sides. It is also the best time to ask for the numbers that neither side now publishes.

Annex: Data, Method and Limitations

Salary grids. Grids are the published maximum for the highest standard category at a named board or province, for the year shown. Ontario has no single provincial grid; each board’s agreement sets its own. Grid tops are not averages, and many teachers are below the top step. Years and categories differ between provinces. Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are omitted because a current grid could not be confirmed from the agreement. Quebec’s figures are the range in a school service centre’s 2025-26 job posting, not a grid. England’s figures are the minimum and maximum of the main and upper pay ranges for classroom teachers from 1 September 2026. Canadian dollar conversions use the Bank of Canada’s 2025 annual averages: 1.3978 Canadian dollars per US dollar and 1.8420 per pound sterling (Bank of Canada 2026).

Incomes. Income thresholds and the median tax filer are Statistics Canada’s figures for Ontario tax filers in 2023, using total income, the latest year published. Family medians are Ontario medians of total income before tax for 2024 from the Canadian Income Survey. Total income includes earnings, investment income and government transfers, so it is close to, but not the same as, a gross salary. The teacher figures are from the 2025-26 grid, one to three years newer than the income figures, and incomes have risen since.

Union officers on payrolls. Counts are entries in the 2024 and 2025 public sector salary disclosures, school boards sector, whose job title names a union post. Most boards do not name the post, so the counts are minimums. The disclosure shows what the board paid, not what the union reimbursed. Reimbursement terms are from the three agreements cited; other boards’ terms differ. The amounts per officer are the difference between an officer’s salary at the top of the grid and the rate the union repays: the part of the officer’s salary that the board, rather than the union, pays. They are not all extra spending by the board: at Thames Valley the repayment, with benefits, is close to what a replacement teacher costs, so the board’s total spending there is about the same as if the officer were teaching.

Other payments. The Public Accounts also list payments from the Ministry of the Attorney General to ETFO of $735,751 in 2022-23, and to OSSTF ($194,091), ETFO ($194,582) and OECTA ($191,876) in 2025-26, under the Crown Liability and Proceedings Act, 2019. The accounts do not say what these payments were for, so they are not counted in this article (Ontario n.d.). The $3.45 million in Bill 124 legal costs is as The Canadian Press reported it; School Board Research did not find it as payments to the unions in the Public Accounts.

Results. EQAO figures are for English-language schools. EQAO reports the per cent of students who wrote each test; students who were absent, exempted or had no result are not counted, so the share of all students meeting the standard is lower (for Grade 6 mathematics in 2025-26, 66,055 of 134,063 students, or 49 per cent). EQAO cautions that results before 2021-22 are not directly comparable because of the move to online testing and the new mathematics curriculum. For PISA, the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada notes that results for Canada and most provinces in 2022 and 2025 “should be treated with caution because one or more PISA technical standards were not met” (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada 2026, 100 to 101). The OECD average covers different countries in different years. England’s scores for 2006 to 2012 are from its PISA 2012 national report, on the same PISA scale; England is not shown before 2006 because “in 2003 the UK did not meet the data requirements and therefore the OECD does not make comparisons before 2006” (Wheater and others 2014, 19). The England report advises that results “should be interpreted cautiously, particularly when considering trends in performance over time and when making international comparisons” (Department for Education 2026a, 8). Page numbers for PISA are the printed page numbers of each report. American and Canadian spending figures use different definitions and are not compared directly. The Mississippi results are observational; they show what followed the reforms, not that the reforms caused the change.

Violent incidents. Ministry counts are for incidents in the categories listed in Policy/Program Memorandum 120, as reported by boards; they were obtained by Global News through freedom of information requests and are the latest available year. Union survey figures are self-reported by members and use a broader idea of violence. The code of conduct and bullying results are from School Board Research’s 2026 reviews of what boards publish on their websites, read against a written method.

Election spending. Figures are the final third-party advertiser returns filed with Elections Ontario, read on 1 November 2026. AEFO’s final return for 2025 was not located.

Shareable Images

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Union dues come off every Ontario teacher's pay. By law, every teacher belongs to the Ontario Teachers' Federation. OSSTF dues at the top of the Toronto secondary grid are $1,921 a year: 1.6 per cent of gross earnings, plus a local levy.
In 2025, school boards had at least 55 union officers on their payrolls, paid $7.6 million before any repayment by the unions. Boards do not publish the totals repaid.
Ontario's international test scores have fallen: down 39 points in reading since 2000 and 46 points in mathematics since 2003 on PISA, the international test taken by 15-year-olds.

Background photos: Irwan Rosyadi, Allen Y and Chris Liverani on Unsplash.

References

Legal disclaimer. School Board Research is not a law firm, its researchers are not lawyers, and nothing in this article is legal advice. A reader who needs advice about their own situation should consult a lawyer.

School Board Research publishes independent analysis of Ontario school board data and policy. We are not lawyers, and nothing in this publication is legal advice. If you identify an error, please write to info@schoolboardresearch.ca. Corrections are noted on the page where they are made.

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