The Record: Teachers Make Difficult Decision To Go On Trip With Students

Article By:  Mark Bryson

WATERLOO — With extracurricular activities on hold across Ontario, two local teachers have received the green light from their union to take their basketball team to a tournament in the United States.

Craig Nickel and Doug Ranton have been cleared to coach the Waterloo Collegiate Institute Vikings senior boys’ basketball team at a tournament in Mesa, Ariz., next week after receiving a change-of-heart approval late Thursday afternoon by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation — one of the teachers’ unions involved in a bitter dispute with the Ontario government. 

“We did meet today and there was new information that was not communicated before, so the trip will be allowed to run,” said Rob Gascho, president of District 24 of the teachers’ federation.

“It was just a miscommunication. . . . We just didn’t have all the information about the nature of the trip and it doesn’t violate the sanctions, so we’re OK with it.”

The District 24 rules committee, which includes Gascho, initially turned down the exemption request and notified Nickel and Ranton on Monday of this week. He declined comment when asked about that decision by The Record on Thursday morning, but after a meeting with Nickel and Ranton, the trip was approved and Gascho was talking.

The union announced on Dec 3. that its members wouldn’t participate in extracurricular activities effective Dec. 10 as part of their job action against the provincial government. Nickel and Ranton said they applied to their local union’s rules committee on Dec. 7 for the exemption based on what both teachers labelled “practical reasons.” 

“We feel relieved that both parties that are important to us, our union and our employer (Waterloo Region District School Board), are in agreement about this,” Ranton said on Thursday night.

“That’s the biggest thing, the relief of having permission from both sides.”

Prior to Thursday’s welcome news, the veteran teachers had made a gut-wrenching decision to temporarily break ranks with their union and attend the tournament.

The teachers have followed the union’s directive to not participate in extracurricular activities, but they believed they had to go to the tournament to honour their commitment to the students and tournament organizers.

“It’s been a really difficult decision because up till now we’ve felt that we could support all of the job actions which OSSTF was asking us to do — the one-day withdrawal of extracurriculars, not practising, no supervisions, all those different things that they’ve asked us to do,” said Nickel on Wednesday.

“Doug and I have respectfully complied with them. But on this one, for practical reasons, we just felt we couldn’t abide by that decision. There is no political agenda here at all; these are purely practical reasons that we feel we have to go forward with the trip.”

The Waterloo Region District School Board, despite cancelling all extracurricular activities from Dec. 10 to 31, has no problem with the WCI trip. The board approved the trip earlier this year and reaffirmed that decision last week, said spokesperson Abigail Dancey.

Teachers are protesting Bill 115, which allows the province to impose a contract on them. It also prohibits job action and strikes. The legislation sets Dec. 31 as a deadline for unions to negotiate deals with school boards similar to the contracts reached with Ontario Catholic school teachers. Their contracts include wage freezes and cuts to provisions that allow teachers to bank sick days that can be cashed out at retirement.

Nickel and Ranton are popular figures at WCI, having coached boys and girls basketball together for a number of years. Ranton is in his 15th year at WCI after eight years in Bramalea, while Nickel is in his 13th year after spending 10 years at Grand River in Kitchener.

Ranton is a physical education teacher and guidance counsellor, while Nickel is a guidance counsellor and leadership teacher. The two met when they were both Grade 9 students at Bluevale in Waterloo and have been best friends ever since. 

Nickel and Ranton noted that the trip has been in the works for two years and included a significant amount of planning and fundraising. In March of this year, they added, WCI signed a contract that committed the team to participate in the VisitMesa.com Basketball Challenge. 

Thirty-one people will be making the trip — two coaches, 12 players and 17 family members — and they have paid a travel agency more than $22,000 for non-refundable tickets to and from Phoenix. That money was paid in full prior to the Dec. 10 withdrawal of extracurricular activities. Ranton paid for four tickets personally for his family, while Nickel had paid for two. 

Some in the travel party had committed to using personal vacation time for the trip.

Teachers who don’t comply with the union’s ban on extracurricular activities can be fined up to $500 a day, have their name published in a union publication or have federation services or their right to hold office suspended.

WCI players have been working out at RIM Park in recent weeks with no coaches present. Nickel and Ranton were aware the players were doing so. They said the gym had been rented by parents.

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