Trillium Lakelands District School Board schools are open today, Friday, January 11, after a 4 a.m. ruling that planned teachers strikes are illegal, but buses remain cancelled.
According to the board's site, "All TLDSB schools are open to staff and students. However, buses will not be running to elementary schools due to the short timeline."
The Near North District School board, serving Parry Sound, Almaguin and North Bay, opted to keep all schools closed.
"As a result of the OLRB ruling coming in the middle of the night, it did not give the Board sufficient time to reverse the decision that was made on Wednesday to close schools," said a Near North release issued at 8 a.m. Friday.
"With the uncomfirmed (at that time) OLRB ruling coming at 4 a.m. it did not allow sufficient time to reverse the decision," Near North director Geof Botting added in an email to cottagecountrynow.ca. "This is now compounded by weather. Effectively, , it is a snow day scenario. Sadly, not knowing if staff would be there or no, I made the decision to err on the side of caution and close. We could not have kids coming to potentially unstaffed schools."
Catholic board schools, unaffected by the strike threats, remain open, but buses serving the East Parry Sound (Almaguin), Nipissing and North Bay areas were cancelled due to freezing rain early Friday.
The decision by the Ontario Labour Relations Board came after a hearing that lasted almost 13 hours.