The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has published its return to school guidelines for the fall and secondary teachers are not happy.
Elementary students have the option to either attend class or learn through a virtual school, but secondary students will have to view live classes remotely if they stay home via a hybrid model.
Joe Brannagan is the secondary school president of the local Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association.
He says an in-class teaching approach doesn't translate to online learning.
"We don't think that it's the best way to learn or the best way to teach and student achievement isn't where it should be," he added.
Brannagan says his membership isn't happy with the decision.
"Especially when the coterminous public board is running a virtual school, it's hard on our teachers to see that one board would do that and then ours wouldn't," says Brannagan.
He says hybrid learning is setting students up for failure when they hit post secondary education.
"To put students into a situation where they're learning online while everybody else is learning face-to-face in the same model as the face-to-face students, it can't be very effective and it's not," he says.
Brannagan says the plan also lacks clarity on vaccination practices moving forward, but he expects that to be an evolving issue.
The majority of the return to school policy is on par with last year's practices to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to Brannagan.
The return to school plan will be discussed at the board's upcoming meeting on Tuesday night at 6 p.m.
- with files from AM800's Rob Hindi