The Ontario government says it will walk back plans to increase high school class sizes in the province.
But Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) District 9 President Erin Roy, calls the announcement misleading.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce spoke on Thursday and said the government will scale the funded average class sizes back to 25 from the 28 it has been proposing for months.
Roy says the students to teacher ratio numbers that are being proposed don't make sense.
"28 to 1 would result in class sizes well over 40, 25 to 1 doesn't do much better," says Roy. "That's the one area I see little compromise on. Our system works at 22 to 1."
The issue was one of several causing tension between the government and the union representing high school teachers that's currently trying to ink a new labour deal.
Roy says class sizes with a 28 to 1 ratio would bring us back to the days of a one-room school house.
"To put it into perspective, during the 90's with the Harris strike, class size averages were at 21 to 1," she says. "So moving to 28 to 1 is something we haven't seen, so just to back off to 25 to 1 is still too high."
Education Minister Stephen Lecce says the move is meant to prove the government's commitment to averting strikes and keeping students in class.
However, Roy sees it as cash grab for the government.
"I don't have the numbers on what 25 to 1 would be, but we're at 22 to 1 and moving to 28 to 1, that would be over 100 people locally out of our 800 that would be gone off the top."
The province's contracts with all school workers expired at the end of August, and unions representing both elementary and high school teachers have requested conciliation during the tense contract talks.
Central strike votes are now taking place across the province, with the local OSSTF strike vote taking place on Monday.