Local negotiations between the public high school teachers' union and the board are "back to square one."
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is threatening to stop some administrative duties next week if a deal isn't reached.
Trustee Tom Kilpatrick says he's disappointed job action is coming this early.
"We thought we were getting closer to an agreement on a number of issues and that didn't seem to happen," Kilpatrick says. "They of a sudden decided there was more issues than they started with."
The OSSTF reached an agreement with the province last month. Local talks only started recently.
"We're not asking for any concessions to the local agreement. In fact we've offered the OSSTF the status quo to the previous collective agreement with no changes at all," he says.
But the OSSTF says they won't accept the status quo. President of District 9 Jeff Brosseau thinks there's a lack of "meaningful progress" at the table.
“Our members have been without an agreement for more than a year. There are significant issues that we have been unable to address in the last few rounds of bargaining," Brosseau says.
The union also says local agreements should mirror the central agreement reached in August with the government.
If job action takes place next week, public school board officials don't anticipate parents or students will notice a change.
