The union representing Ontario's high school teachers will be holding strike votes in the coming weeks.
The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) says it is making the move starting October 22 because of delays and inaction by the province.
Members in the Windsor Essex area will vote Monday, October 28 at a membership meeting.
There are about 1600 OSSTF members in the region, most are teachers but educational support staff, psychologists and several other job categories are also represented.
Union president Harvey Bischoff says after watching what happened with CUPE and avoiding a strike by education workers, he thought things might be different.
"Maybe the government and school board would reconsider their positions and considering that they've been publicly claiming constantly that they want deals quickly, that they would bring us new proposals, but they outright refused to do so," says Bischoff.
All matters are still outstanding according to Bischoff, who says only some housekeeping matters have been dealt with.
"We have students without access to courses they need to graduate, who are in overcrowded classrooms, students who don't have access to the support staff that give them an equitable chance at success and the government has not responded at all on power positions on those matters," he tells AM800 News.
Bischoff says staffing is a major sticking point in discussions because it’s through staff that they're able to provide the proper support.
"While at one table the government responded to pressure, at our table they say that deal has no effect. Even while the Minister of Finance is out publicly proclaiming that we should look to the CUPE deal for guidance on what's achievable in negotiations."
Bischoff says the provincial government delayed the start of bargaining by two months and has thrown procedural roadblocks in the way since.
The union recently took the rare step of releasing all of its bargaining proposals in a bid to have what it calls "transparent'' negotiations with the government.
— With files from AM800's Patty Handysides