The executive of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association and it’s unit presidents have voted in favour of an agreement with the province.

Now it’s up to the membership to ratify the four year contact.

Rene Jansen in de Wal is the president of OECTA and says it was a time consuming process to get a deal done.

“Each of the board’s have particularities,” Jansen in de Wal said during OECTA’s annual general meeting on Monday.

“We had a few issues that our members told us were really important around the classroom.  They were a little more complicated, but the government didn’t seem prepared to want to address those and our members were clear that they needed those things to help their students.  We weren’t about to quit on those.”

Jansen in de Wal blames the provincial government for dragging it’s feet for a year and a half before a deal could be agreed to.

“Just a shame that the minister created a situation where he delayed and hung this over the heads of people creating unnecessary worry when this could have been resolved by him sending negotiators to the bargaining table for multiple dates and long days two years ago.”

OECTA members will vote on the contact on March 26th and 27th.