Designated Occasional Teacher (DOT) is designated to a specific school location for daily occasional teacher work and paid the same rate of $289.52/day ($278.38 + 4% vacation pay). Full time positions, 5 Days Per Week, no paid sick days, and no benefits which are considered Daily OTs under the OCEOTA Collective Agreement.
DOT JOB SPECIFICS
General
- DOTs are Daily OTs and follow the OCEOTA Collective Agreement
- Your DOT assignments are prioritized as: replace an absence that wasn’t filled by ATE, replacing a series of teachers to repay their missed prep, support students/small groups of a class.
- You’re not an ECE, EA, lunchtime monitor, or Custodian.
- You’ve no sick days but have the same work hours each day.
Duty
- You always get one uninterrupted lunch period of 40 mins during a regular lunch period, no matter your schedule.
- During a day without a teacher absence that you are repaying lost prep, supporting teachers, or No-Teacher-Absent your default schedule is no prep + no duty.
- If in for one teacher who is away; follow their scheduled duty and preps.
- Your only duty/prep is within the absent teacher’s schedule while you are covering for them. You are not on the Duty Schedule.
- In for multiple teachers who are away; you cover the duty within their part of your schedule, notwithstanding a 40 min lunch.
Practical Guidelines for DOTs (pdf download)
You are to be treated as a Daily OT, with just a few exceptions. The following will provide you with guidelines from the perspective of the Union.
If an Administrator’s direction contradicts these guidelines: you should, in a respectful, professional manner, attempt to discuss them with your Admin. After clarification and an explanatory approach has left the concern unresolved, please follow your Administrator’s direction and seek clarification from the OCEOTA Union office afterwards. We are your advocates.
Practical application of the DOT position
- DOTs report to the same school (i.e., their “home school”) each day and will be used to fill same day absences/unfilled assignments at the school or be redeployed to fill a absence/unfilled assignments
- If not required to fill same day absences you may be assigned to pay back prep time or lost teaching support time to teachers at the school.
- A DOT isn’t prearranged in advance to cover an absence. Only after a job is unfilled through EasyConnect is a DOT assigned each day.
- If the teacher the DOT is replacing indicates they will be absent the following day, the assignment is still entered in EasyConnect for filling rather than allowing the DOT to continue in the assignment. Same for multi-day absences.
Working conditions
- A DOT shall always receive a forty (40) minute uninterrupted lunch during a regular lunch period.
- Wherever possible, DOTs should be placed behind a single teacher absence and follow the absent teacher’s schedule (including the absent teacher’s duty and prep).
- DOTs are never EAs, ECEs, Office staff nor Custodians and should only ever be assigned teacher responsibilities and duties.
- Duty and prep are attached to the schedule of the teacher absent; a DOT is not on the duty schedule. If no teacher is absent, no duty needs coverage.
- A DOT shouldn’t just be given a duty (unless a clear emergency), or be added as extra help, or cover a duty as an additional responsibility outside of their absent teacher’s timetable.
- If there are no day plans for the DOT covering a class the expectation is the DOT use their professional judgement to teach appropriate grade level curriculum.
- An LTO is ten (10) consecutive days as a replacement for one teacher. This qualifies for retroactive LTO grid pay (Get your QECO + Experience Credit submitted ahead of time!).
In for a ‘Series of Teachers’
- DOTs may be employed to replace a ‘series of teachers’ (more than 2). In such circumstances, the Occasional Teacher will be informed in advance of the nature of the assignment and grade levels.
- The ‘series of teachers’ timetable for a DOT still follows the timetables of the absent teachers being replaced. You should double-check the posted duty schedule to cover the duty included within, or adjacent to, the schedule of the absent teacher while you are in for them. This would be the rare time when two duties could happen during your day.
- Similarly, a ‘series of teachers’ day could be prep payback for multiple teachers who are not absent. A DOT is provided a schedule to follow when replacing multiple teacher absences. As there are no teachers absent there should be no duties and no preparation time assigned. However, if there is a duty, there should be a prep period within the schedule.
- During ‘Series of Teachers’ timetables, you still need the 40 min. uninterrupted lunch during a lunch period.
