Principals of secondary schools will be allowed to pass teachers' pickets during the national strike on November 14th so that they can ensure the safety of pupils who turn up.
The Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI), which is taking the action, will allow members who are principals to pass the pickets to carry out certain tasks in the morning.
The principals will be allowed to ensure that pupils who turn up for classes are safely returned to their homes, and to supervise the pupils until they leave.
The ASTI describes the concession as a limited "derogation", and principals are not expected to do any tasks normally undertaken by the teaching staff.
The industrial action involving more than 16,000 second-level teachers now looks certain, although the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, is meeting the ASTI in Dublin tomorrow. This meeting is described by sources as a "listening exercise".
All ASTI members other than principals will be withdrawing from work on November 14th. Some members of the Teachers' Union of Ireland may not pass the pickets in schools where TUI and ASTI members are working together.
According to guidelines to be issued to secondary school managers this week by their representative organisation, the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), the principals will work only for "a limited period". Some principals are not members of the ASTI, but most are expected to observe a similar agreement.
The guidelines are designed to help school managers deal with the strike and the six subsequent days when classes will be cancelled because teachers are withdrawing from schoolyard super vision.
Managers say they cannot let classes take place during those six days because health and safety legislation requires a minimum level of supervision at lunchtime. Boards of management will be writing to parents to tell them not to send their children to school on these days (November 16th, 22nd, 23rd, 28th, 29th and 30th).
The JMB says it expects non-teaching staff such as secretaries and caretakers to report for work as normal and pass the pickets. Many of them are members of IMPACT. They will not be expected to perform tasks "that would normally be carried out by ASTI members".
The JMB is advising its members that schools should remain operational during the industrial action. "The board of management should not create a lock-out situation," it says in its guidelines.
"Other staff members and teachers who are not members of the ASTI will have to be accommodated in their right to report for work. Arrangements will have to be made for the unlocking of and the locking up of the school," said the general secretary of the JMB, Mr George O'Callaghan.
The JMB has supplied boards of management with the text of a letter it suggests should be sent to parents promptly.
The letter states: "The board of management regrets that this course of action is necessary. The board of management has no wish to interrupt the education of students in this school. However, in the circumstances we must ask you to keep your son/daughter at home on those days of industrial action and strikes."