A proposal from the Department of Education that parents be paid by schools for supervising pupils on Thursday would only inflame the current industrial relations climate, school managers said yesterday.
The three school management bodies - the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) and the Association of Community and Comprehensive Schools (ACCS) - said the suggestion from the Department was "very unhelpful" and would "sour staff management relationships in schools".
Despite being urged by the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, to consider making private arrangements for supervision on Thursday and five subsequent days, few schools are expected to take this step.
Most are worried there would be a poor relationship with teachers in their school after the ASTI action ends. "As a solution to the supervision problem it is fraught with difficulties, not least the lateness of the proposal and the lack of skill and training of parents in this area," the groups said.
Mr Sean McCann, general secretary of the ACCS, said the managers sought £6 million in funding for school supervision earlier this year but their proposals were not acted upon. "We think supervision should be taken care of but not in the pressured atmosphere of an industrial relations dispute," he said.
Mr George O'Callaghan, the JMB general secretary, said supervision needed trained people, not parents brought in from the "side of the road, as it were".
"There is a lot more to supervision than just making sure pupils are safe in the school yard; we get teachers to do it because they have the training to do it." He said most schools would regard bringing in parents as a form of strike-breaking. "I do not remember members of the public coming in to drive trains when the recent dispute on the railways was taking place."
Mr O'Callaghan said his group was not aware of any schools taking up the Department's suggestion, although he emphasised they had the power to decide their own approach. He said all types of schools would be affected by today's actions where the majority of the teachers were members of the ASTI.
Supervision is a voluntary service by teachers in community/ comprehensive and voluntary secondary schools, although the position is less clear in vocational schools.
Mr Michael Moriarty, general secretary of the IVEA, said the Government and the ASTI were engaging in "megaphone diplomacy" and the dispute would end only when this stopped.