Glen Hodgson calls today a "historic event" as hundreds of teachers and support staff from the local school boards united in downtown North Bay.
"We are all going to stand together in this province," said Hodgson, the OSSTF District 4 teachers and occasional teachers president.
"It is a strong show of force, this is a strong show of unity and it clearly shows this government has tried to lie about dissension between unions or between members and their leadership but that is not happening."
The crowd was huge, as the rally caused two blocks of downtown to be blocked off to vehicle traffic as supporters of all ages carried signs on the downtown streets.
Rob Hammond, ETFO teachers president, says the solidarity is fantastic.
"The last time I was involved in something like this was in 1997, they called it an illegal strike, it was not," recalled Hammond.
"So this is the first time in 23 years that we have all of our teacher affiliates together, unified and standing up for public education.
"I would like the government to please invest in public education, provide funding for students especially in special education, stop the violence in the classroom, keep our class sizes manageable for us, in other words, leave the class sizes the way they are."
Rick Belisle is the OECTA secondary unit president. He fears that the province wants to make education a two-tier system.
"The biggest fear is education is an equalizer," said Belisle, whose union has been bargaining with the province earlier this week.
"So once you have a private system, it is only affordable for the rich so that is not the Ontario that I want, I want an equal playing field for everyone. If you make it a two-tier system of any sort, the rich are going to pay for smaller class sizes to have that, and that will have an effect beyond our generation."
Vic Fedeli, Nipissing MPP, responded to the province-wide rally through a statement.
He says the province's focus is to keep kids in the classroom.
"Priority number one is getting a deal done, and that’s what we want to do," said Fedeli.
"We listened to parents and students and we have been reasonable and made significant moves at the table."
Fedeli noted the province has made concessions including reducing proposed secondary class size from 28 to 25, reduced proposed mandatory online learning credits from four to two, and committed to mandating the existing Full Day Kindergarten model.
"We have demonstrated our reasonableness through the agreements we reached with CUPE and EWAO," continued Fedeli.
"We are going to continue to negotiate in good faith with teacher union leaders so that we can see an end to the disruption and keep our kids in class."