Ontario says it will begin broad public consultations in September on a series of education issues, including the province's sex-education curriculum.
The Progressive Conservatives say the consultations will include an online survey, telephone townhalls across the province and a submission platform where the government will accept detailed proposals.
The government had initially promised to give the public a chance to weigh in on a new sex-ed curriculum after announcing plans to scrap a modernized version of the document.
It now says the consultations will also seek parental feedback on number of issues, including math scores, cell phone use, financial literacy and how best to prepare students with needed job skills.
For now, there will be no change to what high school students are taught in healtth and sex education classes after Labour Day. But children in grades one through eight will be taught an older version introduced in 2010.
Neither the Premier nor the Education Minister were available to answer questions about the consultations or curriculum Wednesday. But in a news release Doug Ford warned that teachers who use the now-repealed modernized sex-ed curriculum will face consequences.
"Make no mistake, if we somebody failing to do their job, we will act," Ford said. "We will not tolerate anybody using our children as pawns for grandstanding and political games."
The province's largest teachers' unions have promised to defend any educator who continues to use the version of the curriculum last updated in 2015.
On Wednesday the government said parents who believe their child's education is being "jeopardized" by a teacher using and older curriculum can get in touch with the Ontario College of Teachers. The government has also set up a website where parents can share complaints and concerns.
Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) calls the move "unprecedented, outrageous, and shameful".
"This is a blatant attack on the professionalism, the profession judgement, of teachers," Hammond wrote in a tweet.
Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) tells NEWSTALK 1010 he has never seen a curriculum document with an implicit threat of discipline for not following it.
"The province should be concerned with making careful, deliberate, well-thought-out policy decisions around curriculum...not begin to apparently turn education into an ideological battleground," Bischof said.
But Bischof doesn't plan to change his advice to members to use their professional judgement in the best interest of their students.
with files from the Canadian Press and Siobhan Morris