President

Michael (Mike) Foulds, President

Michael (Mike) Foulds is the 81st President of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation (OTF). Mike also previously served as OTF’s 73rd President.

Mike graduated from Laurentian University with a bachelor’s degree in history and ethics in 1998. He has taught with the Bluewater District School Board as a secondary teacher since 2001. He teaches in some of the same schools that he attended as a student. Mike coaches high school athletics and community-based teams. In 2015, he received the prestigious Loran Teachers Building Leaders Award from the Loran Scholars Foundation. He feels his greatest accomplishment, though, is his family of three children, whom he raises with his wife Erin in the scenic city of Owen Sound.

Since his first term as OTF President in 2016 the Ontario Education system has seen profound threats that jeopardize the ability of the professionals who work in the system to serve the public. Despite increasing demands on the system, the funding for the system is at the lowest level of per pupil funding in a decade. The incidences of violence faced by education professionals is at a crisis state in our schools. At the same time, the Ministry of Education is modifying curriculum and policies with little to no meaningful consultation with stakeholders and with insufficient time and resources to effectively implement the modifications. As Mike enters his second term as OTF President, he hopes to raise public awareness of the issues impacting the system and jeopardizing the world class education system we had prior to 2018.

Mike firmly believes that OTF has an important role to play in our education system, by providing a unified voice for teachers, by providing high quality professional learning opportunities for them, and by safeguarding the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP).