TORONTO -- Elementary teachers are targeting boards in eastern and northern Ontario today in a series of rotating, one-day strikes.

This is the second week of such strikes by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario amid stalled contract talks.

Today's strikes affect the Kawartha Pine Ridge, Hastings-Prince Edward and Upper Grand school boards as well as the Moosonee and Moose Factory Island school authorities.

Elementary teachers will ramp up their strikes next week, if no deal is reached by Friday, with schools closed twice a week.

ETFO says they will stage a provincewide strike once a week - with the first one set for Feb. 6 - and each board where they have members will be hit on another day by a rotating strike as well.

The union has said that class sizes, resources for students with special needs and protection of full-day kindergarten are the major issues, while Education Minister Stephen Lecce has framed the key issue for all teachers' unions as compensation.

Elementary teachers, along with teachers in other unions, are asking for wage increases around two per cent to keep up with inflation, but the government passed legislation last year capping wage increases for all public sector workers to one per cent for three years. The teachers' unions and several other unions are fighting it in court, arguing it infringes on collective bargaining rights.

All four major teachers' unions are engaged in some form of job action, from work-to-rule campaigns to rotating strikes. They have been without contracts since Aug. 31, and no talks are scheduled with the elementary, secondary or Catholic teachers' unions. The union representing French teachers has two days of bargaining scheduled this week.

Teachers were angered when the Tories announced last March that average secondary school class sizes would jump from 22 to 28 and four e-learning courses would be mandatory for graduation.

The province has since scaled back those increases, to an average class size of 25 and two e-learning courses, but the unions say that's not good enough.