All ACT public schools and preschools will be shut for two hours on Thursday morning next week as teachers take more industrial action over long-running enterprise agreement talks.
The schools will be shut from 8.30am to 10.30am on Thursday, September 24, the government said.
Education Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the latest pay and conditions offer was a genuine attempt to reach a fair and balanced agreement.
"I know this will be disruptive for families, children and young people across our schools, but I also know this is not a decision our teachers made lightly," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the Australian Education Union had indicated it considered the government's latest offer to be a positive step forward but that its members wanted more to address workload and classroom pressures.
"Teaching conditions are the learning conditions for our students, and I thank all the teachers who have reached out to me since I started in this role to share their experiences," she said on Thursday evening.
"Our government will continue to negotiate in good faith with the union and teachers, because I know we share a commitment to reaching an outcome as soon as possible that delivers for students, public school teachers and staff."
Education Directorate director-general Jo Wood wrote to parents and carers on Thursday to inform them the directorate had decided to shut schools in the interest of student and staff safety during the industrial action.
The directorate could not confidently plan for the safe and appropriate supervision of students with a large proportion of staff able to take part in the industrial action, she said.
"I acknowledge that school closures have significant impacts on families and these decisions are not taken lightly. We are letting families know about this change as early as possible to help with forward planning. The safety and wellbeing of our students and staff remains our highest priority," Ms Wood wrote.
The Australian Education Union's ACT branch council met on Friday, September 11 and unanimously rejected the government's updated pay and conditions offer.
Angela Burroughs, the branch president, on Monday said everyone wanted the talks resolved and the new offer had "some hints at some positive developments" but she did not think Ms Stephen-Smith was aware of how dire it was in some of the ACT's schools.
"The lead negotiator has changed and someone who has teaching experience is now the lead negotiator. I'd have to say it has contributed to a real acceleration of progress in the last couple of months," Ms Burroughs told ABC radio.
The union has foreshadowed another full-day strike if a new pay and conditions deal cannot be struck, but Ms Burroughs said that was a last resort.
"There is a schedule of rolling stop work action that will escalate over time, so it would be late in term 4 before we got to, and hopefully we won't need to do this, take a full day strike," she said.
"The reason for that is we do believe that we can get there if we take the members very specific concerns to the bargaining table and see if we can get those resolved before we have to instigate such action."
Teachers called a full-day strike for the first time in 15 years earlier this year, forcing the ACT's public schools to close for a day in June.
