Kyle Berard, president of the Windsor and Essex County Secondary School Athletic Association, or WECSSA, said teachers can return to coaching now that the province has imposed a contract.

The Liberal government used legislation Jan. 3 to force contracts on public elementary and secondary school teachers.

Education Minister Laurel Broten announced the government would repeal that legislation once the two-year contracts are in place.

Public high school teachers have withdrawn their participation in extra-curricular activities, including coaching sports teams, since Dec. 10.

Berard said that coaches can return, but admits that not all may do so.

"We've gone from, 'thou shalt not [coach],' to individual choice for coaches," he said. "Because federations are no longer in a legal strike position, they cannot withdraw those. They cannot mandate their members withdraw those services. So, we revert back to a voluntary basis.

"What exactly that's going to look like, we'll know probably mid-week, we'll have a really good idea about how the schedules are going to work out."

Unions and school boards consider coaching voluntary.

Jeff Brosseau, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation for District 9, said he doesn’t think anything will change now that contracts have been imposed.

“Our instructions before the holiday break was that should the minister impose a contract, we do not want the members to resume anything that they had stopped,” Brosseau said.

The imposed contracts will expire in August 2014.