The new $50 million education fund announced by the province is just the tip of the iceberg.
“We anticipate we will probably get approximately $450,000, give or take a few thousand,” said superintendent Wendy Hyer. “That will allow us to hire some teachers to provide some support and services to kids and schools and that’s just until the end of the year.”
Last week, Education Minister Mike Bernier announced the province and B.C. Teachers Federation negotiated an interim settlement to their long-running dispute over staffing levels, a $50 million fund to hire up to 1,100 teachers for the current school year.
Read more: 1,100 teachers to be hired in interim staffing deal
The fund represents an interim agreement in a 15-year battle between the province and the federation, which began when then-education minister Christy Clark removed class size and special needs support staffing ratios from the contract. Years of court action came to an end with a Supreme Court of Canada decision in the teachers’ favour last November.
Read more: B.C. teachers celebrate top court ruling on class size
The fund is an interim measure for this school year, said Hyer, and stakeholders — the provincial government, the BCTF and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association — are still negotiating how to implement the court decision.
“They’re at the table now talking about what the language will look like,” said Hyer, noting that though they court ruling said put the language back in, conditions in the education system have changed since the original suit was filed in 2002.
That’s not just societal changes like the increasing use of technology, but also factors like integrating kids with special needs into the public school system, rather than running programs for them in segregated buildings. Now, she said, they are talking about inclusion in everyday classrooms.
“There has been some change in practice and change in things and I think quite often for the better,” said Hyer, who added it’s hard to say what the final outcomes of changes wrought by the court decision will look like.
“What we know about how kids learn has changed. They’re looking at all that now and hopefully they’ll come up with some language that really helps use the resources in the most effective way to support kids,” said Hyer.
There are a number of ways that could shape up: reducing class size; more counselling time or more Learning Assistant Teachers according to Hyer. Right now, she continued, part of the process is collecting information about current processes, what’s working and not working.
“I think it’s probably a bit too soon to tell. It will look different you know in every district depending on what their context is,” said Hyer, adding that overall, she sees it as a positive.
“Anytime you see a few more dollars flowing into the districts and it’s directed to support for students I think that’s great,” she said.
Bernier said there will be additional ongoing funding in the Liberal’s February budget to finance a full agreement.
