It’s highly unlikely the doors of public schools will be flung open on Sept. 2 to welcome students eager to continue their education.
With the scheduled return to school less than a week away and the teachers and government miles apart in terms of offers to end the current strike/lockout, it’s more likely school doors will remain locked.
It looked a little more promising early this month when longtime mediator Vince Ready, who has brokered a lot of deals over the years, entered the fray.
Ready said he would monitor the situation and would mediate if the two sides could get their offers closer together so mediation could be productive. The teachers and government are hundreds of millions of dollars apart on the issues of class size and composition.
He even got the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), the BC Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA), which is negotiating on behalf of the provincial government, and the B.C. Liberals to agree to a media blackout, so both sides could quit battling in the media, and turn their full attention to hammering out a teachers’ contract.
It was quiet on the negotiations front about week, but then Education Minister Peter Fassbender told a television audience that the government would like to see the school year start on Sept. 2.
BCTF president Jim Iker immediately jumped on Fassbender’s media tour as a contravention of the media blackout.
Then Iker went on to break the blackout by saying Fassbender was playing politics instead of allowing to resume behind closed doors.
Iker then called on Fassbender to honour the blackout and instruct BCPSEA to begin mediation with Ready’s assistance.
Now, the teachers have returned to the picket lines in the hope it will add pressure to kick-start the mediation.
Some political pundits are indicating the B.C. Liberal government is intent in bankrupting the provincial teachers’ union, which appears to have very little left in the war chest, and forcing the BCTF back into the courts to drain whatever funds it has left.
Parents and students – who are going to suffer if a contract isn’t negotiated and the schools remain closed – have no say in the matter.
Students are unsure if they’re going back to school and working parents are frantically searching for alternative child care.
If schools remain closed after Sept. 2, the province has promised to provide $40 per day to help pay for day care for eligible students 13 years and under – on a refund basis.
The bickering has to stop and meaningful mediation has to begin.
