They’re starting to get impatient.
Education advocates applauding the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on class size and composition want to see it implemented as soon as possible.
“It’s been more than a month since teachers won our huge victory at the Supreme Court of Canada and it’s clear that British Columbians want the government to take action quickly to restore our working and learning conditions,” BC Teachers’ Federation president Glen Hansman said in a press release.
He said British Columbians are eager to see a quick resolution according to recently released poll that showed nearly 80 per cent of responders strongly agree “the BC government should restore class size limits, specialist teachers, and support for children with special needs.”
“The poll shows British Columbians agree with teachers that this process should not be long or drawn out, and that they care about restoring supports to students as soon as possible,” said Hansman.
“With a $2.24 billion surplus, we know the government has plenty of funding to get the job done for this school year and on an ongoing basis. The public agrees that government needs to make the necessary investments as soon as January.”
Superintendent Jeff Jones previously told the Star that parents and teachers will have to wait until provincial negotiations are complete before anything changes in SD8.
“My hope is that the BCTF and the province will work together for the benefit of our students. Pending further communication from the provincial level there will be no action taken locally.”
And since nobody knows how long those negotiations will take, things will remain status quo for the foreseeable future.
The case has been ongoing since 2002, when BC Premier Gordon Campbell stripped the teacher’sunion of bargaining rights with Bill 22, which is called the Education Improvement Act.
“Our teachers are extremely pleased,” Kootenay Lake Teachers’ Federation co-president Paul Boscariol said following the announcement of the ruling.
“It’s going to make a big difference for teaching loads, and it will make a big impact providing support for students with special needs as well as other support staff such as teacher-librarians.”
Boscariol shares Hansman’s impatience.
Boscariol said “a generation of students have lost out on services. Things that students had access to prior to that.”
He blames the government for “chronically underfunding education” and said it’s time for them “to right the wrongs. If they had left things as they were, we wouldn’t be facing these issues.”
And the whole court process has taken money that could’ve been invested in students and poured it into court proceedings instead, according to Boscariol.
“How many millions of dollars did the Ministry of Education and the government spend on this process?
“All because they thought these things were costing them too much money.”
