Public school employers filed an application to the Labour Relations Board (LRB) asking for teachers to return to activities outside of instructional hours on May 11.
Due to teacher withdrawal from after-school activities, the annual district elementary school track meet is cancelled and many field trips are not taking place, if the trip is longer than the instructional school day, and in some cases if it is over lunch.
The preparation for events like the district track meet is done over a six-week period, and there is no time to plan it even if the LRB rules against the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), Superintendent of Schools Michael Strukoff noted.
“If the LRB is successful with their ruling, I believe this will prevent the BCTF from having an organized effort at stopping teachers from volunteering their time for optional extracurricular activities like coaching,” said Strukoff. “These activities are still optional, so teachers could choose to engage or not. However, the window of opportunity for many of these events has passed so I do not see much pick up this spring.”
There are some extracurricular sports that have been affected, such as soccer at Grand Forks Secondary School (GFSS), though rugby will continue at GFSS, with administrators coaching, but opportunities for games and tournaments are reduced because of job action in other districts.
“We are also facing the situation where we may have extracurriculars happen, either through parent coaching or administrator coaching, but sometimes the competition isn’t there because other districts are cancelling tournaments, or don’t have teams,” Strukoff added.
At the moment, graduation ceremonies are continuing, without teacher participation, but school administrators and parents, with support from SD51, will ensure the events take place.
“I would hope teachers would join the ongoing work for our grad ceremonies. Their participation in this event in our schools would certainly honour our graduating students,” Strukoff said. “A favourable ruling from the LRB would clarify teacher participation in after school activities such as participation in IEP (individual education program) meetings, meetings with parents, district committees, school planning meetings – the day-to-day meetings that are needed for planning and running our schools and district.”
Norm Sabourin, president of the Boundary District Teachers’ Association, pointed out rather than building relationships and morale, the government keeps on attacking the BCTF and teachers.
“Every time they come after us it’s hurting the teachers and it’s not good for the kids,” said Sabourin. “It seems like this application is coming after the BCTF and it’s all about the spin. It makes it sound like the BCTF is directing teachers not to do extracurriculars.”
Sabourin noted that the movement started with classroom teachers.
“It started with secondary coaches who said. ‘We, in all good conscience can’t do extracurriculars anymore,’ and from there it grew,” he said. “A number of local associations voted themselves to stop offering after school activities, so this started from the ground up. From there it went from the locals to the BCTF wanting to add a motion to include extracurriculars to the action plan.”
It was the membership in the province who voted for the action plan, so it wasn’t the BCTF executive who wanted anything, added Sabourin.
At the moment, teachers are being urged not to participate in the a visitation of the middle school in Aldergrove, part of the discussion of a potential middle school in School District 51.
School board trustees will be heading to Aldergrove, B.C. soon to visit its middle school and high school for a better idea of how middle schools operate.
“The reason we have chosen Aldergrove is because middle schools aren’t a new concept in the province,” said Strukoff. “There are middle schools in several districts, while others have switched back to K-7 and Grade 8-12 model.”
Aldergrove was chosen due to its relationship with its middle school and secondary school, where as other districts the middle schools and high schools are separate.
“The advice from BCTF was, and I agree, is that the teachers won’t be attending because it’s against the action plan which includes no extracurricular, no voluntary activities,” said Sabourin.
On April 19, B.C. teachers voted 73 per cent in favour of protest action to take effect immediately, which includes the full withdrawal of extracurricular activities.
Of the BCTF’s 41,000 members, 21,625 were in favour of the vote, while 7,846 were against the plan.
Boundary Central Secondary School will be celebrating their graduation on June 9, while GFSS will be celebrating on June 16.
