Four new teachers have recently been hired in school district 10 thanks to the priority measures funding from the government of British Columbia.
The funding is a result of the Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) decision in the case of the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) versus the government of British Columbia.
In 2002, Christy Clark, then minister of education,stripped the right to collective bargaining from BCTF contracts. Collective bargaining is the right to bargain a collective agreement when negotiating a contract. Anything from benefits, working conditions, and more can be bargained.
The BCTF had been battling the government to regain this right when in November 2016 the SCC determined the BCTF should have this right reinstated.
Currently the BCTF, the provincial government, and the BC Public Schools Employers Association are at the provincial table, bargaining, and have been doing so since shortly after the decision was announced.
“The process right now is the BCTF, the government, and the BC Public Schools Employers Association are working to negotiate how it is that class size and composition language from 2002, which is when the legislation removed the language from collective agreements,” said Terry Taylor, superintendent of School District 10. “While the Supreme Court matter has been going on all these years, things have changed significantly in the province.
While negotiations are underway, $50 million of priority measures funding has been distributed among school districts across the province. SD 10 has received $72,000 of that funding.
This has allowed the district to hire four teachers to work in the district until June.
Three of the four are working side by side with classroom teachers. Most teachers have started either last week or the week before.
“There’s a primary classroom support teacher at Nakusp Elementary, so that teacher has some additional time to support primary classrooms at the elementary school where there is some complexity in the composition of the class,” said Taylor. “It’s additional support for the teacher, and additional support for the students.”
In total, two of the teachers are at Nakusp Elementary School, one is at Nakusp Secondary School, and the fourth is at Lucerne Elementary Secondary School in New Denver.
The funding received is not meant to be a permanent solution, but instead is seen as a way of getting some additional support to schools as soon as possible.
Once a decision is made, school districts will be contacted to let them know how things will look faculty-wise in the 2017/2018 school year.
