A place to share my experiences as a TTOC and Middle School Teacher. Resources, ideas and important issues in education.
But this time it’s different. Through social media, teachers have been able to dispel public apathy. We’ve been able to refute government talking points with a barrage of non-partisan statistics and historic facts, most of which can be pulled directly from the Supreme Court ruling. This time, we’ve finally got a chance to make things better instead of watching them get worse.
And now, the teachers have called a strike vote.
The timing is tough. Teachers are weary by June. We are uncomfortable leaving the students with a bad feeling before summer break, and we’re tired of fighting –of losing pay to strike days, of having 10% cut from our salaries. Many teachers would rather not further anger parents.
On the other hand, a strong ‘yes’ vote will show a cynical government that it can never defeat us. It will show the government that no matter what it does to us, we will stand up in solidarity.
In this last, desperate battle before the judiciary lowers the boom, the government will throw all of its grenades, and things are likely to get ugly. Already rumours abound of a lockout for September, whether we strike or not. They want to punish us.
But for me there is no more fear. I don’t care what the government does to me any more. I have fought too long, and endured too much heartache to give up now. We are so close! If we hold rank we can win. We have the Charter and the Court of Law on our side.
On April 13, 2011 the BC Teachers’ Federation won a major victory in its decade-long court battle to overturn legislation which stripped teachers’ collective agreements of protections for class sizes, as well as guarantees of support for students with special needs. The bills had disastrous consequences for teaching and learning conditions across the province because they enabled government to make severe cuts to the public education budget. Government documents introduced as evidence in court calculated those cuts to be more than $275 million per year in 2001 dollars, an estimated $330 million annually in current dollars.
The Supreme Court gave government one year to deal with the repercussions of its ruling but now—two years later—the BC Liberals have still done nothing to redress the breach. As a result, the BCTF has been compelled to go back to court seeking a fair remedy.
“The Supreme Court affirmed our collective bargaining rights and gave us hope that a decade of struggling to meet our students’ needs might be coming to an end,” said BCTF President Susan Lambert. “Two years later, we are still urging the government to act on this important ruling and restore the services our students need and deserve.”
Then-Education Minister Christy Clark brought in the unconstitutional bills in 2002. During her tenure as premier, the BCTF has repeatedly appealed to her not to make students wait yet another year in underfunded schools and overcrowded classes.
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| Write this on the board so everyone is clear on how it works. |
The only supplies needed are some colored construction paper! This is a great way to gauge student’s progress during independent work. Students use cards to indicate whether they are good to go (green), struggling a bit (yellow) or stuck (red).
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| Student fold a piece of coloured paper on desk like this and put whichever colour on top to indicate i they need help. |
This allows me to intervene early for students on yellow, and reteach on the spot for students on red. Additionally, if I see a whole lot of red cards at the start of the independent practice, then I can reteach to the whole class.This idea reminds me of the 'red cup / green cup' strategy to ask for help that I blogged about last year.
McRae was a teacher at Georges P. Vanier secondary school in Courtenay on Vancouver Island in September 2008 when he wrote the letter, which has since been used as the basis for a YouTube video produced by the B.C. Teachers Federation. In the video, featuring an actor and voiced over by a B.C. drama teacher, the letter writer - McRae - explains to Bond the difficulties of teaching four social studies classes in one semester with 128 students, 18 of whom have learning difficulties that require individualized education plans.Once a concerned teacher facing the same struggles teachers across the province face, he is now in a position to make change and advocate for students with first hand experience of what the learning conditions are.... but... doesn't.
"This is a veteran educator, not somebody new who doesn't know how to manage a classroom. This teacher has so many hair-trigger kids who come into the classroom with needs that are not being met and are expressed through behaviour," said Pearce. "The teachers have done everything they can at the school level to get them addressed and they haven't changed, so that's why we brought it here to the board level."
The BCTF is taking the government to B.C. Supreme Court in September to grieve the government's actions in stripping the teachers 2002 collective agreement of language that protected the ability of teachers to bargain on class size and class composition. Pearce said because the court already ruled in 2011 the government action was unconstitutional, this time the BCTF will be seeking damages.
"We gave up salary to get those clauses into our collective agreement because teachers felt strongly about protecting our learning environment," said Pearce. "If you take those away, and do it illegally without compensation, then the argument becomes, 'what was the loss created by your actions.' That loss could certainly be in the hundreds of millions."
I am encouraging them to think about the whole issue and consider the big picture. I am excited that BCTF and BCPSEA were able to reach a tentative agreement that addressed some of the issues of concern while removing concessions - for now. I have no doubt this one year agreement is just what is needed to get everyone through the summer... maybe even the Fall.
I have no doubt this agreement will be ratified by teachers, in fact, I fear it will be too strongly voted in favour of. While I am glad there has been an agreement, I want the province to know it is a HUGE compromise (on both sides) and in my opinion, a lot of smoke and mirrors to gain allies (from both sides) "Look what we accomplished"
And no doubt, it is a huge accomplishment. It was like a tennis ball bouncing between two brick walls for seceral months so the fact that something, anything, was agreed upon gives me hope.... if even a glimmer, it is more than I have had in months! But is it enough?
Yes, there are no concessions, yes there are some moderate improvements from many members, but there is no reason this ratification vote should be an overwhelming yes. it will pass, but in my dream world it would be a slight yes so we can ratify it for the year, but show we are still not where we want NEED to be!
To consider both sides I have added links to two blog posts which explain why they are voting yes or no..... I think all BCTF members need to consider the big picture before voting.
- Why Im Voting No and her follow up More reasons for a no vote.
I am not saying vote yes or vote no... just consider the whole issue and make a decision.... I am confident this will be ratified, probably easily.... but in a few short months we start again... and while this is indeed a step in the right direction, it is a little step... but we need to start somewhere... I just hope after this we can keep going in the right direction...
The formula for additional compensation basically calculates a "cost per student" by taking the average teacher salary and dividing by thirty. So, if the average teacher salary is $60,000, then the cost per student is $2000. Thus, a teacher who has 32 students enrolled in a class all year full time would be paid an additional $2000 per student, which in this example would be $4000. The formula also only pays nine of the ten months of the school year (so the actual amount paid would be $1800), and does not take into account additional costs such as benefits and overhead costs.
What does this mean?
It means that for any given grade or subject area, it is cheaper for a District to overload classes than to hire additional teachers. If an extra 29 students can be spread around into oversize classes, that will be $2000 less than the salary of an additional teacher. Not until a whole additional class of 30 is reached does it become economically equivalent to hire another teacher. Anything less, and the cheaper option is to overload.
Consider, for example, a school with 105 Grade 6 students. The cost of having three classes of 35 would be $210,000 (based on the $60,000 average salary). The cost of having four classes - three of 26 and one of 27 - would be $240,000.
Not only is Bill 22 likely to lead to increased class size, up to as much as in the 50's potentially, but it will also lead to fewer teachers. Consider the example above where the school creates 3 classes of 35 instead of the 4 smaller classes. This also means for the existing 4 teachers, now only 3 are needed. If you spread this across the District, a worst case scenario would see up to 25% of teachers lose their jobs. Now this is not likely to happen immediately, but remember that in the first year after Bill 28 came into effect, approximately 2500 teachers province wide lost their jobs - close to 10% of the contract teachers currently employed. Given that the budget for school Districts next year does not include an increase to even cover inflation, it is reasonable to expect at least 3-5% job losses, if not more.
My daughter required extra help last year with her reading. This year she didn't get that help because there was only enough room for 3 students from her class and she wasn't "the most needy"
What will happen when her class size increases? What if you child needs extra help... how will they get it when they have to "compete" for attention?
I hate Bill 22. I don't get how anyone can see any value in this Bill?
I have heard some say "well there is some money coming back into public education" but that "money" is not even CLOSE to what has been taken away....
It is so upsetting that THIS is the future for my children and for my colleagues and for my career!
