Teacher unity may have shocked Sask. Party

Evidently, the teachers’ resolve and team unity is paying off.

Or perhaps the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) is a beneficiary of a Sask. Party government wanting to clear up a messy matter before it goes to the polls. (There has been more talk of an April election.)

Or maybe the Sask. Party overestimated how easy it would be to divide and conquer the teachers.

Whatever the case, there has been a remarkable change in the past two weeks since the province’s 13,500 teachers voted 90.2 per cent in favour of job action after conciliation talks in late January failed.

With some 96 per cent of all teachers voting, this is what’s described in labour circles as a massive mandate, which might come as a bit of a surprise to the Saskatchewan Party government that was likely hoping for a smaller job action mandate with a very different composition.

In the very complex education delivery system in Saskatchewan, there are now several divides when it comes to needs within classrooms. While they all provide valuable lessons to students in terms of acceptance and tolerance, those with special and physical needs, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and newcomers learning English as a second language have been integrated into everyday classes. Those students are now exactly where they should be, but it has led to some overcrowding.

However, all this is just overlay of the long-standing challenge for teachers, which is the general inequities between urban and rural schools that have everything to do with rapidly growing cities like Saskatoon and Regina and more depopulated rural communities.

Urban teachers are more likely to face those overcrowded classrooms, which have become the foremost sticking point in these negotiations. And at least part of the reason for that overcrowding would be new Canadian students struggling with English and perhaps special needs students.

However, we can’t emphasize enough a few things related to rural teachers:

■ Some of them also have overcrowded classrooms because of circumstances;

■ While slightly less likely to have as many ESL students, there will be some and there is absolutely no reason to think there wouldn’t be, proportionally, as many special needs students;

■ Most importantly, many, many rural teachers face multiple grades — not just split grades in the cities, but three or four or maybe more as if they’re old-fashioned oneroom schoolhouse teachers.

For a couple reasons, it was to the government’s political advantage to keep the focus of these negotiations on “classroom size” and the impossibility/inappropriateness of essentially legislating a maximum classroom size. Provincewide statistical averaging was to its advantage because the Sask. Party government could argue the overall classroom size (when some smaller rural classrooms were taken into account) did not seem onerous.

But what was more advantageous is that there is a bit of divergence between rural and urban teachers because the issues are slightly different.

Add to the fact that rural teachers generally live in towns and smaller cities with stronger Sask. Party support, the government clearly thought rural teachers would have a less militant view and that the STF would have a weaker mandate.

By the looks of that 90.2-per-cent job action vote, the Sask. Party’s hope of a rural/urban split among teachers has failed miserably. Consider the change in tone the STF says it is now hearing from the government.

“I’m pleased to report that we were able to find some common ground,” said STF president Patrick Maze following his meeting with Education Minister Gord Wyant and the Saskatchewan School Boards Association.

Of course, neither Maze nor Wyant would discuss the specifics. But Wyant did drop a telling clue when asked about the size of the job action mandate.

“I was a little bit surprised by the number,” he told reporters.

That’s likely an understatement. Bet the Sask. Party is in shock at how the teachers have held together.

Mandryk is political columnist for the Regina Leader-post and Saskatoon Starphoenix.