Teachers deserve public’s support
Teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.
Teachers are stressed out today. On the one hand, they have a government that recently has unilaterally imposed multiple changes on their working conditions. The latest contract offer was rejected not only because it included insufficient remuneration, but because all other components essential to working and learning conditions would be negotiated at a later date.
On the other hand, teachers are represented by a federation that is having problems communicating the incredible challenges that face learning environments.
Some of the unilateral decisions by government include reducing the number of educational assistants, attempting to introduce standardized testing with no evidence to support it, and making top-down changes to curriculum by ministry officials who are too far removed from the classroom.
In the media, however, the main discussion point is wages. Teachers’ recently refused a four-year offer with a 7.3 per cent increase, but this needs more explanation.
Their previous contract was for 985 hours of total assigned time for teaching as well as other duties such as preparation and staff development. Last year, the government unilaterally mandated a minimum 950 hour instruction time. Assuming teachers only worked this minimum, that would leave just 35 hours a year for all other duties.
A unique aspect is that the Education Act does not impose a maximum number of work hours. As such, teachers in Prairie Valley have 985 hours of instruction time, teachers in Saskatoon and Regina commit between 1,020 and 1,030 hours of instructional time, and teachers in northern Saskatchewan have 1,085 hours of instructional time.
Four points need to be addressed. First, teachers from one school district to the next have differences of up to 100 hours of instructional time, but identical pay. Second, unilateral changes by the government to instructional time mean that most teachers are work- ing more hours on instructional time alone than their contract pays for total hours worked.
Third, when instruction time alone exceeds total hours paid, this means that all hours committed to preparation, grading and staff development are provided free. This is significant, as most school divisions have nine professional development days per year and the average teacher puts in eight hours a week of overtime beyond an average 44-hour work week. All this for an average $59,395 per year.
Fourth, increased instruction time has no correlation with student learning.
Wages aside, the government has unilaterally imposed a new regulatory body for teachers that will cost $175 per teacher per year. The proposed contract will have government pay this amount initially, but who will pay the fees in future contracts?
No one seems to be talking about the teachers’ pension. The government has a $300-million shortfall on the former teachers’ pension plan. The current plan also will end up with a shortfall without an equivalent increase of three per cent of wages.
Add all of this to rapidly increasing class sizes, increasing numbers of children who speak English as a second language, more students with behaviour issues and disabilities, and increasing expectations, and you have stressed out teachers. The rate of depression among teachers is five times that the national average. As a result, half of new teachers quit within the first five years.
All of this obviously has an impact on children. As a parent, unilateral changes to instructional time means my kids go to school at 8:40 a.m., their lunch time is 11:32 a.m. to 12:22 p.m., and so on. I have to write down these times because I can’t remember them. It also concerns me that my youngest daughter has not had a desk for the entire year — there is not even a space for her supplies — and that both of my daughters are in classrooms of 28 children.
Education is our most important public policy, and teachers are our most valuable public servants. By voting against their latest contract, the teachers are not only voting to improve their working conditions but are also voting to improve students’ learning conditions. We need to support our teachers.