■ Education system uncertainty
Premier: Proposed changes to legislation will come this session
NSTU president Liette Doucet is seen with members of the provincial executive during a news conference last week announcing that 82 per cent of its membership that took part in a strike vote (which saw 93 per cent participation) had voted to strike as a response to the N.S. government’s plan to implement the Glaze report. On Monday, Doucet and Premier Stephen McNeil met. Following that meeting the premier said the province would not introduce legislation to reform the education system on Tuesday, Feb. 27 – as had been planned – given that discussions were continuing with the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.
The province said Monday it would not introduce legislation to reform the education system on Tuesday as discussions continued with the Nova Scotia Teachers Union.
The Legislature started its next session on Tuesday and it had been anticipated the government would table legislation as part of the province’s implementation of the Avis Glaze report’s recommendations.
NSTU president Liette Doucet and Premier Stephen McNeil met on Monday, Feb. 26, to talk about the recommendations of the Glaze report and the province’s plans to implement it.
“We had a great discussion with the (union) president,” McNeil said after that meeting. “We went through all 22 recommendations. We had a fulsome discussion about it (and) also had a great discussion about the upcoming report on inclusion. Even though we haven’t seen the details of it yet, it is a priority of our government’s. The budget will reflect our financial commitment to it and we agreed that we would continue our conversation.”
The premier said the governing Liberals still intend to present a bill in this legislative session, but it hasn’t been decided exactly when.
“There’s a lot of moving parts associated with this bill,” he said. “There’s a number of acts that would be affected by it. So ideally, we would have preferred to have it ready, but there’s a number of moving parts. It wasn’t necessary for it ( Tuesday). But part of the conversation that I had with the (union) president certainly was around the content of the bill.”
Doucet said she couldn’t discuss the details of the meeting.
“All I can say is that we are committed to working with the government to making improvements for our students,” Doucet said after the meeting at the pre- mier’s office. “We’re continuing to discuss. This was one meeting today, however, we are expecting some more discussions to look at how we can focus on improving student learning, student achievement, making sure supports are available for students when needed and to help teachers in the classroom.”
The sides have been at loggerheads over the planned implementation of the Glaze report. Among the contentious issues are the elimination of all Englishlanguage school boards in the province in favour of a provincial advisory council, the removal of principals and vice- principals from the union and the creation of a college of teachers to govern licensing and discipline.
The discussions follow meetings the union had with Educa- tion Minister Zach Churchill last week after the province’s teachers voted to give the NSTU an overwhelming mandate to hold illegal job action. Of the 93 per cent of teachers that took part in the vote, 82 per cent voted in favour of a strike.
The union has said at the time when it released the strike vote results that no action would take place if the province would meet to discuss the issues and pause on introducing legislation to amend the Education Act.
It also said if there was some sort of strike or job action parents and students would be notified in advance in case arrangements needed to be made.