Teachers, province meeting again this week to discuss ruling

Both the provincial government and teachers are pushing for an interim deal that could see extra teachers in schools this month.

Teachers and their employer met again Tuesday to discuss implementation of the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that restores language class-size and class-composition language deleted in 2002.

“The (B.C. Teachers Federation) wants to see if we can get some of those teachers into the classrooms in January, so do I,” Premier Christy Clark said in an interview in December. “I don’t know that the negotiations are going to go that quickly, but if we could we will.”

The implementation may be staged, which could mean adding staff to address classrooms with a lot of students with special needs or making them smaller for the second semester in some high schools, BCTF president Glen Hansman said.

“There is still hope of getting teachers into classrooms this month,” Hansman said, adding that there is a very strong possibility of at least positions being posted by the end of January. He said it’s not out of the realm of possibility that an allocation for an extra teacher or parttime teacher could be added to each school in the province.

“We are hopeful to be able to affect changes in every school district and in every school,” Hansman said.

If an interim agreement is reached, Clark said it won’t be for the full amount needed to restore the 2002 clauses. “If we can come to an agreement, it won’t be a full number because none of us want to disrupt classrooms in the meantime,” Clark said. “If we were adding classroom teachers to take on a new classroom you’d be splitting kids up in the middle of the year, nobody wants that, not the BCTF not us.”

Hansman acknowledged that waiting until September for the full implementation would allow more time for rural school districts to hire teachers.

An interim deal would likely be funded out of the $2.25-billion surplus B.C. is projecting for its current fiscal year, ending March 31. The 2016-17 provincial budget listed the court case as a risk and includes a contingency fund of $450 million to address this and other risks. The provincial budget, to be tabled in February, is expected to set aside additional money for any larger future settlement with teachers.

In the meantime, school districts and union locals have been asked to look at what would be required to restoring the clauses.

The ministry said it’s respecting the Supreme Court’s decision to restore the clauses and that it expects talks to continue to be positive and productive.

“As part of the restoration process, we are taking a hard look at the old language with the BCTF to negotiate how we can modernize it — that way any changes to classrooms will be more reflective of the current reality,” the ministry said. “We have to find a way that is both practical and appropriate for the education system we have today.”