Teachers vote to accept deal with province

Less-crowded classrooms, more resources for special ed anticipated in capital region

Capital region classrooms will get a little less dense, after teachers voted to accept a deal with the provincial government on class size and composition.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation said 21,156 members voted 98.4 per cent in favour of ratifying an agreement to restore contract provisions unlawfully taken away by the province 15 years ago. The union represents about 41,000 teachers.

“With this vote, B.C. schools are finally on the verge of having better working and learning conditions back in place,” said union president Glen Hansman.

“With our restored language in effect, B.C. schools, students and teachers will see significant improvements in class sizes, support levels for children with special needs, and access to specialist teachers this September.”

What the deal means will vary slightly for each school district, depending on local contract language.

In the Greater Victoria school district, the most significant change will come in the area of special education, said union representative Jason Gannon. The local contract calls for fewer students per specialist teacher than the current provincial ratio of 342 students for one teacher, he said.

“That’s a big deal. It means more teachers [for] kids with special needs,” Gannon said.

That’s especially significant for small schools that might have only one specialist on staff for a few hours per day, he said.

Sooke school district superintendent Jim Cambridge said more teachers and teacher-librarians would be the first changes seen in his district.

He estimated that more than 30 teachers would be hired in the district, which is already facing space limitations because of the ballooning West Shore population.

“I think management and the board is very happy to deal with those challenges and knowing government has committed to funding it is reassuring,” he said.

Saanich school board president Victoria Martin said senior staff will have to take a close look at the contract language to see what it means for the district, beyond the obvious hiring of new teachers and dealing with limited space.

“It’s a different world in the classroom and public education than it was 15 years ago,” she said. “I think we can all plan to work very, very hard to get to a place of compliance.”

The tentative agreement between representatives of the BCTF, the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association, the Public Sector Employers’ Council Secretariat and the Ministry of Education was announced last Saturday.

The deal comes less than four months after a Supreme Court of Canada ruling restored class-size and composition provisions removed from teachers’ contracts in 2002. The two sides have been negotiating an implementation deal since November.

The case dates back to 2002, when Premier Christy Clark was education minister and the B.C. Liberal government dismantled teachers’ contracts by passing Bill 28. After the bill was found unconstitutional in 2011, Clark’s government brought in similar legislation to end a teachers strike in 2012.

In November, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the 2012 law was also unconstitutional.

Details of the agreement, including its final costs to taxpayers, have not been released. The BCTF has previously estimated the total cost of responding to the court ruling at about $300 million.

Education Minister Mike Bernier said negotiators had to deal with some complex issues.

“The challenge was how to restore nearly 1,400 old clauses across 60 different collective agreements within the context of an education system that evolved dramatically over the past 15 years,” Bernier said.

“So a key objective was to protect equitable access to learning and build on the significant gains that students have enjoyed. The parties agreed to make the old language work to the extent we can and to continue dialogue until the next round of bargaining where we can pursue longer-term solutions.”