Teachers truly do care

Most, if not all, teachers get into the profession because they like working with kids and have a subject they are passionate about. Working with kids in class for months or years you make connections, you develop relationships. Sometimes you are the only adult male figure in their lives; the only one who cares. Some bring you the occasional coffee. Some pop in once in a while for a chat. Some come back to visit years after you’ve taught them. Some enthusiastically tell you a hundred times in the hallways they will be taking your class next year. Some cry when you tell them at graduation that you will miss them.

Our profession has shown how much we care about the kids when we negotiated class size and composition because we know from experience how the smaller classes, and classes with fewer special needs kids, benefit them. We sacrificed wages to ensure kids got the help they needed. And this government legislated that away. Those of us teaching long enough remember when there was more support and money for classrooms; we remember $ 280 million was stripped annually from education the last 12 years. Who stepped in to fill that void? Teachers. We remember.

We want a fair deal; return the funding and class size and composition to our contract. The Supreme Court said what the government did was illegal. Where is the Liberal government’s integrity? Honour? GAVYN LINTON Prince George

The B. C. government’s offer, less than the average increase in the annual cost of living, is an insult to our public classroom school teachers. Public school education is the foundation on which our prosperous democratic society was built and on which it functions. THOMAS HELLENES Vancouver