Sask. teachers plan to escalate job action after February break
Noon-hour supervision withheld provincewide Friday, alongside 1-day strikes in Battlefords and P.A.
The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation says when classes start back up after the February break, teacher job action will escalate.
The announcement came Friday — the last day of school before the week-long February break — as teachers in the Battlefords and Prince Albert participated in rotating one-day strikes, and teachers across the province withdrew from lunch supervision duties.
Nathan Bromm, principal at Rocanville School in southeastern Saskatchewan and a member of the teacher bargaining committee, said teachers don't want to impact the day-to-day operations of their classrooms any more than they need to, but the government has shown its "unwillingness to negotiate" on key issues in contract talks.
"We had to send a message to say that we're serious and that we need to see them engage in some meaningful conversations at the bargaining table about the issues in our classrooms," Bromm said in an interview.
The teachers' collective agreement expired last August, and the two sides have been in negotiations since June with no resolution.
Job action began last month with one-day provincewide strikes by teachers, followed by a series of rotating strikes, after talks at the bargaining table stalled.
Teachers want to negotiate class size and complexity issues, but the government refuses, saying those issues should be dealt with at the local school board level.
On Friday, the Saskatchewan School Boards Association, which advocates for and supports school boards, issued a statement saying that class complexity should be dealt with at the local level. It proposed a dedicated fund for local boards to address classroom complexity.
The association's president, Jaimie Smith-Windsor, said in an interview that the proposed fund would build on a pilot project the government announced last month to provide eight classrooms with specialized support.
"School boards see a need to address complexity, and they see a need for investment and sufficient investment to address complexity," she said.
"The pathway we see forward really builds on the local relationships and the common experience of teachers and school board trustees and school divisions around the growing diversity we see in the classrooms."
On Friday, teachers marched in front of Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill's office in North Battleford, while Prince Albert-area teachers demonstrated in front of Premier Scott Moe's office in Shellbrook.
Teachers' federation president Samantha Becotte spoke to CBC News on her way to Shellbrook. She said teachers need to see commitments in their collective agreement to protect their working conditions and ensure there are improvements to students' learning conditions.
"The government's refusal to engage in meaningful conversations around cost [and] complexity and make commitments where they can be held accountable is extremely disappointing," she said.
"But the amount of public support that we have received through these [job] actions has been really overwhelming."
Outside of the Battlefords and Prince Albert, teachers withdrew their lunch supervision duties, leaving many caregivers to make other arrangements for their school-aged children.
Analiza Al-Shaibany, who has two children at Queen Elizabeth School in Saskatoon, had to make a trip at lunch to pick up her kids. She said an escalation in job action would make things tough for her family, as both she and her husband work.
But she will see what happens.
"I hope the teachers will be given what they're demanding, right? Because they deserve it. And they work hard for the kids, because children are our future," Al-Shaibany said.
"They deserve to have the additional demands that they need here."
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With files from Jason Warick