Fernie District Teachers' Association News

Last post...

2010-06-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Nothing pithy, nothing to quote later on.

My time is up, its over, I'm done.

Thanks for the memories.

A new blogger begins Thursday.... maybe.

Post and fill...

2010-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Post and Fill rumbles along.

Certainly it would be good to address some serious issues at the local bargaining table next year - I hope you get involved.

Don't forget on your cover letter for any and all postings that you pay attention to the words on the posting: "When applying for positions it is the responsibility of the applicant to provide details of their qualifications for the position." (we hope to have reached an agreement to have "in their covering letter" added to the end of this statement.

Members, you are but one of about 420 teachers employed in SD5 - you actually mean nothing to the folks in HR - your application is but one of many they'll be receiving for that posting. They do NOT know who you are or what your experience or qualifications are for the posting - so tell them explicitly how you are qualified and exactly what your experience is - as it related to the position applied for.

Simply stating that you have taught something somewhere does not count as 'details' - it is nothing but a statement. Details includes the school, the year, the grades..... Remember that that Professor in some university course who told you how to write a covering letter? Well, he/she has never actually applied for a job in SD5, and so they did not give you the correct information!.

Or, to put it another way, never be implicit, always be explicit.

Let me rephrase my thoughts... do you want the job? then sell yourself in that cover letter buy thoroughly providing tons and tons of details about your course work, and your experience as it relates to the position applied for - IN YOUR COVERING LETTER.

The next round of postings should be out July 5th.....

All-Day Kindergarten

2010-06-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Education minister responds, The Province, Wed Jun 23 2010. Margaret MacDiarmid

In response to Jon Ferry's column, independent, academic research in North America and Europe shows that a high-quality, play-based kindergarten program has long-term benefits: it helps children to succeed in school and in life. Full-day learning is associated with improved literacy and numeracy, smoother transitions to Grade 1 and opportunities to develop strong social skills.

The likelihood that learning difficulties will be identified earlier and acted upon is increased. And investment in the early years is anticipated to result in reduced costs for special education and remediation going forward.

Expanding choices for parents also can be positive for the workforce, while increased opportunities for early childhood education can result in significant savings in other social program areas.

Full-day kindergarten will be available for up to 50 per cent of all children in B.C. starting in September. And everyone will have the opportunity for full-day kindergarten provincewide in 2011.

Enrolling children in kindergarten at age five is optional and this won't change. Given that every child is unique, parents who have concerns are encouraged to discuss their child's needs with their local school. Full-day kindergarten is designed to be developmentally appropriate and provide a balance of active and quiet time. We believe most parents will be pleased with how well their children adjust to a full-day, play-based kindergarten program.

Margaret MacDiarmid, B.C. minister of education

Education seems destined for change

2010-06-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

(Surrey Now, Tue Jun 22 2010, Keith Baldrey "In The House"

Are big changes to our public education system just around the corner?

Speculation is growing in the wake of the B.C. Liberal government's fight with the Vancouver school board that something new is coming.

Certainly, the B.C. Liberals have spent years talking about the need for change in the K-12 system. Pretty well every throne speech contains language suggesting significant change is on the way.

But aside from the introduction of full-day kindergarten, nothing particularly revolutionary has occurred in the education system. The Liberals made a big fuss unveiling such things as the "learning roundtable" and "teachers' congress" but they don't seem to have had much lasting impact on things. And now a new slogan - "21st century learning" - will soon be introduced, and I wonder whether some serious alterations to the education system will accompany it.

For possible clues on what may be coming, I dusted off this year's throne speech and re-read the section on public education. Certainly, the language in that speech does suggest something is in the works.

"Government will take steps to renew and revitalize education," the speech stated, adding that a "new emphasis will be placed on parental involvement."

The speech also stated that "new forms of schools will be developed to provide greater choice and diversity."

I suppose these promises can be read as so much empty government rhetoric. On the other hand, given the evident frustration over the conduct of the Vancouver school board the language can also be seen as suggesting provocative change.

Part of the backdrop here is the often testy relationship between the B.C. Teachers' Federation and the B.C. Liberal government. Gordon Campbell is married to a long-time former school principal, and anyone who knows a school principal knows the frustrations many of them feel when it comes to dealing with teachers (in terms of the rigid control the BCTF exerts over the workplace).

So he's had years to become familiar on that front. Another important factor to consider here is the recent report by the province's comptroller-general on the Vancouver school board's financial situation.

Political opponents of the government (most notably Vancouver school trustees themselves) have dismissed the report as a meaningless exercise that revealed nothing new. But those who view that report only as it pertains to school trustees may be missing the larger picture.

Comptroller-general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland portrays the Vancouver school board as operating within a governance model that is largely controlled by the employees who work for it (i.e. teachers and CUPE support staff workers). As a result, flexibility and the ability to change policies are greatly hampered.

While there has been a lot of attention paid to the war of words between Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid and VSB chair Patti Bacchus, a key phrase from the minister has been overlooked.

She has talked about the need for a new "governance model" and how she will develop one soon. A new model is going to have a more profound impact on our system than closing a few schools or squabbling over a school board's budget.

So what, exactly, is the B.C. Liberal government up to?

Is it about to do an end run around the BCTF and CUPE by setting up these "new forms of schools" with direct parental involvement? Is it about to take the first steps toward creating a new parallel education system?

One clue may be what's going on in England, where the new coalition government is embarking on a massive restructuring of the country's education system. There, the Swedish model of so-called "free schools" (where parents and organizations set up their own school with government money) is being implemented.

Will we see "free schools" set up on a trial basis in a few school districts? It can be argued that the B.C. Liberals, given their very low standing in the polls, do not have the political credibility or muscle to carry out big changes on any front.

But they wouldn't be the first government to go down swinging over an issue it considers important enough.

Oh, and have I mentioned the BCTF will soon enter negotiations for a new contract? The teachers' union has said it won't accept a wage freeze like other public sector unions, so a fight is brewing on that front as well.

Perhaps that's the one thing - a contract battle with teachers -- that won't change in education. But it sure seems likely that "21st century learning" means other changes are on the way.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.

Cuts bringing larger classes; 500 Alberta teachers may lose their jobs.

2010-06-21T08:53:00.000-07:00

(Calgary Herald, Fri Jun 18 2010, Sarah McGinnis [excerpts for space])

A six-year push by the province to trim class sizes by funding more than 2,900 extra teachers is about to erode with more than 500 teaching jobs to be slashed across Alberta this fall.
….
"It's the start of a slippery slope back to what we had in the early '90s unless we have a commitment to the class size initiative and really make it work," said Alberta Teachers' Association president Carol Henderson.

The Alberta Commission on Learning report released in 2003 established class size targets ranging from 17 students for kindergarten to Grade 3 classes to 27 for high school classes.

The government has spent $1.2 billion over the past six years, bankrolling the hiring of more than 2,900 teachers to meet the recommendations.

And the program was working. Alberta school boards met the majority of class size targets this year.

But most still struggle to get kindergarten to Grade 3 classes down. And with current education funding woes, it is feared they never will.
....
The ATA estimates there are more than 500 teaching jobs on the chopping block provincewide -- including 192 full-time teachers at the Calgary Board of Education.
....

The Calgary Catholic School District went class by class, school by school to cut 85.5 teaching positions.
…..

With teachers and support staff jobs being lost, and the government pushing for increased inclusion of special needs students into regular classrooms, NDP MLA Rachel Notley said the public has a right to be concerned about the state of education.

"It's all coming together to create maximum chaos," said Notley.

"The platitudes from the minister are not enough to allay the concerns of engaged parents. We've got a real problem looming."

SD5 Budget 'changes' to find nearly 1 million in savings...

2010-06-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Leasing MVES will bring in $60,000
Cutting... (rounded)
$109,000 from equipment replacement
$365,000 out of the 'reserve fund'. Better hope the Ministry doesn't announce some new program next year....
$20,000 from Trustee travel/meeting/meetings
$10,000 from District Management travel and meetings
$28,000 from photocopying/faxing/printing budgets....
$46,500 gone from Teacher Staff Development (as in none left)
$49,000 drop (District Principal retires at Christmas) in Senior Admin.
$280,000 drop in CUPE positions/hours/days
$43,000 drop in teaching position at FLC

BUT, they "added"...
$30,000 to legal to deal with Bill 33 issues...
$23,000 to support opening the shops at ESS
$24,000 software for enrolment/boundary tracking
$54,000 into Achievement Contract stuff (including a management controlled pot of 'Staff Development' money ...)
$6,000 to support the BCTF 'Living With Balance' program piloted this year....

Jobs in Haida Gwaii

2010-06-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

There are a few postings for work up in Haida Gwaii, check out the site for more information:

www.bctf.ca/hgta

Teaching Opportunity

2010-06-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

Temporary Full-Time Special Education Specialist/Learning Assistance Teacher

GEORGE M. DAWSON SECONDARY SCHOOL

Haida Gwaii, in Northern British Columbia, is an archipelago of more than 150 islands. The islands have gained a reputation for outstanding natural beauty and a remarkable First Nations culture. Haida Gwaii can provide something of interest to everyone: history, archeology, fishing, boating, hiking, cycling and more.

Located 80 km west of Prince Rupert, School District No. 50 (Haida Gwaii) is comprised of six (6) schools serving approximately 680 students. Please visit our website for additional details: www.sd50.bc.ca.

The Board of Education of School District No. 50 (Haida Gwaii) is seeking a temporary full-time (1.0 FTE) Special Education Specialist/Learning Assistance Teacher effective September 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011 at George M. Dawson Secondary School.

Requirements:

A university teaching major, or its equivalent, directly related to the teaching position;

Successful teaching experience related to the teaching position, as well as junior secondary courses and/or applied skills, i.e. foods, wood shop, math;

The ability to write clear and effective reports;

The ability to use technology effectively and efficiently;

Knowledge and skills in the identification procedures and program planning for students with special needs including autism, other developmental disorders, learning disabilities, and behavioural disorders;

Demonstrated ability to plan, organize, instruct and evaluate learning activities;

Have the ability to conduct level B testing and interpret the results of other testing to develop appropriate educational strategies;

Collaboratively assess the level of support required and interpret each learner’s disability and its implications and have the ability to develop, implement and evaluate IEPs in consultation with teachers, parents and district and community;

Proven interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with students, teachers, special education assistants, parents and administrators;

Working knowledge of and experience in Aboriginal education;

Applicants must be eligible for BC College of Teachers certification.

If you are interested in assuming this role and are a community minded leader who enjoys the outdoors and is seeking a new challenge, please submit a teacher application complete with comprehensive resume and supporting documents, along with three (3) professional references by Thursday, June 17, 2010 to:

Human Resources

School District 50 (Haida Gwaii)

Box 69

Queen Charlotte BC V0T 1S0

Fax: 250-559-8849

Teaching jobs in BC, 2010-2011

2010-06-14T08:26:00.001-07:00

As of June 4, 2010, (46 locals reporting), the current estimate is that BC will be down 575 – 600 FTE teaching positions province-wide for 2010–11.

BC Government, Carbon Offsets, and School Districts

2010-05-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

(Excerpts from the debate on education in the Legislative Assembly, School district carbon offsets go to private corporations . May 17, 2010)

R. Fleming: I wanted to ask the minister if she's had discussions with her colleagues about how the Pacific Carbon Trust might be modified so that instead of money flowing from public sector organizations like schools, hospitals and other entities — the 130 PSOs that there are — to the private sector, whether the Pacific Carbon Trust might be modified over time in the coming years to actually invest public sector moneys, pooled moneys from the SUCH [public] sector into greening the infrastructure of schools, for example. Has she had those kinds of discussions?

Hon. M. MacDiarmid: …starting this year they do have to purchase offsets, and it's at a cost of $25 per tonne of emissions. The estimate this year is that it will be about 235,000 tonnes, and that will mean that they will be spending about $5.9 million on offsets.

R. Fleming: …wouldn't it be a better idea to allow school districts, along with health authorities and other public sector organizations, to apply and receive money to retrofit their own buildings, to actually reduce their carbon footprints and their emission levels

I mean, the whole point of this exercise should be to green schools, but here we have, under the current system, the prospect of 60 school districts, most of which are in deficit right now, most of which are looking at losing teaching and learning resources and face a three-year funding horizon that is very challenging and difficult for them.... They're not in a very good position to set aside money for minor capital improvements and to replace things like fossil fuel–based heating systems that they may use, which they should do if we care about the environment. That is the goal here.

In fact, as the minister is aware, the carbon offsets are actually.... Pacific Carbon Trust gets $25 a tonne from school districts for these offsets. I don't know how much they then buy them for in the private sector, but they're literally transferring money to things like Lafarge cement fuel-switching projects or greenhouse growers in the Fraser Valley where they're putting up energy curtains.

There are a number of spas. I don't know if the minister is aware of all of them, but Westin Whistler Resort and Spa will be receiving money from school districts, from classroom resources, from trustees that are figuring out budgets and paying this money, which is then transferred over into the private sector. The Marriott in Whistler is another one. Sun Peaks Lodge, Coast Hillcrest. Hotels have done very well by this system. It's literally money coming from schools going in to green hotels rather than to green school buildings.

Mandate of the BCCT 'Fact Finder'

2010-05-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

The fact finder will consider and make recommendations regarding the B.C. College of Teachers in fulfilling its mandate under the Teaching Profession Act. The fact finder will consider:

a) Whether the College of Teachers is fulfilling its mandate under Section 4 of the Teaching Profession Act: “It is the object of the college to establish, having regard to the public interest, standards for the education, professional responsibility and competence of certificate holders and applicants for certificates of qualification and, consistent with that object, to encourage the professional interest of certificate holders in those matters.”
b) The college’s role and performance respecting teacher pre-service and in-service training and regulation of member competence.
c) The college’s role and performance of its duties in comparison with other self-regulating professions.
d) The college’s teacher certification practices in comparison with those of other jurisdictions.
e) The effectiveness of the college in carrying out its mandate with regard to complaints concerning teacher conduct or competence, including investigation, disciplinary action and public reporting.
f) The effectiveness of the council of the college in carrying out its mandate to govern and administer the affairs of the college.

Worthwhile newsletter to read...

2010-05-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

The newsletter of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association (VESTA) is usually well worth reading. The current month - May 2010 edition is spectacular. It has articles on the public's feelings toward the funding of public education in BC, it has a great article on the role of a Staff Rep., VESTA's audited financial statements (their budget is 1.2 million dollars, and they are proposing a 0.04% increase in dues (as in dues will go from 0.80% of salary up to 0.84% of salary) which will result in a mean annual dues amount of just under $600/year, and finally a grievance update from their local.

Here is the website: www.vesta.ca Go to it, then on the left hand menu, select 'news archive' then from the list that appears on the right hand side, choose "May 2010" (in red).

Job opportunity!

2010-05-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Continuing Full-Time Learning Assistance Teacher at SK’AADGAA NAAY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

The Board of Education of School District No. 50 (Haida Gwaii) is seeking a continuing full-time (1.0 FTE) Learning Assistance Teacher effective September 1, 2010 at Sk’aadgaa Naay Elementary School.

Requirements:

A university teaching major, or its equivalent, directly related to the teaching position;

Successful teaching experience;

The ability to write clear and effective reports;

The ability to use technology effectively and efficiently;

Demonstrated ability to plan, organize, instruct and evaluate learning activities;

Have the ability to interpret the results of testing to develop appropriate educational strategies;

Proven interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with students, teachers, special education assistants, parents and administrators;

Working knowledge of and experience in Aboriginal education;

Applicants must be eligible for BC College of Teachers certification.

New York "Agreement"

2010-05-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Agreement Will Alter Evaluations Of Teachers, The New York Times, Tue May 11 2010. Jennifer Medina (excerpts for space)

The State Education Department and New York's teachers' unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, .....

The agreement, ..... would scrap the current system whereby teachers were rated simply satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Instead, annual evaluations would place teachers in one of four categories -- highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. While the deal would not have any immediate effect on teacher pay, it could make it easier for schools to fire teachers deemed subpar.

"We believe that if done correctly this will change the landscape dramatically," said David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner. "This is not a gotcha system. This is about creating professional development that can really improve education."

Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on the state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests.

The remainder of the evaluation will come from observations from principals and other teachers, and other measures. If teachers are rated ineffective for two consecutive years, they would face firing through an expedited hearing process that must conclude within 60 days. Currently hearings can drag on for several months.
......

Testing data would be used for only a fraction of the teachers in the state, because many teachers instruct in subjects or grades that do not have an annual exam. Mr. Steiner and Ms. Tisch have criticized the state exams, saying they may have become too easy and predictable in the last several years. But Mr. Steiner said that they were "not useless," and that the department was taking steps to improve them, including changes this year that broadened the material covered by the tests.
.....

New York City began evaluating teachers based on test scores three years ago. But in 2008, the Legislature banned the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations, a move that was backed by the union.
....

Those two 'dancing' teachers in Winnipeg...

2010-04-20T08:59:00.001-07:00

Lap-dancing teachers won't be returning to Winnipeg school; Trustees announce resolution to controversy over pep-rally YouTube sensation, The Globe And Mail, Tue Apr 20 2010. Sarah Boesveld [excerpts for space]

A minute and a half of fully-clothed lap dancing at a high school pep rally has sealed the fate of two Winnipeg teachers. …. Ms. Fitchner offered her resignation two months after the dance, … Mr. Ahmed's contract ended April 16 and will not be renewed, the board said.

Both teachers had been suspended without pay since March 3 and March 2, respectively.

…..teachers could be inspired to pay close attention to the professional code of conduct presented at the beginning of each school year. …. First, the teachers were suspended with pay, then suspended without.

Ms. Fitchner asked for access to sick-leave benefits when she was first suspended and then filed grievances with the division for not providing access to them.

The grievances, ….., were resolved on the basis that she remain without pay until April 5, after which time she'd get sick leave benefits under the collective agreement.

Her resignation will kick in fully at the end of the school year, June 30, 2010, the board said. If she runs out of benefits and is fit enough to return to work before that time, she'll be placed on unpaid administrative leave.
……
"A minute and a half of inappropriate dancing decided the fate of a big career change."
…..

The offending dance, which involved simulations of oral sex and much gyrating of pelvises, took place at the pep rally on Feb. 17. Students recorded it on a cellphone camera and it quickly spread around via e-mail and Facebook. The next day, a parent complained to the school and the day after that, the teachers were asked to stay home with pay.
……

Florida Governor Bucks G.O.P. on Teacher Pay Bill, The New York Times, Fri Apr 16 2010. Trip Gabriel and Damien Cave; Gary Fineout

2010-04-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

[excerpts for space] MIAMI -- Gov. Charlie Crist … deluged with 120,000 messages. Passions have not run so high in Florida, the governor said, since the controversy over ending the life of Terry Schiavo in 2005.

This time, the point of contention was eliminating tenure for Florida public school teachers and tying their pay and job security to how well their students were learning.

On Thursday, Mr. Crist picked a side, vetoing a bill passed last week by the Florida Legislature….Mr. Crist …. cited "the incredible outpouring of opposition by teachers, parents, students, superintendents, school boards and legislators."

The bill was supported by the Florida Department of Education and statewide business groups, …. saying that teachers should be held more accountable.

But the governor, announcing his veto in the Capitol in Tallahassee, said the changes envisioned would put "teachers in jeopardy of losing their jobs and teaching certificates, without a clear understanding of how gains will be measured."
….. Reformers have tried to draft policies that allow student-achievement data to be used to reward good teachers and identify poor ones.

When Florida proposed strict accountability measures, teachers, parents and administrators pushed back. They argued that the proposed system -- basing renewal of teacher contracts and at least half their raises on how well students did on standardized tests -- would hold them responsible for factors in students' lives beyond their control.

"I am not a puppet master; I can't pull strings and make them perform," said Amy Horr, a second-grade teacher in the Miami-Dade School District who attended a rally on Monday. "I can't even make them come to school."
…..

Teacher firings and Test Boycotts

2010-04-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

Excerpts from some International newspapers!

Thousands of teachers take part in sickout, The Miami Herald, Tue Apr 13 2010. Patricia Mazzei, Hannah Sampson, and Kathleen McGrory.

…..more than 6,300 of Miami-Dade's 21,260 public-school teachers took a personal or sick day Monday to protest controversial legislation that would overhaul their pay.

……more than 1,000 teachers gathered at Tropical Park in Westchester to drive the point home.

That Monday's protest took place in the diverse, largely low-income Miami- Dade school district -- the state's largest -- was enough to catch the attention of Gov. Charlie Crist, who has until Friday to sign or veto the bill.

``I ran to be the people's governor and it's very helpful to hear from the people,'' Crist told The Miami Herald on Monday. ``It's enormously helpful.''

The message he's hearing from most people: Veto the bill.

Between March 1 and Monday, Gov. Crist's office had logged 15,694 calls, 1, 869 letters and more than 18,000 individual e-mails opposing the bill. That's compared to 264 calls, 11 letters and 80 e-mails in support. He's gotten an additional 33,000 calls that staffers haven't yet been able to categorize.

…..Monday's coordinated absences were a grassroots effort. The idea bubbled up among teachers Friday afternoon -- and grew over the weekend via text messages and on social networking sites like Facebook.
…..``No determination has yet been made on disciplinary actions although we have an expectation that employees will follow the terms of their contract and state statute regarding the obligations of their position,'' said John Schuster, spokesman for the school district.

The United Teachers of Dade did not support Monday's absences. Instead, union leaders urged teachers to protest outside of school -- as did officials for the Broward Teachers Union.

Under Florida law, teachers are not allowed to strike.
…..

Union blasts city schools overhaul plan; Teachers' hours, pay, and seniority affected,
The Boston Globe, Tue Apr 13 2010. James Vaznis

The Boston Teachers Union started galvanizing opposition yesterday to parts of Superintendent Carol R. Johnson's plan to overhaul 12 underperforming schools, after she called for teachers to work dozens of additional hours without extra pay.

The proposal is part of an initial negotiating package Johnson sent to union officials over the weekend, under a new state law that gives superintendents greater leverage to make dramatic changes at state-designated underperforming schools over the objections of unions.
…. said that her plan reflects economic realities.

``One of the challenges everyone is aware of is that we have a very difficult fiscal situation,'' she said. ``If we had all the resources in the world, we would want to compensate them'' for the additional time.

Under the law enacted in January, school superintendents still must negotiate changes with their respective unions, but only under a 30-day timeline, much shorter than traditional bargaining. If negotiations on a proposal fail, the union has the right to appeal in an arbitration-like process. If that breaks down, a state education commissioner could ultimately decide the dispute.
…
Johnson held a press conference, saying she would force teachers at about half those city schools to reapply for their jobs,…..Among Johnson's proposals, which are considered drafts because negotiations are just beginning: not paying teachers for additional time when extending the school day by up to an hour; requiring 50 hours of additional teacher training without pay; nullifying layoff and seniority provisions; and tying annual pay raises to job performance.

Another proposal seeks to increase class sizes for programs that teach fluency in English, beyond limits set in the teachers' contract.
…..
Teaching unions want boycott on controversial Sats, The Western Morning News (Plymouth, UK), Mon Apr 12 2010. Olivier Vergnault

Hundreds of pupils in the Westcountry could be banned from sitting Sats exams if a boycott of the controversial test by two leading teachers unions is successful.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) are currently balloting their leadership group members over the boycott of the national curriculum tests.

The two unions hope to see the end of Sats, which they say are flawed and lead to the publication of performance tables which destroy the careers of school leaders. If successful, the NUT's Executive would call its 22,000 South West members to action on April 21.

As part of the boycott, teachers refuse to follow any and all of the test opening, checking and administrative procedures for English and mathematics Sats, refuse to carry out the tests and refuse to ensure that all eligible and able pupils take the test.

NUT officials said the science sample tests, which will take place in a limited number of schools, was not to be included in this action.

The schools department has confirmed the results of the science tests would only be used for national sampling, not for school accountability.

The results would not be provided to Ofsted or local authorities.

Andy Woolley, regional secretary for the NUT in the South West, said pupils would benefit more from extra lessons than from taking part in the decried Sats.

He said: "This is not a strike action and other work in schools will continue as normal, and children will benefit from being taught instead of tested.
…..
"We want schools' accountability not to be narrowed by using Sat test scores as a proxy for school achievement.
….

"There should also be a national sampling test system,…., to provide information about national standards in English, mathematics and science so that trends in performance can be monitored over time."
…..

'We want to see the end of time-wasting rehearsal for high- stakes testing'

School board budget news from around the Province...

2010-04-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

From: No school closures, but 190 jobs on the line as Vancouver district wrestles with budget shortfall, Vancouver Sun, Thu Apr 8 2010. Janet Steffenhagen

“…district officials are proposing a wide range of spending cuts for 2010-11 that include the elimination of 113 teaching positions in areas such as special education, band and strings, ESL and school libraries. …”

“…Overall, 190 full-time positions would be lost, representing a 3.4-per-cent staff cut. “

From: School district cash crunch means 57 job cuts, Kamloops This Week, Wed Apr 7 2010. Melissa Lampman

“Starting at $5.4-million in the red, the Kamloops-Thompson board of education has succeeded in balancing next year's $123-million budget … secretary treasurer Kelvin Stretch said the district will need to chop 57.5 full-time teaching positions to make ends meet. “

“..Proposed in the budget is a reduction of 30 teaching staff, five principals and vice-principals, 21.6 support staff and one exempt staff.”

News from Kamloops

2010-04-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

29.9 FTE teaching positions to be cut this spring. (30+ FTE positions lost last year and 24 FTE positions the year before.)
The KTTA is uncertain what this will mean. Layoffs will be balanced with attrition - most members will probably still securing employment at the end of the day.

BCCT Breaking News!

2010-04-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

The college has called a press conference for 10am this morning, details are in the press release below. The council has not had time to consider the input from the public meeting, and without due consideration is asking for government intervention and is calling for a delay in elections.

BC College of Teachers Council broken: Council members call for independent investigator

A majority of British Columbia College of Teachers Councillors will today call on the BC government to appoint an independent investigator to examine self-regulation for teachers in BC and suspend upcoming Council elections.

“The council is dysfunctional. Even the President-elect of the BCTF agrees,” stated Council Chair Richard Walker. “This was the second meeting where the business of the College was held up by a determined effort by the BCTF to delay and thwart any discussions around the issue of governance. Clearly, there is something wrong when those who are supposed to be regulated are preventing the regulatory body from doing its work.”

According to Walker, the BCTF exerts its influence over the College by endorsing candidates for election to the Council and by promoting policies that influence deliberations at the Council table. “A majority of Council members has decided that only an independent investigator can bring resolution to the impasse.

Council vice-chair Norm Nichols agrees with Walker. “The last two public meetings have totally undermined public confidence that the BC College of Teachers is working in the public interest. No other regulatory body in the province is subjected to such overt attempts to influence its work.”

Tim Dunford is a 7-year veteran of the College Council, a lawyer, and one of two non-teachers on the College Council. “I was hopeful that a majority of Council would be able to achieve significant reform and that the College could take its place alongside the other self-regulating professions in the province. Concerted efforts by some College Councillors at the January meeting brought the College into public disrepute. The April meeting was much more restrained in tone, but clearly designed to delay any discussion about governance. We hope that an independent investigator will examine the College’s situation and suggest solutions for problems that the Council is unable to resolve.”

With council elections looming, and a significant change of the council composition expected, it would be impossible for the investigator to make a sound recommendation without access to those who have been working on these issues for some time.

A press conference will be held in the BC College of Teachers lobby at 2025 West Broadway in Vancouver at 10am on Tuesday, April 6.

Teacher tenure?

2010-03-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

Senate OKs bill to abolish teacher tenure. MCT Regional News, Wed Mar 24 2010. Mike Salinero, Tampa Tribune, Fla. (excerpts for space! Emphasis mine)

Mar. 24--TALLAHASSEE -- Republicans .... [passed] a bill in the state Senate that would tie teacher pay and continued employment to student learning gains.

On a 21-17 vote, the Senate approved the bill which would do away with multiyear contracts teacher unions now negotiate with their county school boards. Teachers would get annual contracts with their evaluations based heavily on learning gains by students.

Teachers who do not show learning gains in four out of five years will lose their certification.
....
"How can we expect teachers to be responsible if their students skip school or arrive ill-prepared ...?" Dockery [ Republican Senator who opposed the bill] "The idea that teachers are solely responsible for a child's performance goes against everything we know about what makes children successful."

The bill's sponsor, Sen. John Thrasher, said it endeavors to make sure every student, rich or poor, has the "benefit of an effective teacher."

"Our bill and the language in it ends the practice of giving contracts to ineffective teachers because we are going to base future teacher assessments on success in the classroom," said Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican.

Thrasher's bill does away with years of service as a consideration in setting teachers' pay levels. .....

Democrats characterized the legislation as a draconian attack on teachers that would demoralize the profession and hurt teacher recruitment. They said the great majority of teachers are dedicated and work for pay below the national average because of their commitment to students.

"This seeks to weed out bad teachers by assuming all teachers are bad," said Sen. Dan Gelber, a Democrat from Miami Beach. "It takes a sledge hammer to the teaching profession."
....

School Board Meeting ....

2010-03-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Fernie had its annual turn at hosting a board meeting last night, and as usual attendance was less than capacity. From my seat in the public gallery, there were two of us, myself and a parent from Fernie.

What news came out of this meeting? Well, the preliminary 'numbers' for next year show that expenses could be nearly $1,000,000 (as in 'one million dollars') more than revenue. We all know that means "cutbacks". What we don't know is "from where". As usual, Mr. Norum is doing an excellent job of containing costs and preventing deficits and some of the other ("evil") accounting tricks that have happened in other districts.

Student enrollment in SD5 is down 9 student FTE from January, and down 85 from September 09. International students = 68 and they are not included in my figures.

The meeting was mostly taken up with discussion around whether or not to fund all-day K at Highlands Elementary School (HES) - which currently has not been allocated any of the 200 'seats' being funded by the Government for the 2010-2011 school year. The discussion revolved around fairness 'to all', and even included disagreement over the cost to the district of the additional teaching and support time (would it be $54,000, or $120,000+...) - agreement could not be found on a 'figure' to use. No mention was made of the fact that at HES you have the Chairperson of the Provincial Primary Teachers' Association, one of the people involved in the creation of the all-day K implementation plan, one of the people who is in the lead of various other primary program planning.... Certainly there seemed to be wide-spread agreement that all-day K is good for many (most) children!

In the end, the trustees defeated the motion, so as of this morning, HES will need to wait one more year....

To end on a really positive note, the Superintendent was extremely complementary toward teachers and CUPE, proudly praising many folks who have contributed so much to education - it was fantastic to see (but not surprising, as he does this regularly). During the "Trustee Bouquets" session, they too praised teachers and CUPE, as well as our students who participated in the BC Winter Games and so on.

Latest on that Rhode Island school mass firing....

2010-03-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Deal possible over proposed R.I. teacher firings: Compromise would save jobs, overhaul struggling school, The Washington Post, Thu Mar 4 2010. Nick Anderson (excerpts for space)

A Rhode Island school superintendent and union leaders, who have been at odds over a decision to fire every teacher at a struggling high school, signaled Wednesday that a compromise that would preserve jobs and overhaul the school may be possible.

......Superintendent Frances Gallo said in a statement. She said she welcomes union input in developing "a dynamic plan to dramatically improve student achievement" at Central Falls High School.

Gallo's statement followed an overture Tuesday from the Central Falls Teachers' Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. The instructors have offered support for a longer school day, as well as more rigorous evaluations and training, among other steps.

That appeared to pave the way for reopening negotiations on the proposed dismissals.
.....

Experts say there is little evidence to determine whether firing teachers en masse will improve a troubled school, despite President Obama's support for Rhode Island officials who appeared on the verge of taking that drastic step earlier.
.....

Despite Wednesday's developments, experts say the effectiveness of Obama's school turnaround strategy remains an open question.

"There just is very little evidence in terms of what works in quickly turning around a persistently low-performing school," said Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, a Brookings Institution scholar who oversaw education research under President George W. Bush.

Whitehurst said the federal Institute of Education Sciences pursued that question under his tenure but failed to find enough examples for solid answers. ......

"We could find no evidence that any one particular approach worked better than any other," Jennings [Jack Jennings is president of the Center on Education Policy] said. Obama's statement on the Rhode Island school, he said, shows that the president wants to crack down on academic failure, "but there's no assurance that kids are going to be any better off."

Removing all or most of a school's faculty, experts say, raises the obvious issue of finding effective replacements. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday that schools elsewhere have been rejuvenated after changing staff. His aides cited cases in Chicago, Colorado and Los Angeles.
......

Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, criticized the requirement that a principal be replaced in order for a school to qualify for federal funds; he said anecdotal evidence of success is not enough to justify it.

News Story Teasers....

2010-03-02T12:34:00.000-08:00

THRONE SPEECH TURNS A BLIND EYE

Ignoring the painful reality of school closures, oversized classes, dwindling support for students with special needs, and boards of education struggling to manage, the throne speech contained vague statements with no detail or mention of any monetary commitment. The list includes:

- a new Master Teacher program
- public/private partnerships to provide preschools for three- and four-year olds
- greater parent involvement in shaping the education to a child's needs and passions
- new forms of schooling for greater choice and diversity
- voluntary Kindergarten for this September and full day for all by September 2011
- greater focus on resources for students and less on administrative costs
- neighbourhood learning centres to meet the needs of families seven days a week.

The BCTF contacted the deputy minister of education following these announcements to get further details and was told that the ministry knew nothing about them and had not been involved in their development.

*****

BRACING FOR THE BUDGET

The provincial budget is to be announced [today]. Teachers and parents need and expect an increase in education funding to deal with overcrowded classrooms, reduced student services, depleted district resources, and overdue school maintenance.

This developing funding crisis was not caused by boards of education but by a government downloading costs that are not taken into account in the funding formula, such as:

- loss of annual facilities grant
- teacher salary and benefit increases that were provincially negotiated
- new carbon tax and carbon-offset charges
- increased MSP and WCB premiums
- new costs for implementing full-day Kindergarten
- additional costs of provincially legislated class-size limits.

The Association of School Board Officials (formerly secretary-treasurers) has said that the education system desperately needs an immediate injection of $300 million in 2010-11 to offset a funding shortfall.

*****

12,000 CLASSES EXCEEDING THE CLASS-COMPOSITION LIMITS

The government's own legislation sets the limit at three students with an Individual Education Plan per class. In 2010 there are close to 12,000 class-composition violations. That is up from 11,000 in 2009 and 10,000 in 2008. The data presented by the minister of education also shows 3,229 class-size violations with more than 30 students for the 2009-10 school year. That is down a mere 100 classes from 2008-09, but still higher than in 2007-08 when there were 3,179 violations. It has been more than four years since BC's teachers went on strike to improve classroom conditions, and in that time no progress has been made and government has refused to fund its own legislation.

The full report can be found in Overview of class size and composition in British Columbia Public Schools for 2005-10, at the Ministry of Education website http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/district_data_summary.php.

*****

FRASER INSTITUTE TURNS TO BLACK

In an unexpected move, CanWest announced that the Vancouver Sun and The Province would not be publishing the annual Fraser Institute ratings of BC's elementary schools this year. Various reasons have been given for this decision, including financial woes, Olympic coverage, and dwindling parental interest and support.

*****

ALBERTA TEACHERS TO GET 5.99% INCREASE

In a decision handed down [in February], an arbitrator ruled that teachers working in the province's public, separate, and francophone schools, should receive an increase in salaries and allowances amounting to 5.99% in the 2009-10 school year. The increase is consistent with the average growth in the earnings of Albertans from 2008 to 2009 as reported by Statistics Canada. The arbitration decision upholds the Alberta Teachers' Association's (ATA) position concerning the application of a formula linking teacher salary increases with annual changes in Alberta average weekly earnings. The formula is embedded in the Memorandum of Agreement between the province and the ATA and the resulting five-year collective agreements that came into effect in the 2007-08 school year in all 62 public, separate, and francophone school districts across the province.

*****

LET'S TEST EVERYONE

Michael Smith of Tennessee, writing in the latest issue of Kappan, proposes that everyone- students, teachers, parents, and citizens-take national tests. Such a test, he says, could be computer-adaptive, based on standards that span preschool to the PhD. Using mathematics as an example, everyone could have a personal national mathematics score. With this in hand, students could compare their scores to their teachers and parents; workers could compare their scores to other workers and supervisors and to every other citizen in the United States. Ultimately, of course, such results could be used for employment decisions and continued screening throughout a person's career.

Go to http://pdkintl.org/ for the full story, Kappan, February 2010.

Teachers tied to test scores.... more and more.....

2010-02-25T09:54:00.000-08:00

(Excerpts from) Boston gets an F in teacher appraisals; Report criticizes evaluation system, termination rules, The Boston Globe, Tue Feb 23 2010, James Vaznis (emphasis mine)

A new state law that bolsters a superintendent's ability to fire teachers at underperforming schools could be undermined in Boston because administrators routinely neglect a basic task: evaluating teachers. ...... according to a report commissioned by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education that was provided to the Globe yesterday.

Under the law, superintendents can terminate teachers at a failing school only for ``good cause,'' elevating the importance of job evaluations to provide evidence for dismissal or as a way for teachers to challenge their firings.

The findings could also affect the debate in Boston on merit pay for outstanding teachers. Without regular evaluations, Boston leaders could face accusations of favoritism when determining which teachers should be rewarded.
.......
Increasing the scrutiny of the nation's teachers is a key component of President Obama's education overhaul agenda, which would link teacher performance to students' standardized test scores. Massachusetts education officials have promised the Obama administration that they would develop more data-driven teacher reviews.

Last night, the Boston Teachers Union panned the report as ``antiteacher.'' ....... ``The overall premise of much of the draft report is faulty, essentially: Teachers need to be `fixed' and the `fixing' needs to be done to them, not with them,'' wrote Richard Stutman, the union's president. ``And principals, though flawed and often inexperienced, need to have full flexibility to do what they need to do.''

In an interview, Stutman said the teacher-quality group that conducted the report had analyzed other urban cities, such as Seattle and Hartford, drawing similar conclusions. He said the National Council on Teacher Quality is on a crusade against teachers.
......

Langley School District in deficit!

2010-02-25T09:35:00.000-08:00

Back in the fall it came to light that the Langley SD had amassed an 8.3 million dollar deficit.

Here is an update!
(submitted)

The new Langley deficit is $14.2 million and growing!! The Board chair announced she would be recommending they create a ‘needs based budget’ to submit along with their ‘balanced budget’.
"Instead of living within their budget this year, they overspent by 5.3 million more dollars, so a balanced budget will be out of the question. "

Standardized tests and job security

2010-02-24T15:59:00.000-08:00

All teachers, principals fired at poor-performing R.I. high school

A Rhode Island school board has voted to clean house at Central Falls High School by firing the entire staff of 93, including all teachers, guidance counselors, p.e. instructors and the principal, The Providence Journal reports.

The move makes Rhode Island one of the first states to meet a federal mandate to identify and overhaul poor performing schools.

Central Falls High School was singled out because of very low test scores and a graduation rate of 48%, the newspaper says. Five other schools have been put on notice.

The 5-2 decision by the Central Falls School Board touched off an uproar in Rhode Island's smallest and poorest city as organized labor showed up to support the teachers while state and local education officials stood their ground, the newspaper says.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan also weighed in, saying he "applauded" the officials for "showing courage and doing the right thing for kids."

The Journal says the 93 people fired included 74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, p.e. teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals. Their names were all read aloud in the school auditorium.

(source: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/02/school-board-fires-principal-and-every-teacher-at-poor-performing-high-school/1)

Current list of school districts announcing deficits for next year....

2010-02-16T10:23:00.000-08:00

Which means program cuts, school closures, and STAFFING CUTS! ($ amounts in brackets if known)
Burnaby (8 million), Boundary, Kamloops (closures), Lake Cowichan, Maple Ridge (closures), Nanaimo-Ladysmith (lay-offs), Fraser-Cascade (150,000), Port Alberni (closures), Coast Mountain, Cariboo-Chilcotin (3 million), Kootenay Lake (closures), Rossland/Trail, Peace River South, Prince Rupert, Chilliwack, Vancouver Island North, New Westminister, Abbotsford (8 million)....

This is not likely a complete list..... not a good time to be a teacher - or a student.

(list subject to errors and changes)

Gordon Campbell on merit pay

2010-02-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

(with thanks to Kip Wood in Nanaimo) Recall that Gordon Campbell talked about merit pay when he was interviewed for Teacher Magazine in 2001 before he was elected. Here's what he said:

"Our goal should be to encourage innovation and excellence among teachers because the quality of our teachers has a direct effect on student success. Generally I like the idea of merit pay, it would be dishonest for me to say I don’t. I don’t know how it works in the public education system right now. It’s not something I’m rushing around saying 'I’ve figured out how to handle merit pay.'”

Here's the link to the April 2001 Special Election Edition that included David Chudnovsky's interview with Campbell:

http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Publications/Teacher_newsmag/archive/2000-2001/2001-04-SE/index.pdf

From the Dallas Morning News:
(the same state where much of the testing paraphanalia is produced.)

Study: Texas' teacher merit pay program hasn't boosted student performance.

Nov. 4--AUSTIN -- For the $300 million spent on merit pay for teachers over the last three years, Texas was hoping for a big boost in student achievement. But it didn't happen with the now-defunct program, according to experts hired by the state.
The Texas Educator Excellence Grant, or TEEG, plan did not produce the academic improvements that proponents -- including Gov. Rick Perry -- hoped for when the program was launched with much fanfare in 2006, a new report from the National Center on Performance Incentives said. "There is no systematic evidence that TEEG had an impact on student achievement gains," said researchers for Texas A&M University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Missouri.
The researchers examined reading scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) for more than 140,000 students at schools participating in the program.
The TEEG plan, which provided incentive pay for teachers at about 1,000 campuses a year in lower-income neighbourhoods, was discontinued by the Legislature after the 2008-09 school year because of design problems.
Until the national center report, however, there had been no analysis of whether the merit pay plan was working to improve student achievement -- as shown by TAKS scores.
The researchers also found little impact on another aim of the program: reducing teacher turnover. Researchers note that in the first year of the program, teachers who received larger-than-average bonuses were less likely to leave their school. But most teachers received payments that were far less than what the state recommended.
"We're not surprised by the findings," said Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association. "We predicted the program would be a flop, and that's what it turned out to be."
Although lawmakers discontinued TEEG, they provided nearly $200 million a year for another merit pay plan that began last year -- the District Awards for Teacher Excellence, or DATE. Several North Texas districts, including Dallas, are participating in what is one of the largest merit pay plans in the nation.
But teacher groups remain skeptical of the new plan, particularly its heavy reliance on student test scores -- also a key feature of the TEEG plan. "The problem is that these tests aren't designed for this purpose," said Jennifer Canaday of the Association of Texas Professional Educators. "You can't take a snapshot of students' performance on one day and extrapolate from that whether their teacher is highly effective over the entire school year."

Mention of education in the throne speech...

2010-02-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

In this year’s Speech from the Throne there is quite a bit of attention given to education (Compared to past years). However, most of the statements are vague and make no mention of any monetary commitment.

There are some items that we will need to pay close attention to:

· “New partnerships with the private sector and parents will enable the establishment of neighbourhood preschools for four year olds and three year olds within communities over the next five years.”

· “New emphasis will be placed on parental involvement and on tailoring our education system to each child’s individual needs, interests and passions.”

· “New forms of schooling will be developed to provide greater choice and diversity, centered on students’ special interests and talents.”

· “Smarter approaches will allow more resources to be focused on students’ learning needs while less is spent on administrative costs.”

· “A new Master Teacher program will be developed.”

In addition to private preschools, there is also a reference to public-private partnerships around “education support services.”

Educator-driven blog that is well worthwhile

2010-02-09T10:12:00.000-08:00

This is out of Golden, and it is run by a colleague. This blog has lots of links to sites that cntain things you can use in your classroom.

http://www.gsstech.blogspot.com/

Alberta wage increase this year!

2010-02-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

Wage ruling costs school boards $30 million; Arbitrator hands teachers 5.99% salary increase
Calgary Herald, Thu Feb 4 2010, Section: City & Region, Byline: Sarah McGinnis [excerpts for space]

..... an arbitrator ruled Alberta teachers are owed more under a five-year agreement with the province.

.... it's unclear when the province will reimburse districts for the $23-million expense.

"I don't have the $23 million in my budget this year," Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock said Wednesday. "We went back to school boards in August to ask for some help from them. This is something I am going to have to go to Treasury Board with."

Alberta's 43,000 teachers and the province have been battling over salaries for almost a year.

According to the agreement, annual wage increases for teachers were to be tied to Alberta's average weekly earnings index. But in the spring of 2009, Statistics Canada revised how it calculates the index -- moving the figure from 4.82 to 5.99 per cent.

The difference translates into an additional $23 million in salaries this fiscal year -- or $30 million more over the 2009-10 school year.
...... the extra wages, which are retroactive to Sept. 1.
......This figure doesn't include higher teacher salaries for the remainder of this school year.

Nor does it include contracts for the CBE's non-teaching staff, which are also tied to the average weekly earnings index.
...... [Calgary] Board chairwoman Marge Belcourt said the arbitrator's decision will leave very little to cover future financial surprises, especially after the province clawed back $40 million from school boards earlier this year.
......arbitrator Andrew Sims ruled teachers were entitled to more.

"This is not a situation where the agreed upon index has ceased to exist, or has changed in a way where it purports to report on something different," Sims said in his 36-page ruling.

"I have no discretion to alter what the parties, by contract, have agreed upon," Sims added.
.......

Ministry of Education class size reports are out.

2010-02-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

(with thanks to the BCTF for the source of this article)

Administrative overview: 17% of classes have 4 ort more chldren with Special needs in them (12,000 classes). Last year there were "only" 11,000 classes with 4 or more, and the year before? 10,000 classes. You can make your own judgment over these numbers.

Click here for the report.

2009-10 CLASS SIZE REPORT (excerpts)

VICTORIA – The fifth annual report on class size and composition.... When the first class size report was released in 2005-06, there were 9,253 classes with more than 30 students. Today, that number has decreased by more than 65 per cent to 3,229.
.... For the fourth consecutive year, more than 95 per cent of classes in school districts throughout B.C. have 30 or fewer students and 99 per cent of classes have 32 or fewer students.
Other findings from the 2009-10 class size report include:
· There are 67,473 classes in B.C. public schools this year.
· As a result of 3,350 fewer students this year, there are 884 fewer classes.
· B.C. now has one of the lowest student-teacher ratios ever – 16.7 students per teacher.
· There are 541,917 FTE students in provincial public schools.
· 18 school districts had reductions in their average Grade 8-12 class size over last year.
· There are no Kindergarten classes with more than 22 students and no classes from grades 1-3 with more than 24 students.
· There are 62 more education assistants this year, bringing the total to 8,877 – up by 1,221 or almost 16 per cent since 2005-06.
· There are 16,630 classes with assigned education assistants – an increase of 279 over last year.
· 17 per cent, or 11,959 classes have four or more students entitled to an Individual Education Program.

..... The act also requires the school principal to confirm the learning situation is appropriate for all students.
....
The class size report is available online: click here

New website - finally on line!

2010-02-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Check it out at www.elkvalley.net/fdta - Remember that a website is never truly finished - they're always a work in progress.

Let us know what you think.

THIS WEEK'S HEADLINES (excerpts)

2010-01-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

CLASS-SIZE AND COMPOSITION WIN

Arbitrator James Dorsey has ruled that teachers of classes included in the 2006-08 class-size composition grievances should be compensated through the provision of release time to 20 teachers whose classes were found to be in breach of the legislation governing class size and composition.

Violations of process, as well as limits, were identified in his ruling, and underfunding was dismissed as an excuse for not following process or meeting the limits.

The BCTF will now proceed with preparations for resolution of the remaining 2006-08 grievances and going forward with those for 2008-09 and 2009-10.

*****

THE FSA SEASON

An agreement has been reached between the BCTF and the employer (BCPSEA) on the distribution of FSA materials by teachers to parents. The agreement states that teachers and locals can send home three pamphlets informing parents of BCTF concerns and positions on the FSA and provincial testing.

To view the pamphlets, go to the BCTF home page and the first news item has the links: www.bctf.ca

*****

FEWER STUDENTS WRITE THE FSAS

Participation rates for the FSA dropped in 2008-09.

To view the latest FSA statistics, go to the ministry website at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/assessment/fsa/welcome.htm

*****

EMERGING DIFFICULTIES WITH THE COLLEGE

Recent meetings between the BCTF and the BC College of Teachers (BCCT) have highlighted some developing issues that are of increasing concern.

Topping the list is a move to change the college constitution, processes, and procedures, and pressure government to change the Teaching Profession Act in order to secure what it views as further independence by precluding the BCTF from endorsing candidates and restricting communication between college councillors and members on college issues.

Despite having a surplus of close to $2 million, the college is considering a proposal for a significant fee increase for additional staff and the purchase of a new building.

*****

YET ANOTHER DOWNLOAD

The provincial government has yet again thrown a wrench into school board budgets with another funding cut. This time it is to money used for covering the real cost of teacher salaries in a district. The "salary differential" as it is known, provides for the fact that districts have different teacher salary costs depending on how many younger (cheaper) and older (more expensive) teachers are employed. The impact of the salary differential is that a board can hire a teacher without basing their decision primarily on the cost of the teacher.

*****

A LIVING WAGE FOR FAMILIES

Closely related to the prevalence of poverty is the persistence of the provincial government in holding the minimum wage at $8 per hour. Although a relatively small group of employees are affected, a much larger group is earning less than $10 an hour. How can anyone be expected to support themselves, much less a family on such paltry earnings?

Access to a bare-bones existence has been calculated to require close to $17 an hour in metropolitan areas such as Victoria and Vancouver. There are only minor variations for other areas of the province.

The frustration of working harder only to fall further behind is one many Canadians can relate to. Recent research by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that most families are taking home a smaller share of the economic pie despite working longer hours, getting more education, and contributing to what was, until recently, a growing economy.

http://livingwageforfamilies.ca

Australian teachers to boycott school tests in protest (English News Service, Tue Jan 19 2010)

2010-01-19T09:45:00.000-08:00

Australian public school teachers voted on Tuesday to boycott national literacy and numeracy tests unless the government changes its plans to publish the results online.

Australian Education Minister Julia Gillard is refusing to back away from the government's plans and has not ruled out taking action against the union under industrial relations laws if it bans the tests.

At the Australian Education Union's annual federal conference, delegates voted not to cooperate with implementing the next round of NAPLAN tests in May.

The Australian federal government wants to publish the results on its My Schools website live from next week in order to rank the performance of schools around the country.

The union's federal President Angelo Gavrielatos said the boycott aims to protect disadvantaged students and schools from the "damaging effects" of the rankings.

"Schools in disadvantaged areas will be publicly branded as failing schools."

"That unfair branding has a damaging impact on students, teachers and parents and makes the job of addressing disadvantage much harder." he said.

However, Gillard denied the website will create a league table and said the government will not change its mind.

"I want to make very clear my determination, these transparency measures will go ahead," she said.

"Banning national testing would be bad for students, bad for parents and bad for the future of education in this country."

Staffing stats.... we need more supervision !

2010-01-18T08:10:00.000-08:00

From the ministry of education (March 2009 Students Statistics, 2004/5 - 2008/9: District 005)...

Topic [04-05] [08-09]

# students [6064] [5543]

FTE [5814.1] [5398.8]

non-resident students [5] [58]

FTE [4.5] [57.9]

Spec Ed. [654] [578]

Educators (#) [330] [329]

Educators (FTE) [302.8] [305.5]

P/VP/District admin (#) [30] [34]

P/VP/District admin (FTE) [29.5] [33.1]

Humm, the number of children we teach is down 7% since 2004/5, the number of educators, is up nearly 1%, and the number of principals/ vice-principals and district admin is up 12% (comparing FTEs).... gee the growth seems to be in the area of supervision and accountability paper shuffling, not teaching!

Teachers awarded up to nine extra paid days off; Four districts ignored ministry rules on class sizes and special-needs kids, arbitrator rules

2010-01-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

(Vancouver Sun, Tue Jan 12 2010, Janet Steffenhagen)

School districts that were found to have violated B.C. law about class size and composition in 2006-07 and 2007-08 have been ordered to compensate teachers by giving them paid days off.

In a ruling released Monday, arbitrator James Dorsey said teachers deserve compensation because they carried the burden when districts ignored the rules in creating classes with more than 30 students and/or more than three pupils with special needs.

He ordered Vancouver, Saanich, Qualicum and Coast Mountains to grant release time, or pay in lieu, ranging from one day to nine days, to 21 teachers.

Although the ruling deals with only a small number of complaints, the B.C. Teachers' Federation said it is significant because it will be used to settle thousands of similar grievances filed against other districts that the union says have flouted class size and composition rules since they were introduced in 2006 as Bill 33.

"This is a win for teachers, classrooms and learning conditions in schools," BCTF vice-president Susan Lambert said in an interview. "What Dorsey is saying is that boards will be held accountable for the legislative limits in Bill 33."

Dorsey also signalled that tight budgets can't be used as an excuse to skirt the rules.

The B.C. Public School Employers' Association, which represents boards of education in labour matters, said the decision provides guidance about redress and will be discussed next week when the parties meet to consider the remaining grievances.

The association also noted in a statement to members that it wasn't a full win for the BCTF because Dorsey didn't back the union's request for compensation for its locals.

Dorsey's ruling followed 54 days of hearings on a few dozen cases that were considered representative of the larger issue in 2006-07 and 2007-08. Since then, the union has filed blanket grievances for 2008-09 and 2009-10.

Lambert said the time and money required to resolve the grievances show the dysfunction of Bill 33. She predicted hundreds of other teachers will also be given compensation as remaining disputes are settled.

In his 74-page decision, Dorsey said teachers have a right to expect to be assigned to a class that meets class size and composition standards.

When the rules are not followed, "the burden of the breach is primarily borne by the teacher(s) of the class, not the principal, superintendent, trustees or even individual students," he says.

If there isn't enough money to meet Bill 33 standards, the government should retract them and "explain to parents and teachers why the standards are no longer desirable or achievable," the ruling states.

The BCTF has been protesting classes that are too large and contain too many unsupported special-needs children since 2002, when the government stripped the union of its ability to negotiate caps at the bargaining table.

That resulted in an increase in class size and composition complaints, which helped fuel a 10-day teacher strike in 2005. To ease the problem, the Liberals introduced Bill 33, which set a limit of 30 students in Grades 4-12 but allowed classes to exceed that maximum if the superintendent and principal agreed it would not hurt learning conditions.

Teacher approval is required for larger classes for Grades 4-7 but not for secondary school.

School Districts with money woes.....

2010-01-07T09:06:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd do a quick list of School Districts that have been in the news because of current or pending money shortfalls (including declining enrollment), but the list got too long. See the newsletter for details....

Burnaby, Boundary (SD20), Kamloops, Lake Cowichan, Maple Ridge, Langley, Nanaimo, Fraser-Cascade, Port Alberni, Terrace/Smithers, Cariboo-Chilcotin, Rossland/Trail, Peace River South......

and there are more!

and everyone is talking about the costs associated with all-day Kindergarten.....

Deal lets teachers send anti-test pamphlets home with students; Compromise over controversial FSA exams avoids arbitration

2010-01-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

from the Vancouver Sun, Tue Dec 22 2009 (Westcoast News), Janet Steffenhagen

A campaign against standardized tests in B.C. public schools is expected to intensify in January as a result of a deal between the B.C. Teachers' Federation and school employers that allows teachers to send three union pamphlets home with students and hand them to parents on school grounds.

The agreement marks a surprising compromise between two parties that have been feuding for years over what union materials teachers are allowed to distribute. That battle heats up around this time of the year in the lead-up to the annual Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA), which tests Grade 4 and 7 students in reading, writing and math.

Those tests are scheduled for Jan. 18 to Feb. 26.

"Common sense prevailed," BCTF vice-president Susan Lambert said of the deal with the B.C. Public School Employers' Association. The deal lasts for one year and effectively ends eight union grievances against districts that had tried recently to stop teachers from disseminating BCTF materials because of alleged inaccuracies.

"I think the process of going to fruitless arbitration and losing . . . over and over again was too costly for them," she added.

The employers' association, which represents boards of education in labour matters, described the agreement as a practical solution to eliminate conflict in districts and end the grievances. "It's an attempt to formalize what the rules are," said chief executive officer Hugh Finlayson, noting there have been many years of litigation over the issue.

Approved for distribution are pamphlets titled What Parents Need to Know, What Parents Need to Know: Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) and Testing? You Bet. Teachers will now decide if they want to distribute them or send them home with students in the required sealed envelopes.

The pamphlets argue that standardized tests force teachers to narrow instruction and "teach to the test," cause anxiety for students and do little to improve achievement. But the main reason the union objects to the FSA is because the results are used by the Fraser Institute every year to rank elementary schools.

The Education Ministry insists the tests are not optional. But the BCTF campaign has drawn down participation rates in recent years -- especially in Vancouver, where one in three students did not write the FSA last year.

The BCTF plans to extend its anti-FSA message in early 2010 with newspaper and radio advertisements in Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin for the first time in order to reach ethnic groups that are believed to be more supportive of standardized tests.

Arbitrators have ruled that teachers have a right to engage in political discussions with parents on educational issues. Lambert said they also have a responsibility to inform parents of their professional concerns about testing.

The BCTF is calling for a two-year moratorium on the FSA and provincial exams to allow stakeholders to discuss better ways of assessment and accountability.

Government cancels literacy grant for schools

2010-01-04T07:59:00.000-08:00

from the Vancouver Sun, Fri Dec 18 2009, Janet Steffenhagen.

B.C. schools have lost another government grant.

Vancouver district officials say they were told last week the Education Ministry has cancelled the literacy innovation grant, which contributed $204,000 to Vancouver schools and $5 million to schools provincewide.

"These funds have provided direct staffing support to some of our most vulnerable schools to support the district's focus on literacy," Vancouver's management team said in a report to school trustees. Just last spring, the ministry told managers the grant was safe, the report says. The grant is one of several cancelled this fall.

BCeSIS

2009-12-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

From the Superintendent's report to the Board of School Trustees (December 8th, 2009).

$3,000 = amount spent on training new teachers since September (9.6 days)
4 after school sessions (2 in Fernie, 2 in Parkland) for previously trained teachers wishing refresher time. (37 teachers have taken part)
Similar sessions in February
Marks program costs in 2004 (various providers) $24,549 plus support/up-grades, etc.
Report Writer = $1,500 / year
BCeSIS costs $10 per FTE, or approximately $52,000 including upgrades per year.

School Twinning with a School in Namibia

2009-12-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

Imagine a classroom where the students sit on a log from a lack of chairs and write using their thighs for support of a notebook. This is the situation of the Omutwewomhedi Primary School (Grades 1 to 7) in the north of Namibia.

Namibia has made significant improvements since it became independent from South Africa in 1989. However, it still has serious problems, some of them carryovers from the apartheid system of segregation imposed by South Africa.

Many of the improvements have been uneven. New facilities in the urban areas are considerably better than those in rural areas. The Omutwewomhedhi school is in one of the isolated rural schools.

Most of the classrooms are still made of sticks with a thatch roof. It is too isolated to have electricity. Some students walk up to 10 km to get to school and many are orphans in a country with high rates of HIV/AIDS.

This school is looking for a twin (or twins) that can help with improving the material resources of the school and make a connection with the students.

If you are interested, you can get more information from Larry Kuehn (lkuehn@bctf.ca).

Online Wellness newsletter - check it out!

2009-12-10T07:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome to WELL. Its main goal is a commitment to helping you become well. Wellness, in all its different forms, is a complex topic but at the end of the day we want to be able to join with you, our readers, and say, “Life may not always be easy but it is good and I am joyful in spite of my circumstances, not because of them."

CLICK THIS LINK TO GO TO THIS ISSUE

http://m1e.net/c?80773648-HmBqsMwbyk/TA%404860684-pbVN7jGCptCvM

To subscribe:
http://www.mailermailer.com/x?oid=1006586z

Their address:
1110 Maple Road | North Saanich, British Columbia | Canada | V8L 5P5

Health and wellness course....

2009-12-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

The Living With Balance program information can now be found on the BCTF website here:

http://www.bctf.ca/SalaryAndBenefits.aspx?id=20266

There is a link to a current schedule of courses booked for January, an online application, as well as the ability to download a print application.

Superintendent Salaries

2009-12-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Ministry is required to disclose all salaries over $125,000. Can you say "superintendent salaries"?

The district reports are located here (http://www.aved.gov.bc.c/psec/disclosure.htm#education)

Janet Steffenhagen references this data on her blog.

Bills 27 and 38 update - our Collective Agreement!

2009-12-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

On the morning of Dec ember 3rd, 2009, lawyers for BCTF and Government appeared in BC Supreme Court before Chief Justice Robert J. Bauman for a case management meeting regarding the BCTF Charter Challenge to Bill 27 - Education Services Collective Agreement Act and Bill 28 - Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act - legislation in 2002 that imposed a collective agreement, stripped that agreement of crucial learning and working conditions provisions and severely restricted the scope of bargaining.

The purpose of the appearance was to determine the schedule for exchange of documents, written argument and reply. As well, court dates to actually hear the case were established.

The schedule, as it now stands, is as follows:

· January 29, 2010 - BCTF affidavit evidence to be finalized and submitted.

· February 28, 2010 – Government affidavit evidence to be finalized and submitted.

· March 31, 2010 – BCTF reply to affidavit evidence of Government.

· April 30, 2010 – BCTF written argument submitted.

· May 14, 2010 – Government written argument submitted.

· May 28, 2010 – BCTF reply to written argument of Government.

· June 14 – 18, 2010 – Court dates. (five days currently scheduled).

Required H1N1 Exposure Control Plans

2009-11-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

All districts and all schools in the province are required to have current and effective Exposure Control Plans (ECP) in place, particularly in light of the H1N1 pandemic. BCPSEA has given direction to school boards regarding what is required by the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.

For an ECP to be considered effective:
· The ECP must be written and available for review;
· The ECP must be distributed to all staff;
· The ECP must be communicated to all staff;
· Staff must be trained on the requirements and procedures of the ECP; and
· The employer must ensure the ECP is functioning as intended.

The plan has been updated to reflect the current understanding of H1N1 and recommendations by WorkSafeBC.

Facts About H1N1 Influenza

Symptoms
Seasonal flu affects people to varying degrees, with symptoms including headache, fever, fatigue, sore throat, and runny nose. In some cases, secondary infections such as pneumonia may develop. Symptoms of H1N1 influenza are likely to include high fever (higher than 38°C) and a cough.

Transmission

The BC Centre for Disease Control advises that influenza is communicable for 24 hours before the onset of symptoms and 3–5 days afterward (this may be longer in some children and some adults). H1N1 influenza is spread in the same way that seasonal influenza is spread.

Responsibilities (Staff and Students)

Stay home when you’re sick or have influenza symptoms.

Avoid close contact with people who are sick. If you are sick, keep your distance from others to protect them from getting sick.

Wash your hands.

Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth.

Practice other good health habits. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage stress, drink plenty of fluids, eat nutritious foods, and avoid smoking, which may increase the risk of serious consequences if you do contract the flu.

If you have an influenza-like illness, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them. See a health care provider if your symptoms become worse but call ahead of time to let them know you have an influenza-like illness.

If Staff or Students Show Symptoms of Influenza

If staff or students are ill with influenza, they should stay home. If they develop symptoms of influenza while at school or work, they should leave the school or workplace. Schools should promptly isolate students or staff who become ill with symptoms of influenza while in school in a room/area separate from others with adequate supervision until they can go home.

Schools will follow the protocols in place to notify parents/guardians if their child becomes ill with influenza while at school.

Children who become ill with influenza while at school will be sent home with their parent or guardian and not travel on school buses. If there is no other option and the child must ride a school bus, it is recommended that staff ensure the child sits on a seat by themselves and is able to cover their mouth and nose with a tissue.

Staff and students should only return to school or the workplace once they have recovered from influenza and no longer show symptoms. Staff should inform their manager or supervisor if they are ill with influenza.

Health Monitoring

Staff will promptly report any symptoms of the H1N1 influenza to their manager/supervisor and the first aid attendant.

Private control of water....

2009-11-23T13:03:00.000-08:00

FLOW: For Love of Water is a new documentary that takes on the global water crisis. (FLOW stands for “For Love of Water.”)

http://www.agreenerindiana.com/video/flow-for-love-of-water

The movie looks at the real costs of bottled water (and the disclosure that a good portion of bottled water is nothing more than TAP WATER).... and how the public access to water is being controlled more and more by private-for-profit companies like Coke and Pepsi.

Ity is more than well worth watching - and showing your students too!

Excerpts from the interview about the movie:
"IRENA SALINA: FLOW. FLOW is a journey. .... “Who owns water?” .... is water going to be the next oil of the twenty-first century? ..... I ... started exploring pollution, the have and the have-not, who owns water around the world, and as well as what I called transparent pollution, which is things in our water that we absolutely have no idea about it, ....."

"MAUDE BARLOW: ...at the recent Olympics ... in China. Coca-Cola was one of the official sponsors, and you couldn’t bring water, even your own bottled water, in. You had to only—you could only get Coca-Cola water. I would love to know how many bottles of Coke water were thrown away and to add to the pollution in China.

You know, this is part of what I call the movement towards creating a global cartel of water, kind of like we have a global cartel of energy, where, you know, the day may come ... that every drop of water will be spoken for privately by a corporation, whether it’s bottled water, utilities, you know, the service of, delivery of your water, recycling, desalination ... At every phase, water will be corporately owned, because we are a planet running out of fresh, clean water, ....

And if we don’t understand this really soon, we’re going to find that corporations understand it much better than we do. They’re moving in to take control of water. .... Bottled water is where they’re both [Coke and Pepsi] making money now, because there’s a real move by parents in schools against sugar water—you know, pop—and so, they’re saying, OK, well, then the new beverage of choice is bottled water. .... Last year, we put something like 50 billion gallons of water in plastic bottles around the world. Almost all of it, all but about five percent, did not get recycled around the world. ...

...first of all, it’s the corporate takeover of water, and it makes people think that what comes out of their tap doesn’t matter. So you’re not going to be prepared to keep your taxes going for infrastructure repair. And that’s the most important thing, is clean, accessible, safe public water.

Secondly, it’s polluting. Massive amounts of plastic, massive amounts of energy used in the creation and transportation of bottled water, CO2 emissions. And it’s also quite poisonous. I mean, the plastic itself leaks chemicals. People say to me, “Well, I got a great deal at Wal-Mart on my water.” “Why do you think you got a great deal? It’s been sitting there for six months. You should not be drinking it.” ... it’s unregulated. And it’s less safe than your good, clean, safe tap water, which is what needs to be the goal here."

Retiring in December 2009?

2009-11-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

All Teachers’ Pension Plan members whose pensions take effect in December 2009. Normally, pension payments are made at the end of each month, but in December this year payments will be processed earlier because of the timing of statutory holidays.

Payments to plan members whose pensions become effective on December 1 this year will be paid on December 23. Therefore, we must receive these members’ completed retirement forms no later than December 14 to allow us time to process their pension payments by December 23. If we receive members’ completed forms after December 14, their first pension payment will be in January at the earliest.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Teachers’ Pension Plan by e-mail at TPP@pensionsbc.ca or by phone at one of the following numbers: 250 953-3022 (in Victoria), 604 660-4088 (in Vancouver) or 1 800 665-6770 (in the rest of BC).

Employee Family Assistance Program news!

2009-11-03T09:57:00.000-08:00

Our Cranbrook-based EFAP provider and the FDTA have reached an agreement whereby they will have access to the FDTA back office (on a confidential basis of course) in order to have a place in the Valley to meet with clients in a quiet confidential setting.

You still need to contact the service provider @ 250-417-7296. Now, you don't have to travel to Cranbrook!

How much goes to legal fees?

2009-10-28T09:57:00.000-07:00

Janet Steffenhagen’s blog talks about how much money school boards spend on legal fees. SD5 is mentioned (Southeast Kootenay, $71,555)!
So, go to her blog and read about school district payments to Harris & Co. You might find it interesting: http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/reportcard/archive/2009/10/27/school-districts-and-the-money-spent-on-harris-amp-co.aspx.

Someone to watch out for?

2009-10-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have never done this before. What if I don't do anything and something happens?

The FDTA office received a fax from the Elk Valley Animal Clinic's fax number.

The fax was a document from the State of Florida's sex offender watch list.

The fax I received states that this man is currently in Fernie, and planning to stay here for the winter season.

Here is the link to the profile that was faxed to this office this morning.

Since it is from a public website, there should not be any issue of privacy. Having said that, this is for member information only.

Influenza A (H1N1): What you need to know...

2009-10-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

October 2009 (thanks to SD6 for this)

• Know Your Level of Risk
• Will Schools Be Closed?
• Protect Yourself and Others
• Know Your Rights to Safe Work

Teachers are expressing concern about the coming flu season and, in particular, the threat of an Influenza A pandemic. Influenza A is a group of influenza viruses including H1N1 and Avian Flu, to name two of the more concerning strains.

This is a somewhat detailed document. However it is not possible to cover all scenarios and situations.
.....

Know Your Level of Risk

Teachers must judge their own vulnerability, and talk to their doctors now about a plan if they have concerns.

There are two specific groups who are at a higher level of risk: people with compromised immune systems and women who are pregnant. If you are at a higher level of risk, make an appointment to see your doctor and, if your doctor believes that you should not be exposed to influenza, get a note to make your administrator aware. Copy the note to [the union] office.

Ask your administrator if there are confirmed cases of Influenza A at your worksite. If so, you have the option of asking for an accommodation to work at another site, or requesting a medical leave until you have been vaccinated.

Teachers teaching on call who are at a higher risk should also seek medical advice and, if your doctor believes that you should not be exposed, ask for a note to have on hand should you be working at a site with reported cases of influenza. TOCs who are at higher risk should ask about numbers of confirmed cases at the school site to which they are being called.

For some, this plan may include refusal of unsafe work as soon as Influenza A is suspected in a school, not when the teacher becomes symptomatic. The union will support this process, which is explained more fully in a following section.
....

Protect Yourself and Others

• Get reliable information on dealing with influenza (www.fightflu.ca for example).
• If you are sick, stay home!

Know Your Rights to Safe Work

The Workers’ Compensation Board (also known as WCB and “WorkSafe BC”) has an Occupational Health and Safety Regulation (3.12.1) that governs unsafe work. It says:

“A person must not carry out or cause to be carried out any work process or operate or cause to be operated any tool, appliance, or equipment if that person has reasonable cause to believe that to do so would create an undue hazard to the health and safety of any person.”

This means that any worker has the right to refuse unsafe work under these terms.

However, keep in mind that the final decision will be made by a WCB Prevention Officer. These officers will treat Influenza A or any communicable disease as one that is a “community spread and acquired infection”. Their interpretation is that, even though schools are identified as “amplification points” for community borne illnesses, you have as much chance of picking up the virus at the grocery store, movie theatre, or from other members of your family as you do at work.

There is no reason that a member cannot exercise this right as each decision is done on a case by case basis. Workers exercising these rights are not subject to discipline during any investigation by WCB. Once a Prevention Officer has made a decision, though, the worker and employer must comply with any order issued.

In summary, members have the right to refuse unsafe work. However we cannot predict any outcomes of exercising this right as WCB Prevention Officers may view Influenza A as a community and not a workplace infection.

Pension contribution rates to increase

2009-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

It is official! You will be paying more into your pension plan as of July 1st, 2010.

From the TPP website under "whats new" (http://www.pensionsbc.ca):

(excerpts)

Teachers’ Pension Plan member and employer contribution rates will each increase by 1.04 per cent of salary starting July 1, 2010. The Teachers’ Pension Board of Trustees approved this contribution increase after receiving an independent actuarial valuation showing the plan had an unfunded liability for basic pension benefits of $291 million on December 31, 2008......

The primary reasons for the 2008 unfunded liability of $291 million are the assumption of conservative future investment returns, an expectation of a longer life span for our retirees, and salary increases for our members that were higher than previously expected.
....

The new contribution rates (as a percentage of salary):

Member 10.20% (below YMPE), 11.70% (above YMPE)

Employer 13.33 % (below (YMPE) 14.83 % (above YMPE)

* The YMPE is the Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings for the Canada Pension Plan. The YMPE for 2009 is $46,300.

Complete purchases of service before July 1, 2010 to save Purchase of service costs are based on salary and contribution rates. For more information about purchasing service, please see the plan’s website at tpp.pensionsbc.ca.

From the Vancouver sun - can you believe this?

2009-10-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Teachers urged to critique Games; Vancouver BCTF local promotes event called Teaching 2010 Resistance. Vancouver Sun, Thu Oct 15 2009 . Janet Steffenhagen

B.C. teachers are being urged to expand their lessons about the 2010 Olympics beyond government-approved curriculum to teach students about corporate greed, exploitation, misuse of public funds and environmental degradation.

The Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association (VESTA) is promoting an event later this month called Teaching 2010 Resistance, which is intended to help teachers raise critical questions about the Olympics.

The event, at Lord Strathmore elementary, is being organized by the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN), which is coordinating anti-Olympic efforts, and Teach 2010, a website that encourages teachers to share resources critical of the Olympics.

The groups say the Games are more than a sporting event.

"The Olympics are not about the human spirit and have little to do with athletic excellence," ORN says on its website. "They are a multi-billion-dollar industry backed by real estate, construction, hotel, tourism and media corporations, and powerful elites working hand in hand with government officials and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)."

VESTA past-president Glen Hansman said his union isn't affiliated with ORN and hasn't taken a position on the Olympics but agreed to advertise the event knowing that teachers have been involved in developing some of the resources. He said the event will be an opportunity for teachers to discuss the Olympics from a different perspective -- considering issues such as homelessness, poverty and the government's decision to spend $500,000 on its 2010 curriculum while also cutting grants for arts groups, school sports programs and school districts.

"I'm glad that there's a group of teachers and community activists who are trying to come up with some [additional] materials that might be useful in a classroom setting," he said in an interview Wednesday.

Patti Bacchus, chair of the Vancouver board of education, said she hopes teachers will take a critical look at the Games and delve into issues such as doping, corporate sponsorship and Olympic-inspired public investments.

Just last week, the Vancouver board discussed the importance of Olympics education rather than boosterism, she said, and decided if students are going to be involved in events, "there has to be an educational component -- it can't just be to provide a cheering section."

Bacchus wouldn't comment on the union's promotion of Teaching 2010 Resistance, saying that's not the board's business. "What they [teachers] do in our classrooms certainly is our business and at this point I've had nothing to indicate they wouldn't do anything but behave as responsible professionals."

Hansman said teachers -- like members of the public -- have mixed views about the Olympics. "Some are very keen on the Olympics being here and the educational opportunities that will create. We have other members who are really concerned about the Olympics . . . and will use this as an educational experience to do some of the critical thinking."

The B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) said it has not taken a position on the Games and is not supporting either pro or anti groups. Unlike its Vancouver local, the BCTF is not promoting the Teaching 2010 Resistance event.

Asked for her response, Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid issued a statement: "Freedom of Speech is a fundamental underpinning of our nation and everyone has the right to voice their opinion -- even about the 2010 Winter Games."

New info on BCTF website!

2009-10-01T16:00:00.001-07:00

Have your say on your pension!
Full indexing of your pension is not guaranteed. Decisions will be made after plan members are consulted. Over the next two months, the BCTF is looking for input from you, members of the pension plan, to give the Teachers’ Pension Board of Trustees feedback on options that meet the financial needs of both active and retired members of the pension plan. Complete the online survey and read the supporting documents.
http://www.bctf.ca/SalaryAndBenefits.aspx?id=19748

The BCTF Task Force on TTOC Work in BC is seeking submissions from BCTF members.
Referenced on: http://www.bctf.ca/OpportunitiesForMembers.aspx
http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Public/Opportunities/TTOC-call.pdf

Status of Women web page – revised!
The BCTF Status of Women Action Group has developed the content for our revised status of women web page. It includes lesson plans, resources, workshops, and advocacy.
http://www.bctf.ca/SocialJustice.aspx?id=6282

Wal-Mart breaks the labour code?

2009-10-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart's closing of unionized store breached Labour Code, arbitrator finds

By closing its first unionized outlet in North America in 2005 and throwing some 190 employees out of work less than a year after union certification was granted and before a first contract could be achieved, U.S.-based retail giant Wal-Mart violated a prohibition in the Quebec Labour Code against changing "the conditions of employment" of employees after an application for certification had been filed, a Quebec arbitrator has found. The arbitrator held that it did not suffice for Wal-Mart to invoke unspecified "business reasons" for the store closing and the resulting layoffs, without explaining satisfactorily what those reasons were.

The rest of this report is available at: http://www.lancasterhouse.com/

World Teacher's Day - October 5th

2009-10-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

The joy of teaching, Lake Country Calendar, Tue Sep 29 2009. (Jim Taylor)

Next Monday, October 5, will be World Teachers' Day.

The United Nations launched the first World Teachers' Day October 5, 1994. It has been largely ignored on the same date every year since then.

And that's tragic. Because if our worldwide civilizations are ever going to drag themselves out of the slough of ignorance, prejudice, bigotry, and general incompetence they're mired in, it will only be through education.

The most stupid thing the Campbell government in B.C. has done, in my opinion, was to pinch pennies on education funding. A school, remarked author Lon Watters, "is a building that has four walls, with tomorrow inside."

Or as business consultant Andy McIntyre put it, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!"

(Confession: I filched several of these quotations from Education International, a federation representing 30 million teachers in 172 countries and territories.)

In the explosion of knowledge that has come in the last century, we are increasingly dependent on teachers. Few parents can adequately prepare their children for the modern world. The best that we parents, and grandparents, can do is to foster an attitude towards this mushroom cloud of information. But teaching how to make sense of that cloud, how to sift relevant information from irrelevant, requires professional skills.

Author John Holt - ironically, a proponent of home schooling - commented, "Since we can't know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned."

Good teachers instill that love of learning. Bad teachers destroy it. I'm astonished how many people tell me they can't sing, because their Grade One teacher told them to stand at the back and just move their mouths.

They also learn not to raise their hands, not to volunteer, for fear of ridicule - either from the teacher directly, or indirectly from classmates.

Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton has been often ridiculed for opening a novel with the cliché, "It was a dark and stormy night..." But he suggests wisely, "The best teacher is the one who inspires a listener with the wish to teach himself."

Bad teachers tend to value order and discipline, believing themselves to be in control. Mark Twain famously described a classroom as "trying to hold 35 corks under water at the same time."

Good teachers, on the other hand, revel in the chaos that often accompanies spontaneous discovery.

I know I'm coming close to treading on a landmine here, but our current pre- occupation with healthcare strikes me as a lesser concern. As American educator Ernest Leroy Boyer noted, "A poor surgeon hurts one person at a time. A poor teacher hurts thirty."

One final quotation, this one from Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, The Third Wave, and Powershift: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

Recruitment and Retention Allowance 2010

2009-09-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Members, a friendly reminder that the recruitment and retention allowance has increased for 2009-2010 by 2.5% (as per Provincial CA Article B.1.2.g). The new allowance for this school year will be $2255.

This applies to all teachers in the Elk Valley/South Country.

On your September pay stub, the amount for September should be 10% of this ($225.50) Please check your stub, and if there is a mistake, copy the stub and give it to your staff rep., who will then contact me.

Pension Workshop - Indexing is not guaranteed!

2009-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Your pension has the potential to be your greatest financial asset. It will be the major part of your income when you retire. Its spending power through full indexing is not guaranteed. Indexing is an increase applied to pensions to try and maintain the spending power of the pension over time.

Within the next year, the Teachers’ Pension Board of Trustees is making decisions that will allow your pension plan to maintain some measure of indexing into the future. The BCTF is looking for input from you, members of the pension plan, to give the Teachers’ Pension Board of Trustees feedback on options that meet the financial needs of both active and retired members of the pension plan.

Where: Fernie Secondary School library
When: October 26th, 4:30 PM
Who should be attending: Any member of the Teachers’ Pension Plan
Why: To find out why full indexing is not guaranteed for the future and what options may be available to sustain some measure of indexing.

Your opinion is crucial. Your voice is important. Please take the time to attend the meeting.

BCTF 2009-10 Member's Guide is now online

2009-09-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

The 2009-10 Members’ Guide to the BCTF is now online at http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/public/AboutUs/MembersGuide/guide.pdf and accessible from http://www.bctf.ca/AboutUs.aspx?id=4298.

The online version differs a bit from the hard copy. Policy 10.J.04 incorrectly stated that the local minimum fee for 2009-10 is $340, but it was actually changed to $350 (Jan 09 RA).

Education Minister's words on her cuts...

2009-09-16T08:51:00.000-07:00

September 14th's Question Period was devoted entirely to questions about cuts associated with BC public schools.

Watch these two clips with Margaret MacDiarmond attempting to defend her government's cuts to Parent Advisory Councils:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axBTkLkmZco

and to BC School Sports:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCnjBfNjBbU

(if you watch closely, you'll see Bill Bennett's face in the background!)

Bill 33 ruling, and the highlights of the latest BCPSEA response...

2009-09-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

(dated September 11th, 2009)

" What is Relevant? Arbitrator Dorsey has indicated that it is the principal’s responsibility to determine what information is relevant. However, Arbitrator Dorsey has ruled that the relevant documents would include:
1. The class list with the identification of students with an IEP
2. Copy of the most recent IEP if it has not already been distributed to the teacher earlier in the current school year.
3. Any other documents that the principal deems to be relevant to his/her proposal for the size and organization of the class.

As noted above, to date no further arbitrable guidance or rulings have been issued that would describe what other, if any, documents would be deemed relevant by the principal. Principals need to determine at the school level which documents and information they feel are relevant to their proposal on an individual class by class basis. If applicable, and not already provided to the teacher earlier in the school year, there should be strong consideration given to the inclusion of student safety and behaviour plans (especially if not detailed in the IEP), and student transition documents prepared by the previous years teacher(s). The principal must also include copies of any additional documents or information that the principal feels is relevant in their initial proposal for the size and organization of the class. This must be considered within the context of each individual class situation. "

I would like to point out this passage from above:

"there should be strong consideration given to the inclusion of student safety and behaviour plans (especially if not detailed in the IEP), and student transition documents prepared by the previous years teacher(s)."

NEXT:
" Clarification: Where the teachers of a single class and the principal agree, a joint consultation involving these teachers and the principal may occur. This does not preclude any teacher of that class from opting for an individual consultation instead. "

NEXT:
" Clarification: While it was acknowledged that, subject to any collective agreement language, there is no requirement under Bill 33 to provide paid release time for attending or preparing for the consultation, the BCTF felt that these guidelines promoted districts scheduling consultations during lunch and recess. It is recommended that consultations only occur during times of the day that permit adequate time for discussion. "

Bill 33 ruling on the provision of relevant materials

2009-09-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hot off the press from the 28 page ruling that came out today.... and since it is a public document...

Numbers in [square brackets] are the paragraphs from the ruling.

[9] During the legislative debates, concerns were raised about the nature, scope and content of the required consultations that will most frequently have to happen in September, one of the busiest times in the school year. The Minister said the principle was that there is to be consultation about class organization .... The Minister was unequivocal that the expectation and best practice was a conversation between principals and teachers. They meet and talk to each other about the best way possible to meet the students’ needs.

[24] BCPSEA is not a partner organization of the Learning Roundtable, but is responsible to advise its board of education employer members on the implementation of the new regulation.

[69] The striking feature of the definition is that it addresses what principals must do for teachers. They must provide information. They must provide time to consider the information before engaging teachers in consultation. They must consider any teachers’ views that are provided.

[70] Principals must provide “information relevant to a proposal for the size and organization of the class.” This suggests there was a concern with the quality or accessibility of the information base on which principal-teacher consultation dialogues were taking place.

[71] Principals must provide the information at a time that gives teachers two school days to consider the proposal for the size and organization of the class and to provide their views to the principal “before a decision is made respecting the size and organization of the class.”

[73] This context suggests the concern was not with the teacher knowing the proposed size and organization of the class or the names of the students in the class, which might be known as early as June, but with ensuring teachers have adequate access to information and time to reflect before being asked to articulate their views on the proposal. An unprepared consultation can be a hurried consultation that leaves teachers being consulted deciding it was neither a genuine opportunity to express their views nor a sincere effort to seek their views. Conversely, it can be an unfocused, inefficient, perhaps prolonged, search for accurate information that is not productive for either the principal or the teacher. In either scenario, it can be correctly characterized as futile or meaningless .

[74] Principals must consider teachers’ views in making a final decision about the organization of the classes. This reassures teachers their participation and expression of views will be considered.

[84] The requirement for “provision” in the definition of “consult” has two applications. One is to make available to teachers two school days for consideration of proposals for the size and organization of classes and the information relevant to the proposals. The application of “provision” in this context is scheduling, unlike the outcome in British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association [2007] B.C.C.A.A.A. No. 60 (Kinzie) (QL). An integral part of this “provision” is that teachers actually have the relevant information for at least two school days and do not have to spend those days seeking access to the information.

[85] This requirement might be recognition of the many demands on teachers’ time in the first weeks of the school year for individual and collaborative activities. At the same time, it places another burden on principals who must manage the process and have equal or greater demands on their time.

[89] BCPSEA is not correct in advising that instructing teachers how to access relevant information about individual students and having the teachers seek out and perhaps compete with colleagues and administrators for access to that information, with or without the assistance of non-enrolling colleagues who likely have ongoing student service and teacher responsibilities away from their offices or classrooms, is meeting the responsibility to make provision of information relevant to a proposal for the size and organization of the class.

[90] This approach, in effect, continues the status quo before the regulatory amendment and is not consistent with remedying a mischief or establishing a consistent consultation practice as was intended by making the regulatory amendment. Nor is it consistent with effective and timely consultation practice to have multiple users seeking access to a single source at the same time with the accompanying high risk of delay and frustration of the required consultation.

[91] Principals are responsibility to ensure there is a meaningful and effective consultation process, regardless whether teachers choose to take advantage of it. Timely notice, advance disclosure and provision of information that principal s consider relevant, time for teachers to consider the information and open-minded consideration of teachers’ views and whatever information teachers think is relevant and provide to principals are benchmarks or good practices that principals are directed to follow for an effective and meaningful consultation process. Timely provision of relevant information may persuade some teachers they will not disagree with the proposed size and organization of the classes and waive their right to continue with the process.

[94] If copies of the individual education plans for each teacher’s students have not been provided by the time of the notification package, the information in the individual education plans is relevant information. Principals are required to provide this information to teachers either by electronic access or by delivering copies of the documents to the teachers.

[98] In short, principals will not discharge their responsibility to make provision of relevant information to teachers by telling them the nature of the information relevant to the proposed size and organization of the classes assigned to them and saying to them if they want to discuss this information at the scheduled consultation meeting they can get it whenever it might be accessible to them through the custodian of the information.

[100] For the purposes of this dispute, decision and declaration it is not appropriate to comment on any source of potentially relevant information other than individual education plans, which have been determined and agreed to be relevant sources of information. If individual education plans for students in the class have not been distributed to teachers before the consultation notification package and they are not electronically available to the teachers, copies must be included with the materials in the notification package.

Toronto teachers get a new Collective Agreement!

2009-09-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

City public high school teachers ratify deal; Union pleased with 4-year pact that gives them 12% hike and 'no significant changes', The Toronto Star, Fri Sep 11 2009. Kristin Rushowy

Toronto's public high school teachers have ratified a four-year contract with the board that allows principals to assign them to cover for absent colleagues if a substitute can't be found.

But what emerged as the key sticking point during negotiations - how much supervision teachers provide in hallways or cafeterias - remains the same, and is still by far the lowest amount of time in the province.
.....

Doug Jolliffe, president of District 12 of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, said 98 per cent of members supported the deal, which also provides a 12.55 per cent wage increase over the next four years, as provided by the provincial government.

......

"It was not an unreasonable request on the part of the board," for principals to call on teachers to fill in for a colleague's full-day absence if a substitute isn't available, Jolliffe said.

The union said all along it would not agree to any "strips," or clawbacks, to supervision. Its members do the lowest amount of supervision anywhere in Ontario.
....

Toronto teachers can do 37 supervision blocks of roughly 40 minutes each, per school year, monitoring hallways or computer rooms or filling in for colleagues who are absent for part of the day. But because of restrictions written into past agreements, they only end up doing about 12.

In the past, principals and vice-principals have had to cover the classes, taking them away from administrative duties also creating safety concerns, Campbell said.

From a column by Paul Willcocks... on education cuts

2009-09-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

A remarkably bad string of school cuts, Times Colonist (Victoria), Fri Sep 11 2009. Paul Willcocks

....In the last two weeks, the government has announced four cuts to education funding. None seems sensible.

Leave aside the discussion about core school funding and the problems created by per-pupil grants. These are cuts outside of that envelope.

The biggest is the elimination of $110 million in funding that districts had expected for maintaining schools this year. The annual grants provide for upkeep and capital improvements -- wheelchair ramps, classroom renovations and all the standard maintenance needed to keep buildings functional and safe.

Five months into the fiscal year, Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid cancelled the grant program without notice or consultation. Some districts had set aside money each year to build reserves for major projects; they could raid that money to cover needed work, she said.

So prudence is punished. Districts which did maintenance work over the summer, counting on the grants, have to cut spending to balance the budget as required by law. And economic stimulus is abandoned.

Next, MacDiarmid was sent out to defend a decision to eliminate the government's entire $130,000 contribution to B.C. School Sports, almost 30 per cent of its budget. The organization helps support and manage all the regional and provincial sports events for schools in the province.
......

Then came the most perverse cut.

At a staged event to highlight $500,000 being sent to schools for Olympic programming -- about four times the amount saved by cutting the sports funding -- MacDiarmid revealed the grants to parent advisory councils would be cut in half. (Again, without warning or
consultation.)

They had received $20 per student. This year, it would be $10. The government would save $7.6 million, at the expense of parent councils at schools across the province.

....Finally -- at least so far -- the government cut almost $2 million, or about four per cent, from the CommunityLINK program. It provides meals for hungry children and counselling to keep struggling students on track. And it's not a high enough priority to justify consistent funding, in the government's view.

...

From your Social Justice Chair

2009-09-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to Margaret White's research about poverty.

http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Publications/Research_reports/2009EI01.pdf

(This is a 22 page pdf file of a research report by Ms. White at the BCTF)

What do standardized tests evaluate?

2009-09-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

12,000 Teacher Reports, but What to Do?, The New York Times, Wed Sep 9 2009. Jennifer Medina

As the city's students return to school on Wednesday, thousands will enter classrooms led by a teacher that the Department of Education has deemed low performing on internal reports. But in a sign of how complicated and controversial the reports are, many teachers never received them, and there are no plans to release them to parents.

The reports use standardized test scores to monitor how much teachers have helped students improve from one year to the next and whether they are successful with particular groups of children, such as boys or those who have struggled for years.

During the last school year, education officials distributed some 12,000 reports that considered how well teachers did in educating students, producing a report for any teacher who taught fourth through eighth grade for the last two years. The reports put New York at the center of a national debate over ways to measure the effectiveness of individual teachers and the role that test scores should play in the evaluations.

"We've always said that we need to be able to understand where teachers are successful and learn from that," the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, said in an interview last week. "Nobody thinks you can boil down teacher effectiveness to a single criteria, and we also should not ignore student performance as an important criteria."

Last year, the State Legislature passed a law prohibiting using student test data as a factor in tenure decisions, at the urging of teachers' unions. And in a deal with the United Federation of Teachers, the city agreed not to make the results public.

While Mr. Klein has repeatedly said that the data reports would not be used to shape teacher evaluation and pay, he has also said that he wants to move away from the practice of lockstep pay and salary increases based solely on seniority. He said he would continue to push for such changes in the coming teachers' contract, but it remains unclear if Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg would pursue such changes in the negotiations, particularly in an election year.

President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have pushed states to use student performance to evaluate teachers, declaring that states that banned use of student data would be ineligible for billions of dollars in competitive grants from the federal government. Last week, the Gates Foundation announced that it would work with the city and the union to develop a new way to measure teachers by using student performance on tests along with extensive classroom observations and videotaped lessons.

Last week, the school system released another set of marks, letter grades for each school, in which 97 percent received an A or B. In contrast, on the teacher reports, 20 percent earned "low" performance marks, 60 percent were called "middle" performers and 20 percent "high."

While both grading systems were based largely on test scores, schools were able to earn A's and B's if more of their students passed the tests. Teachers were essentially ranked against other teachers, both citywide and those who taught demographically similar classrooms.

For Odelphia Pierre, the principal of Public School 129 in Harlem, the teacher data reports were little more than extra information.
While department officials estimated that 80 percent of principals spoke with their teachers about the reports, several principals said the reports had so many problems that they decided not to give them to teachers.

Ms. Pierre, for example, said that she worried about how the reports would affect morale and decided that she would tell teachers they could see the reports if they wanted. Most of those who did, she said, were among the higher teachers.

"I really didn't see the purpose, because it wasn't very clear what they were supposed to take away, and they might have had questions I would have not been able to answer," she said. "I didn't want them to be distracted in the middle of the year."

Denise Bazemore, who has taught third grade for nearly a decade at P.S. 129, said that while several of her colleagues were not interested, she was eager to see how she compared to her peers around the city.

"I think it was helpful just to know where you stand," said Ms.
Bazemore, a "middle" performer. "I do wish it would tell you where to go from there, but it is what it is."

Ms. Pierre said she did pay closer attention to teachers who ranked in the bottom tier of the reports, stopping in their classrooms to evaluate them more frequently than she might have, though she never told them that directly.

For the last two years, the department created its own report with the help of outside experts, but this year agreed to a $1.1 million contract with a group at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research to produce the reports. The group is expected to spend much of its efforts on making sure that the city's Education Department's data is complete and accurate.

For some principals, the reports are helpful in managing a large staff. Sheldon Benardo, the principal of Public School 86 in the Bronx, said he used them to decide teacher and student placement.

"If it was completely shocking, I would not be doing my job as a principal," he said. "But whenever you have hard data that tells you something, whether it's a weakness somewhere or something else, it only can motivate you to do something better."

Mr. Benardo passed out the report to each of the teachers, having them meet with the assistant principal individually to discuss the report. He said that while the majority of his teachers fell somewhere along the middle, there were several at the top end and a few in the lower ranks

"It's not like anyone was insulted or felt intruded upon -- they know that data is part of the game here," he said. "Like any of us, when we don't perform so well, we are going to attempt to rationalize, to justify and explain. I have a great respect for our classroom teachers, and if they're here it means I selected them for a job, so I am going to pay attention to what they're saying."

Lost teaching positions....

2009-06-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

The latest information from locals indicates that school districts will be cutting over 580 FTE positions for 2009-2010.

03 Kimberley – down 1
07 Nelson & 86 Creston – down 5.39
10 Arrow Lakes – down 3.5
17 Princeton – down 1
18 Golden – down 3
19 Revelstoke – down 2
20 Kootenay-Columbia – down 9
22 Vernon – down 17
23 Central Okanagan – down 12
27 Cariboo-Chilcotin – down 15
28 Quesnel – down 8
31 Nicola Valley – down 3
33 Chilliwack – down 12.9
34 Abbotsford – down 5
36 Surrey – up 10
37 Delta – down 20
38 Richmond – down 12
39 Vancouver – down 42
40 New Westminster down 19
41 Burnaby – down 7.5
42 Maple Ridge – down 17.9
43 Coquitlam – down 62.55
44 North Vancouver – down 22
45 West Vancouver – down 10
46 Sunshine Coast – down 5
47 Powell River – down 6
49 Central Coast – down 2
50 Haida Gwaii - down 2
51 Boundary – down 4.4
52 Prince Rupert – down 12
53 South Okanagan Similkameen – down 9
55 Burns Lake – down 3
56 Nechako – down 3
57 Prince George – down 32
591 Peace River South – down 6
593 Tumbler Ridge – down 2
61 Victoria – down 5
62 Sooke – up 2
63 Saanich – down 15
64 Gulf Islands – down 2
67 Okanagan Skaha – down 9
68 Nanaimo – down 21.95
69 Mount Arrowsmith – down 4
70 Alberni – down 20
71 Comox – down 15
72 Campbell River – down 8
73 Kamloops – down 31
74 Gold Trail – down 9.5
75 Mission – down 15.5
78 Fraser Cascade – down 8.0
79 Cowichan – down 17.8
81 Fort Nelson –down 1
83 North Okanagan-Shuswap – down 8.91
84 Vancouver Island West – down 4.4
85 Vancouver Island North – down 1.7
87 Stikine – up 1.0
88 Terrace/80 Kitimat/88.2 Upper Skeena – down 13.9
92 Nisgaa – down 1
93 SEPF – up 6

If you like statistics,

2009-06-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

A decade of statistics release by the Ministry of Education. Despite the iffy FSA, provincial exam, and “satisfaction” data there are a number of other comparisons that you may find interesting.

Compared to a decade ago there are now:
· 159 fewer public schools

· 8 fewer independent schools

· 2660 fewer teachers (-7.3%)

· 75 more administrators (+2.4%)

And, while the percentage of female teachers has increased only slightly from 68% to 71%, the percentage of female administrators has increased from 41% to 52%.

You’ll find lots more at:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/keyinfo/pdfs/ski09.pdf

Education Chief to Warn Advocates That Inferior Charter Schools Harm the Effort, The New York Times Mon Jun 22 2009, Sam Dillon [excerpts]

2009-06-22T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration has made opening more charter schools a big part of its plans for improving the nation's education system, but Education Secretary Arne Duncan will warn advocates of the schools on Monday that low- quality institutions are giving their movement a black eye.
…..

Mr. Duncan's speech will come at a pivotal moment for the charter school movement. The Obama administration has been working to persuade state legislatures to lift caps on the number of charter schools.

At the same time, the movement is smarting from the release last week of a report by Stanford University researchers that found that although some charter schools were doing an excellent job, many students in charter schools were not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.
….

Mr. Duncan's speech calls the Stanford report -- which singles out Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas as states that have done little to hold poorly run charter schools accountable -- "a wake-up call."
…..

The Stanford study, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, used student achievement data from 15 states and the District of Columbia to gauge whether students who attended charter schools had fared better than they would if they had attended a traditional public school.

"The study reveals that a decent fraction of charter schools, 17 percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students," the report says. "Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options, and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools."
…..

Mr. Duncan has been working to build a national effort to restructure 5,000 chronically failing public schools, which turn out middle school students who cannot read and most of the nation's high school dropouts. In his speech, he will urge states, school districts, nonprofit groups, teachers' unions and charter organizations "to get in the business of turning around our lowest-performing schools."

"Over the coming years," the speech says, "America needs to find 5,000 high-energy, hero principals to take over these struggling schools, and a quarter of a million great teachers who are willing to do the toughest work in public education."

Mr. Smith said he believed that some charter school operators would react favorably to Mr. Duncan's call, but only if they were given flexibility over hiring and firing teachers, structuring student learning time and other issues.

"They have to be able to maintain the integrity of the charter model," Mr. Smith said.

Painful cuts plague province's school districts, The Globe And Mail Mon Jun 22 2009 Section: B C News. Brennan Clarke [excerpts for space]

2009-06-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

VICTORIA -- Students in the Saanich school district will be cleaning out their desks and heading off on vacation this week, but it won't be a carefree summer for the administrators and board members charged with cutting $3.6-million from their budget.

Last month, Saanich trustees approved the 5-per-cent cut to its overall budget, the largest annual reduction in district history.

If nothing changes in the provincial government's updated budget this fall, the district will start the 2009-10 school year with 23.5 fewer full-time teaching positions, only one-third of which can be attributed to declining enrolment.

Deep cuts will also affect clerical workers, education assistants, social workers, career programs, field trips, school supplies and even crossing guards.
…

"But with all the funding challenges the government is facing, our budget is probably not going to change this year. We've made lot of difficult choices. We've pretty much hit the wall." (board chair Mary Lynne Rimer)

That's a widespread sentiment among B.C. school trustees these days. The painful, cost-cutting decisions in Saanich this spring were duplicated to varying degree in dozens of school districts across the province.

Surrey, the province's largest school district, battled a $9.5-million shortfall. In Vancouver, the number was $7.1-million. North Vancouver and Central Okanagan, both medium-sized districts, each had to find $3-million in savings.

Staff at the B.C. Ministry of Education said the government actually increased district funding by $84-million for 2009-10, despite an enrolment decline of about 7,000 students provincewide.

But critics say education costs, driven mainly by built-in wage hikes, are increasing far more quickly than government funding.

Last year, the province topped up school district funding by $122-million, but teachers' wages alone increased by $137-million, said B.C. Teachers' Federation president Irene Lanzinger.

She estimated between 500 and 550 full-time teaching positions will be lost this year, mostly to retirement and attrition.

"What we're seeing is the cumulative effect of underfunding over many years, " Ms. Lanzinger said. "The decline in teachers has certainly outpaced the decline in enrolment."
…..

A Ministry of Education spokesman who declined to be identified suggested many of the districts complaining about shortfalls are actually sitting on substantial reserve funds.

Ms. Rimer called that idea "ridiculous."
….

A survey by the Centre for Civic Governance, a Vancouver-based
social- advocacy group, estimates the cost of operating the province's 60 school districts will exceed government funding by about $132-million this year.

Speaking of our Charter challenge to Bills 27 and 28....

2009-06-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Unions get $425,000 to settle rights dispute, The Globe And Mail Tue Jun 16 2009
Section: British Columbia News

Four unions have reached a $425,000 deal with the B.C. government over the loss of job security provisions in their contracts.

It's part of the settlement arising out of the Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled the B.C. government infringed on the rights of unions by enacting Bill 29.

The settlement will be divided among workers of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Hospital Employees Union, the B.C.
Government Employees Union and the Health Sciences Association.

BCGEU president Darryl Walker says the agreement will help union members who filed grievances after Bill 29 was brought in by government."

(Bills 27 and 28 are the ones that 'vapourized' our Collective Agreement and stripped many clauses from the CA we were forced to work under)

June Staff Rep / Exec Meeting

2009-06-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Don't forget Monday is the last meeting of the year - and it includes a thank you meal at the Blue Toque afterward.

The meeting begins at 4:30 @ the FDTA office. See you there.

Post and Fill, 2009 edition

2009-06-11T08:56:00.001-07:00

Well, SD5 is doing a good job so far on the post and fill process. The postings came out 'clumped' together, allowing members the opportunity to see 'all' the jobs out there, and to apply for as many as they want - all at once, and in the order of priority that they desire.

A few members ended up getting transfers "at the last second" as a result of retirements that were announced. Again, the employer seemed to do this right this year.

Sadly, with fewer dollars and fewer students in the system, there are fewer employment opportunities in the Valley.

Expect the next round of postings in about 2 weeks.

From the papers...

2009-06-11T08:54:00.000-07:00

Teachers face an uncertain future; Cycle of layoffs and rehiring starts again at the end of June, The Daily News (Nanaimo) Wed Jun 10 2009. Robert Barron (excerpts)

More than 260 of nearly 1,000 teachers currently working in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district have no idea where, or if, they will work this fall.

There are 107 teachers working under temporary contracts (expiring on June 30) and 161 more are being laid off due to complicated wording in their collective agreement.

Drafted in 1990, before declining enrolment started to affect the district, the agreement stipulates that teachers with less than four years and two months seniority lose their jobs at the end of the school year to allow positions to be opened up for full-time staff returning from leave.

While most of the laid-off teachers will be rehired, there's no guarantee that they will return to the same school or know what subjects they will teach.

Kip Wood, president of the Nanaimo District Teachers' Association, …. hopes ongoing discussions with the district might yield a better system.

Donna Allen, chairwoman of the district's board of trustees, agreed that the layoff and recall process doesn't work well and needs improvement.
…..
Wood said most of the laid-off teachers should be informed of their new postings in the first two weeks of July, but some won't know their status until the last weeks in August when school staffing levels are finalized, meaning an unsettled summer for many instructors.
…..

Schwazenegger pushes digital textbook in California, English News Service Tue Jun 9 2009 (excerpts)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday visited a high school in the state to introduce digital textbooks, which would enable the students not to carry heavy textbooks to school.

The governor launched an initiative in May to make California the first state in the United States to offer schools free, open-source digital textbooks for high school students.

"Kids are very familiar listening to music digitally online,"
Schwarzenegger said, listing some social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.
…

"Textbooks are outdated as far as I'm concerned. How can kids be competitive in this economy when textbooks are stale and outdated?
……
The state education department and educators also will determine whether free educational materials already on the Internet are suitable for school use.

The use of digital textbooks at schools is one way to reduce expenses as California is facing a huge budget deficit. An average traditional textbook costs about 75 to 100 U.S. dollars, but a digital textbook is much cheaper, and many of them are even free, reports said. A digital book reader can hold about 200 books.

It is estimated that for a school district with about 10,000 high school students, the use of free digital textbooks in just science and math classes could save up to 2 million dollars.
…..

Big and bloated are words that come to mind, The Province Thu Jun 11 2009
Michael Smyth (excerpts)

For a cabinet that's supposed to cut the fat out of government, you'd think Premier Gordon Campbell would have led by example yesterday and unveiled a lean, mean A-Team to get the job done.

Instead, Campbell appointed a fatter cabinet -- the club went from
22 members to 24 -- in a hotly anticipated shuffle. He also appointed half-a-dozen "parliamentary secretaries" -- a backbencher perk Campbell used to sneer at -- who each bag nearly $15,000 a year in bonus bucks for doing little work.

By swelling the size of the cabinet ranks by nine per cent, Campbell loaded more costs on to the shoulders of weary taxpayers who will soon be walloped by government service cuts. Every cabinet minister gets a big car, a big office, a big staff and a big travel budget.

This from the same guy who once bragged he could run the province with 12 cabinet ministers. This from the same guy who went completely ballistic when then-NDP-premier Glen Clark added four ministers to his cabinet, for a total of just 19.

"Taxpayers are getting soaked for a bigger cabinet!" Campbell railed back then. If 19 was a soaking, then I guess 24 is a completely water-logged saturation.

The bitter irony here is this fatter cabinet will be charged with cutting nearly $2 billion in spending out of the budget. The recession-driven belt-tightening is already causing pain. The government even pulled the funding for a van that cruised Vancouver streets at night to protect sex-trade workers.
…..
…. Falcon as health minister? …. I suspect this appointment indicates big changes are coming to the ministry -- like the possible amalgamation of health authorities.

One more gripe: Six ministers from Vancouver? That's a quarter of the whole cabinet. So much for Campbell's love affair with the "heartlands."

School boards get two-month reprieve; Province gives budget extensions to rework teacher salary funding, Edmonton Journal Thu Jun 11 2009. Sarah O'Donnell
(excerpts)

Alberta's education minister is giving school boards an extra two months to approve their budgets for the coming school year.

Dave Hancock issued the extension last week as the province continues to wrestle over the budget for teachers' salaries in the coming year.

The teachers' union agreed to a five-year contract in 2007 that awarded teachers an annual pay increase every September, based on Statistics Canada's calculation of Albertans' average weekly earnings over the previous year.

Earlier this year, it appeared teachers would receive a 4.8-per-cent increase based on that calculation.

In March --after the provincial budget was tabled, but before it was approved -- Statistics Canada altered its formula, reporting in a 5.99-per-cent increase in Albertans' average weekly wages the previous year.

That left Alberta Education and school boards that depend on provincial funding $23 million short.
……

So, what does a teacher do?

2009-05-27T12:15:00.000-07:00

These two links are the best reason for a blog ever - and theyare well worth the 8 minutes or so it will take you to view them both:

"What do you make? ..he asked the teacher..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

"Miracle workers" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vMHSGmGtuo&feature=related

If these don't make you feel good, you are in the wrong profession!

Here's one to introduce your lesson on sentence types... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCNIBV87wV4&feature=related

More lay-offs around BC...

2009-05-27T12:02:00.001-07:00

Prince Rupert school district sends out layoff notices to teachers, The Canadian Press Tue 26 May 2009. George T. Baker

PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. The Prince Rupert school district has sent out termination notices to dozens of teachers, in anticipation of a smaller enrolment and tighter school budget next year.

School District 52 sent out 80 termination notices on Friday but Dave Stigant, acting superintendent, said he expects that the actual number of layoffs would be less than that.

"We need to reduce our number of teachers but not by anywhere near that number,'' said Stigant. …… As far as why 80 notices were sent out, Stigant said teachers are trained and qualified to do different work, and the district wanted to match staffing levels with the skills needed. …..

Coast Mountain district sends layoff notices to 48 teachers, Terrace Standard, Sun 24 May 2009

On May 14 the Coast Mountain School District sent out 48 layoff notices to teachers throughout the district.

This comes hand in hand with declining student enrollment, and director of human resources for the district Greig Houlden says the layoff notices have been sent out to teachers on the lower end of the seniority list.

In their preliminary budget the district projects a decline of 13 FTE staffing positions compared to the 2008/2009 school year…… But the district is hoping that these layoffs will not follow through with the help of attrition…..

Teachers given layoff notices, Trail Daily Times, Mon 25 May 2009. Colin Payne

Preparations for a student enrollment decline in Kootenay Lake School District has the district handing out layoff notices to some teachers this month. ……
"We'll probably be down about 80 (students), DeBiasio [District director of human resources] said. "Obviously that means there's going to be fewer classrooms. But it's not as significant as it's been in the last bunch of years from that perspective."

While DeBiasio could not give exact numbers for layoffs, he said they won't be significant. "It's not a situation where we're going to have a whole bunch of
teachers out of work," he said. … But he said many of the teachers who get pink slips will likely still have work in the district in the Fall. … "I fully expect many of those people will still end up working next year." …..

WV school board passes $59-million budget, North Shore Outlook, Wed 20 May 2009
Kelly McManus

The West Vancouver school district board of education voted to accept the $59-million draft operating budget for the 2009/2010 school year this week (May 19).

With an initial $1.88-million shortfall and resulting cuts that included 21 full-time staff and the discontinuation of the district's Community Learning program, the budget represented uncharacteristic cutbacks for the district, which has grown staff over the past eight years, according to Superintendent Geoff Jopson. … Those cuts include 4.6 school administration positions, 4.2 teaching jobs and 3.2 administrative assistant roles, among others.

West Van public schools have seen a slight increase in enrolments, from 6, 500 in 2002 to 6,570 in the current school year, Jopson said. …

The board also moved to write a letter to the new education minister next month to discuss Jopson's assertion that West Vancouver school district is the least funded district in B.C. on a per pupil basis. …

Summer Conference 2009 (BCTF) - first update

2009-05-26T11:12:00.001-07:00

For those who are expected to attend the BCTF summer conference, a letter is coming your way:

“It’s about teaching and learning”

Attendance for the 2009 BCTF Summer Leadership Conference:

President, Aboriginal Education contact, Bargaining Chair/Working and Learning Conditions rep, Health and Safety rep, Professional Development rep, Teachers Teaching on Call contact, Social Justice contact, Additional delegate.

LOCATION
The BCTF Summer Leadership Conference 2009 will be held at Hyatt Regency Vancouver Hotel in Vancouver, BC, 655 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC.

PROGRAM OUTLINE

Monday, August 24, 2009
· New presidents
· Social Justice contacts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009
· Aboriginal Education contacts
· Bargaining Chairs/Working and Learning Conditions reps
· Health and Safety reps
· Presidents
· Professional Development Chairs
· Social Justice contacts
· Teachers Teaching on Call contacts

Wednesday, August 26, 2009
· Core program for all delegates

Thursday, August 27, 2009
· Core program for all delegates

W.E. Travel can be reached by phone at 604-253-5585 or toll-free 1-800-663-4703.

A reminder that the BCTF meetings are to be scent-free. Please refrain from wearing perfume, cologne or any scented products.

Summer Conference updates will be posted on the BCTF website at

http://www.bctf.ca/NewsAndEvents.aspx

Confirm with Steve that you are attending – sooner rather than later.

Education cuts today....

2009-05-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

From: Delta trustees consider education cuts across the board, South Delta Leader, Wed 29 Apr 2009. Kristine Thiessen (excerpts)

Facing a 4.9 million dollar shortfall, Delta's school district budget recommendations leave no area of the education system unscathed. ... Superintendent Steve Cardwell said the shortfall is the result of a number of factors, including a decline in enrollment by 2,300 students over the past 10 years and a projected decline of more than 200 students during the next five years.

Cardwell also said the global economic downturn has meant less revenue from international student and continuing education programs, as well as a decrease in investment income from reduced interest rates.
....

Proposed cuts to special programming total $853,693 and include closing two primary-level resource rooms for children with speech and language disabiilties and one for intermediate students with learning disabilities.
....
Delta, she [Marcia McCafferty, president of REACH Child and Youth Development Society] said, "is coming dangerously close to crossing the line in meeting its obligations to the students in the public education system."
... trustees must also decide whether or not to close two elementary schools to address low enrollment. ....

The district's alternative suggestions to school closures included a reduction in availability of STRETCH programs for gifted students, learning assistance support, teacher librarian time (already facing cuts under the recommendations), and a further increase in class sizes.

Delta Manor PAC chair Julie Sanders said the district should feel ashamed for making the trustees choose between school closures and special learning programs. Instead, she asked them to make further cuts to administration staffing and eliminate expenses like catering.

"It's time we start acting like a district of under 15,000 students and cut administration positions that aren't necessary." .....

Delta Teachers' Association president Val Windsor and Delta PAC chairperson Donna Burke expressed a desire to see the funding per pupil formula revamped. Windsor called for parents to vote for a change in government on election day.

"Since the provincial government now determines how much money will be put into the education costs, the only way to change the education funding, in my opinion, is to change the government," she said. ....

Under the budget recommendations a total of 53.6 full time equivalent (FTE) staff lose their jobs. .....

From: Rising school costs limiting education to the privileged, Sicamous Eagle Valley News Tue 28 Apr 2009. Opinion

....Education is becoming more expensive for British Columbians and Canadians.

Here in School District #83, we see that Education Minister Shirley Bond has pointed out the school district is not bound to provide transportation to students and, if the cost becomes too high, the school district could consider charging students for the privilege. .... despite the rising costs of fuel, the district's transportation budget has remained the same since 2003.

Bond says the province, in partnership with the ministry's Technical Review Committee, reviews the education funding formula annually. However, this district's superintendent, who is part of the Technical Review Committee, was questioned by the local board about the committee at the last board meeting. He said of 22 recommendations the committee has made, only two have been accepted......

Long term impact of standardized testing on education!

2009-04-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

The verdict is in on education reform, The Ottawa Citizen, Thu 30 Apr 2009, Elizabeth

This crop of Ontario students may be the most tested in history, yet some only graduate with the help of a giant safety net that rescues them from failure even if they cheat, plagiarize, fail to show up for tests and don't hand in assignments.

The policies, being dubbed "Johnny can't fail," were aimed at raising high-school graduation rates. And they have outraged the province's high-school teachers, many of whom have spoken out in recent weeks to say the system is broken. Meanwhile, university professors have added to the concern about Ontario high-school graduates, saying they are seeing growing numbers of students who are immature, have weak research skills, are unable to work independently, and have highly developed senses of entitlement.

Weren't the back-to-basics education reforms of the 1990s supposed to fix all this?

That's certainly what we were told when Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution rolled in with changes that included a much-heralded return to standardized testing and more accountability in education.

To be fair, the education reform movement was not a Tory invention; it was embraced by parties of all political stripes in Ontario and across North America. Although big changes came into effect under the Ontario Conservatives, most of them were recommended by the province's Royal Commission on Learning, appointed by Bob Rae's NDP government. And the current provincial Liberal government has maintained and supported many of the reforms it inherited.

The issues faced by some high school students and recent graduates are telling. The students at the centre of the storm are among the first to have fully experienced education reform -- they have been
tested throughout most of their school careers. Are "Johnny can't fail" and Generation Google products of these "fixes" to the school system?

Given mounting evidence, it is worth asking what happened to the tougher standards the system was supposed to produce and whether the simplistic ideas that typified the education reform movement have done more harm than good to a generation of students.

Alfie Kohn, a vocal education critic and U.S.-based author of The Case Against Standardized Testing and The Schools Our Children Deserve, has many theories about how so-called "rigorous" standards and standardized testing can be hazardous to children's education.

He has been warning audiences in Canada and the U.S. for years about the negative consequences of the education reform movement.

"The dirty little secret of education reform is that standardized exams, like those imposed on Ontario students, tend to measure what matters least," he said in an e-mail interview.

As a result, he said, it is possible to raise students' test scores, yet lower the quality of their learning. "Conversely, some teachers do wonderful lessons that help kids think deeply and get excited about ideas, but those students' test scores don't go up and may even go down."

In other words, in Kohn's view, we have a system that rewards shallow thinking and fails to reward more creative, in-depth learning.

Kohn has called standardized testing "inherently destructive to learning" and has said it squeezes the "intellectual life out of our schools."

On first blush, his criticism may seem overzealous. After all, students are tested just four times during 13 or 14 years of school.
But the tests are just part of the problem, he says. "They're just the enforcement mechanism for a top-down, one-size-fits-all, corporate-style accountability fad that has had schools in its grip under both the Tories and the Liberals (in Ontario) ... a narrow focus on rigour and tougher standards is part of the problem. It reflects a mindless, macho sensibility more commonly found among politicians than among educators in the classroom."

Kohn says the "tougher standards movement" gets a number of things wrong, including, critically, what motivates students. A focus on how well one is doing is very different from a focus on what one is doing, he notes. "A preoccupation with performance often undermines interest in learning, quality of learning and a desire to be challenged."

Kohn also believes the emphasis on testing, and teaching for the test, results in sacrifices in other areas. He says accountability, and mandating a particular type of education and outcomes, has a strangling effect on learning.

It is also worth noting EQAO tests in grades 3, 6 and 9, and the high-school literacy tests, are prepared for, taken and then forgotten. Students get no opportunity to learn from the experiences by discussing their results.

The latest issue to bedevil Ontario's school system -- the "Johnny can't fail" syndrome -- results from the same mindset he believes marked the education reform movement all along, a focus on performance, rather than learning. Raising the graduation rate in Ontario is meaningless if the bar has to be lowered to get some of those graduates through.

From this perspective, education reform looks like a failed experiment. This generation of students deserves an explanation.

Elizabeth Payne is a member of the Citizen's editorial board.

Election vidoes...

2009-04-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

"Here They Come, (the boys in the bright white sports car)" fun YouTube video

"Time to make a choice" Viral video

"What do you say to a child?" video

"Vote for public education" video

Windermere teachers 'burmashave' the "Welcome to BC" signs (photos)

Election updates!

2009-04-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Election race nearly a dead heat: poll; NDP has narrowed gap to three points despite losing ground on some issues, The Vancouver Sun, Wed 29 Apr 2009. Jonathan Fowlie
(excerpts)

The New Democratic Party has narrowed the gap in the provincial election to just three points despite losing ground on key issues such as the economy, an Angus Reid Strategies poll has found.

Done for CTV, the Angus Reid online poll found the B.C. Liberals have 42 per cent support, while the opposition NDP has 39 per cent.

The Green party remains in third place with 13 per cent, and the B.C. Conservatives and independents each have three per cent support.

The poll of 822 people, conducted April 24-26, has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points, 19 times in 20.

....

Van Dongen could have kept post, Campbell says; Liberal Leader stands by disgraced former solicitor-general and is prepared to face criticism over his decision, The Globe and Mail, Wed 29 Apr 2009. Justine Hunter (excerpts)

GOLDEN -- Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell said yesterday he is prepared to be judged for his decision to stand by his disgraced former solicitor-general, saying John van Dongen could have kept the post if he felt he could stay on top of the government's top priorities in the crime-fighting arena.

Mr. van Dongen's resignation on Monday over his driving record has provided the Liberal campaign's first major setback.

In an interview yesterday, Mr. Campbell defended his judgment about who can stay and who must go from his party.
....

Last Friday, Mr. van Dongen revealed he had lost his driver's licence - the result of being caught twice doing more than 40 kilometres an hour over the posted speed limit. He also accrued seven speeding tickets in the four years before he was named solicitor-general.

By contrast, Mr. Campbell's party dumped candidate Joe Cardoso earlier this year because he had once written a letter to the editor in a newspaper that was critical of the Liberal Party Leader.

....

B.C.'s economic situation and the Liberal platform, The Vancouver Sun, Wed 29 Apr 2009. Marc Lee

The B.C. Liberal platform features many feel-good photos and proud statements taking credit for the province's recent boom. But reading between the lines, one realizes that, after eight years in power, the Liberals have effectively run out of ideas.

The platform fails to offer any vision for the future. The Liberals made some progress on climate change over the past couple years, but the platform offers nothing new. Meanwhile, the climate action secretariat, once residing in the premier's office, has been relegated to the Ministry of the Environment, which recently had its budget cut.
.... the government enters the election without a plan in place to get B.C. to its legislated 33-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. And there are some glaring contradictions between the climate plan and other parts of the Liberals' platform.

One of those contradictions is the oil and gas industry. Between 2001 and 2006, oil and gas industry emissions surged by far more than the carbon tax will ever reduce come 2020. Recently, Campbell was in the northeast, promising more new investment in oil and gas extraction, which may make it virtually impossible to reach our targets. And it is not like the oil and gas patch is a huge employer -- about 2,200 direct jobs in 2008 -- for all that pollution.

Highway expansion and the $3.4-billion Port Mann superbridge also go against the climate-action grain. .... No jurisdiction in the world has ever built its way out of congestion.

The Liberal platform offers no real vision for the economy either, now that the great boom is over. Unemployment rose rapidly through early 2009, and with housing starts down 70 per cent, the worst is yet to come, as construction workers finish their projects and head to the back of the unemployment line.

The economic collapse is not the fault of the Liberals, but then neither was the boom their creation. B.C.'s economic fortunes rest on what happens outside our borders, in particular in the export markets of the U.S. and Asia, and in Ottawa, through the Bank of Canada and the federal government.

In February's budget, the Liberals offered little in the way of stimulus, mostly re-announcing projects already underway or relying on federal stimulus dollars.
....

Bad economic times mean that the small deficit projected in the budget will inevitably turn out to be much larger.

The Liberal platform promises that B.C. will "live within its means," but, faced with a $1-billion to $2-billion deficit, will a new Liberal government pile on more spending cuts and risk making the economic picture worse, or will it accommodate a larger deficit?
What does that mean for the few new promises in the platform, like all-day kindergarten ....

.... during the good times, not all British Columbians were part of the boom. Poverty rates did not drop in any meaningful way, homelessness doubled, and inequality worsened with each passing year.
.....

In the news today....

2009-04-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

School trustees approve budget -- and cuts -- without debate, Coquitlam Now Wed 29 Apr 2009. Jennifer Mcfee (excerpts)

More than 31 full-time positions will be axed from School District 43 after the 2009-10 budget passed April 20 with no comment from trustees.

The district faced a $4.1-million shortfall due to increased costs for negotiated salaries, benefits, pension plans and utilities, as well as the elimination of one-time funds.

To balance the budget, the leadership team came up with a plan to cut the equivalent of 31.25 positions -- including 16.75 teaching positions by increasing student-to-teacher ratios. Other losses will include three custodians, two noon-hour supervisors, two learning support teachers and one delivery person.

At the same time, the district will add 6.6 full-time support positions, including a human resource manager at a cost of $94,500.
.....

School board faces cuts, The Grand Forks Gazette, Wed 29 Apr 2009. Jim Holtz
(excerpts)

.... The programs and services currently offered by the district will cost $910,000 more to deliver in the 2009-10 school year than the Ministry of Education is willing to grant. Although the ministry has announced that they are spending more in 2009-10 than ever before, the increases in costs facing all districts far exceed the amount of money they have been granted.

"I guess it is all in semantics," Superintendent Michael Strukoff said at the April 21 meeting of the district finance committee. "For 2009-2010, on a per student basis, yes, it will be the highest funding ever, but unfortunately since 2008-2009 our costs have gone up substantially higher."
....

Layoffs to impact teachers; Union prez says up to 10 positions threatened in cuts, The Record (New Westminster) Wed 29 Apr 2009. Niki Hope (excerpts)

The New Westminster Teachers' Union president is bracing for layoffs.

Grant Osborne said he's heard that roughly 10 teachers will be cut this year as a part of the district's effort to shave $3 million from the budget.
....

E-mails could cost head of parents' group; Members to consider call for his removal, The Vancouver Sun Wed 29 Apr 2009. Janet Steffenhagen (excerpts)

Ron Broda will learn this weekend if a couple of ill-considered e-mails will cost him the presidency of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (BCCPAC), the group that speaks for parents on education issues.

The government-funded organization has been stumbling for months, ever since Broda accidentally sent an e-mail calling two parents "stupid" to a BCCPAC listserve. He followed it with a second, angry e-mail -- which he titled Stupid Me -- repeating the insults, expanding them to include others and listing everything he dislikes about being president.

"Resign, some of you have said," he wrote in the e-mail. "You have no idea how many times that I have thought of doing just that. But stupid me for thinking that I can make a difference to this organization."

Since he didn't step down, some members have submitted a resolution to the BCCPAC annual general meeting this weekend calling for his removal.

.....

SD5 Carbon Tax bill

2009-04-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

$10,928.80 is how much money SD5 is paying for fuels purchased between July 1st and December 1st 2008.

This covers 11,692 L of gasoline, 82,008 L of diesel fuel, and 116,862 gigajoules of natural gas......

But no funding or relief from the Government....

FDTA AGM election results

2009-04-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

A great FDTA AGM was held last night - at a 'last minute' changed location.... another story for the history books.

President/Alternate LR: Steve Fairbairn
Vice President:Meghan Culley
LR: Kate Noakes
Sec/Treasurer: Bil Bell
Health and Safety: Bill Bell and Fred Gietz
Ab Ed: Michelle Chechotko
Bargaining: Keith Regular
PD: Cindy Gleb
Member-at-large: Mike Kelly and Mike Tomney
Social Justice: Vacant

Some new and younger faces to keep the creative juices flowing...

Congratulatory emails are coming in from around the province already.

:)

Letter to the editor - from a Liberal!

2009-04-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

Three strikes against Campbell

Gordon Campbell wants my vote for the third time, but I'm not sure he's earned it.

Strike 1 - He lifted the moratorium on salmon farm expansion, threatening B.C.'s wild salmon, ignoring the pulse of the people and the warnings from experts. Please Google Living Oceans Society.

Strike 2 - He gave away our future affordable electrical security by privatizing publicly built generators like Kemano.

Strike 3 - Shortly after promising to keep B.C. Rail public, he sold it to Canadian National Railway; now an off-shore company.

I could go on.

Mr. Campbell's Liberals like to remind us of the NDP's fast ferries fiasco.
That well intentioned but doomed investment was meant to train and provide future jobs in B.C. It was the wrong design - so order the right one from Germany?

At least the mistake had an accountable cost.

Wild salmon - priceless.

Electrical security - priceless.

B.C. Rail - under investigation.

Carbon tax - politically correct name to sneak in another grab.

Respectfully, all politicians enter the ring with a passion to improve the land and people they love. Unfortunately there are a lot of very talented lobbyists along the way. Power corrupts. It is like osmosis; some politicians get more arrogant the longer they are in power.

Personally, I am going to surprise my right wing peers and risk my vote on Carole James, hopefully the first female premier in B.C.'s history.

Do your homework people. Ask the hard questions and be sure to vote. It is the only minute of real time you get to have a say in our children's fishless, inflated future.

Jim Horner

Whistler

piquenewsmagazine

Why you should vote YES for STV on May 12th

2009-04-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

from: "Anger the Polls Don't Yet Catch. Governator and premier: Why heat California's pools?
Three issues gaining traction as the campaigns unfold.", Rafe Mair. TheTyee.ca April 20, 2009

Picking political winners in British Columbia is a mug's game. Going back to 1972, the NDP won a landslide victory with just 39 per cent of the popular vote. In 1975, it lost to a Socred landslide even though it still had 39 per cent of the vote. In 1996, the NDP won even though more voters picked the Liberals. This is a manifestation of the first-past-the-post system and a damned good reason to support STV in the May 12 referendum. At this writing, the Green party is at 15 per cent in the polls. They won't stay there because the race will get down to the two main parties. If, however, the Greens had supported STV in 2005, STV would have passed and they would be looking at a pretty decent number of seats.

From the Tyee.ca - Election information for YOU

2009-04-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

From "Campbell Era Economy Nothing to Brag About. Deep cuts: B.C. leads Canada in job losses. NDP saw higher growth. Now BC jobs are crashing." Bill Tieleman, TheTyee.ca, April 14, 2009 (excerpts)

Growth was higher under NDP

Start from 2001, when the B.C. Liberals took power, and use private-sector estimates through 2009 -- even though they are rosy and likely to be far worse -- ....

During the B.C. Liberal government reign, the average annual rate of economic growth was 2.6 per cent.

But what was the average annual growth when the New Democratic Party was in power from 1991 to 2001 -- .....

Try annual growth of 2.8 per cent -- a better record than the B.C. Liberals.

NDP saw more job growth, too ....

During the NDP's decade, employment grew by 22 per cent, or 344,100 jobs. Between 2001 and 2008, the B.C. Liberals have seen 20 per cent growth, or 392,700 jobs, for a lower percentage increase.

But wait! From January through March, B.C. has lost a staggering 63,000 jobs -- 35,000 in January, 5,000 in February and 23,000 in March, the month that led all of Canada.

Overall, Statistics Canada says B.C. lost 69,000 jobs since October 2008, a three per cent drop.

That means B.C. Liberal job growth is actually only 323,700 jobs from 2001 to April 2009 -- far less than the NDP.

.......

Is that modest deficit for real? ($495 million)

Helmut Pastrick -- the respected chief economist of Central 1 Credit Union (formerly B.C. Central Credit Union) has said the B.C. Liberal government's numbers were way off -- he thought the deficit this year should be $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

"A deficit of $1 to $1.5 billion or 0.6 per cent of GDP in 2009-10 is the more likely outcome due to revenue shortfalls," said Central 1 Credit Union's report on the budget. "Revenue in 2009-10 is not likely to be realized, particularly in the personal income, social service and property transfer lines."

And writing in The Tyee, Will McMartin called it a "toxic fudge budget" because the numbers were so cooked and sweet.
……

And...

Anger the Polls Don't Yet Catch. Governator and premier: Why heat California's pools? Three issues gaining traction as the campaigns unfold., Rafe Mair. TheTyee.ca April 20, 2009 (excerpts)

This election's three biggies

1. The perception, indeed reality, of arrogance in the person of Gordon Campbell. On environmental matters, which I'll come to, he has been callous and insulting. The sleaze factor, now coming more and more in focus as part of the hubris of the Campbell government and its leader, increases by the day. The Basi-Virk case and the government stonewalling and the revelations of double dipping by Ken Dobell and, especially, Patrick Kinsella, show a distinct "up yours" attitude.

2. The economy is a huge issue. .... What seems to me interesting is that the Liberals, during the NDP tenure, would not cut them any slack because of the Asian meltdown. "No excuses!" was Campbell's cry. …

But Campbell's Liberals don't accept the same standards. It's of course silly to blame a provincial government for world wide economic problems but could we not ask the Liberals: "The signs were all there; a huge U.S. deficit, ditto the budget deficit, the huge national debt, and unbelievable scandals in large corporations. Why couldn't the Liberal government with all its high priced help in the Finance Ministry do what then finance minister Hugh Curtis did in 1979, namely, foresee a crisis and take steps to minimize the consequences? Or was Campbell warned but didn't take notice?

…..

3. The environment wears several hats. The gas tax axing by the NDP is seen by many city dwellers as bad policy ..... In rural B.C., the gas tax is very unpopular.

What is very interesting are the issues of fish farms and private rivers. Nowhere has Premier Campbell been more callous unto autocratic than on these two issues.

Since 2001, Campbell has not only arrogantly refused to accept the clear scientific opinion that sea lice from fish farms are killing off Pink and Chum migrating smolts, in fact, as soon as another scientific opinion came in, more licenses would be issued or capacity increased. ....

The hitherto "elephant in the house" issue, the desecration of rivers by private companies ...., has now been exposed. ...... People are seeing the sweetheart deals with corporate pals, the environmental degradation, the lack of consultation and the ruination of BC Hydro. Every day that passes, this issue rings out stronger especially since the government has not told the truth.

….. more and more voters realize that none of this private electricity is staying in B.C. That's because it can't. Let me explain.

Private producers can only produce electricity, for the most part, during the spring run-off when the water is high enough to make the generators work. That is the very time that BC Hydro has full reservoirs. Electricity cannot be stored so private power has nowhere to go but out of the province where it will be subject to NAFTA, which means that Americans with a right to use our water can use it for any purpose they choose and their leases will not be bound by statute or private lease terms. NAFTA, being an international treaty, trumps Canadian laws.
……

More election places to go..

2009-04-20T08:42:00.001-07:00

1. Animated short film that parodies Gordon Campbell's Liberals and their selling off of BC. Very good and entertaining. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D59ZeMm2E00)

2. CBC has developed a "tag cloud" of the provincial parties' platforms. A tag cloud is a visualization of the most common words used in a piece of text - the more often the word is used, the larger it appears in the graphic. The aim is to give you a new perspective on each party's campaign message. Have a look here: Common Words

The numbers don’t lie

2009-04-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

(Source - COPE)
$3,000,000,000: Provincial revenues lost each year thanks to Campbell’s tax cuts that led to school closures, tuition increases, overcrowded emergency rooms, broken promises and sweeping cuts to important public services that people depend on.
$9,500: Campbell’s personal savings each year from his income tax cut, in spite of his $186,000 salary.
$1,570: Tax savings for individuals earning $50,000 per year.
$554: Tax savings for individuals earning $16,600 per year.
54%: Salary increase Gordon Campbell awarded himself in 2008.
0%: Increase to minimum wage introduced by Campbell in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009.
200,000: Combined population of Nanaimo and Prince George (the number of children in BC living in poverty).
400,000: The number of BC residents who don’t have a family doctor.
7th highest: Health care spending in BC (as a percentage of CDP) compared with other provinces in 2008.
2nd highest: Health care spending in BC (as a percentage of GDP) compared with other provinces in 2001.
200%: Increase in private for-profit medical clinics in BC over the last five years.
3,000: Estimated number of athletes competing in 2010 Winter Olympics.
3,000: Estimated number of homeless people sleeping in the street of Vancouver.
43%: Salary increase Gordon Campbell gave his Deputy Minister increasing her annual salary to $348,600.
30,000,000: Number of raw logs exported from BC since Gordon Campbell took office in 2001.
26,000: Number of forestry jobs lost since Gordon Campbell took office in 2001.
55: Number of BC mills closed since Gordon Campbell took office in 2001.

Save Our Rivers

2009-04-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

Whatever party you support, be sure to watch this first.

Our beautiful province is being decimated, one river at a time.

If you live in BC, click this link: http://ashlu.info/video/bcrivers.html

TTOC Informational Meetings

2009-04-07T14:43:00.001-07:00

SD5, Human Resources (Cynthia Stuart) is setting up meetings with Elk Valley TTOC's (and any other teachers) on the following dates:

April 20 – lunchtime @ RMES
April 20 - after school @ SSS
April 21 – lunchtime @ IDES
April 21 – after school @ FSS

Of course, any member is more than welcome to attend... and to ask questions, raise concerns, suggest ideas.....

Districts in financial straits….. a sampling…. (newspaper articles)

2009-04-07T11:42:00.000-07:00

School district grapples with $1.6 million shortfall, Lake Cowichan Gazette, Mon 30 Mar 2009

“A $1.6-million shortfall going into budget talks means Cowichan school trustees will struggle just to maintain services in the valley during the coming school year.”

“…School District 79 …. has $72 million in revenue for the 2009-2010 school year, to maintain current operating expenditures requires more than $74 million.”

School district budgets for student decline, Terrace Standard, Tue 31 Mar 2009.
Molly McNulty

“THE COAST Mountain School District will be receiving nearly $1 million less for the next school year due to fewer student numbers.”

Spending down, Prince George Free Press, Tue 31 Mar 2009. Opinion

“…Our district will run out of the "surplus" that they have been funding government cuts and shortfalls with for the last five years, in the 2009-10 school year. We cannot forget that much of this money came from the closure and selling off of school buildings and lands. For the coming school year (2009-10) the province has not increased the money per student funding that they give to schools.”

Is B.C. really the Best Place on Earth?, Alberni Valley Times, Fri 03 Apr 2009. Ken Zydyk

“…Provincial Government funding levels for SD70 and several other school districts for the 2009/2010 school year are frozen at 08/09 levels. As a result, further cuts to programs and services are anticipated as the school district will be spending proportionally more of their budget to meet increases in fixed costs such as hydro and the carbon tax.”

School District 43 looks at cutting teachers and custodians, The Tri-City News, Wed 01 Apr 2009. Diane Strandberg

“School District 43 (Coquitlam) is looking at cutting teachers, custodial services and noon-hour supervision for high school students in order to balance its budget for next year.

As many as 22 teachers will be lost to the system because of declining enrolment and another 20 could go if SD43's board of education adopts the recommendations of its senior leadership team.”

“Youth workers, student services staff, supplies, learning support teachers, information technology staff could be cut, too.”

“…the board was told that it will get $2 million less because of declining enrolment and faces a total $4.1-million shortfall unless it makes some cuts. Among the cost pressure are higher utility, salary and benefit costs.”

“While SD43 got more money from the province this year, $1.39 million based on an enrolment decline of 400 kindergarten to Grade 12 students, it wasn't enough to cover contractual wage increases and other issues.”

“Trustees were also told that the district's per-pupil allocation of $5,581 hasn't increased since 2007/'08 and remains one of the lowest in the province.”

School bus fees not likely solution; To balance the budget, about $1 million in cuts will need to be made by the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district, The Daily News (Nanaimo) Fri 03 Apr 2009. Robert Barron

“… where nearly $1 million in cutbacks will come from, no one can say.”

“… the school district is facing a shortfall of about $1 million for 2009-10.”

“Nanaimo-Ladysmith is not alone in having to make difficult decisions. The Kelowna school district … looks for ways to cut $3 million from its budget."

Budget pressure on school trustees; Public meeting held to review $1.7-million shortfall for 2009-10, Penticton Herald Fri 03 Apr 2009. Scott Trudeau

“…Okanagan Skaha school trustees will have to do some fancy footwork to address a $1.7-million budget shortfall.”

“…the district is projecting an enrolment decline of 130 students next year, about a two per cent decline.”

"But the budget pressure is not easing as staff salaries and benefits continue to climb, as do the costs for supplies and services,"

“Despite a $294,000 operating grant increase from the ministry, the district's total income revenue is still down about $600,000. This is combined with a $1.14-million expenditure increase, which includes labour settlement and benefit costs.”

“Adding to the school district's financial woes, the government has already stated student funding is being frozen for the 2010-2011 school year, which is the first time since 2002-03 that has occurred.”

School-bus fees coming; District must cut $3m from budget, The Vancouver Province Fri 03 Apr 2009. Elaine O'Connor

“Faced with a $3-million budget cut, Central Okanagan school district …”

“District superintendent Mike Roberts noted in a March 24 report that the district has a $168.4 million budget for 2009/2010 -- $5 million more than the year before -- but that "the cost of all current programs, personnel, resources and materials will rise by a greater amount" to $171.4 million.”

“In 2008, the board cut $4.4 million from its budget. Over the last decade, they've closed or amalgamated more than a dozen schools.”

"All the districts in the Okanagan and Thompson, with the exception of Gold Trail, are facing shortfalls with transportation budgets….”

School boards face budget shortfall; North Van short $3.2M despite provincial funding increase of 2%, North Shore News Wed 25 Mar 2009. James Weldon

“NORTH Shore schools will be facing a shortfall in the millions of dollars next year despite the province's promise to boost education funding across British Columbia.”

“..the Ministry of Education announced it was adding $84 million -- or about 1.9 per cent, to its $4.5-billion education budget for the 2009-2010 school year.”

“…West Vancouver's education ministry grant will rise by a little over $1 million to around $47,400,000 -- an increase of roughly two per cent.”

“But while the figures may look good on paper, the view from the ground is much less rosy, said Irene Young, the North Vancouver school district's secretary-treasurer.”

“Staff salaries and benefits continue to climb, as do the costs of powering and maintaining facilities.”

“At the same time, the district is projecting a decline in other forms of revenue, such as interest on investments, fees from international students and now-exhausted surpluses held over from previous years.”

“All told, North Vancouver is looking at a $3.2-million shortfall.”

“Despite West Vancouver's rise in funding, it too is feeling the pinch.”

"It is probably going to be our most challenging budget year in my seven years (with the district)," said Geoff Jopson, West Vancouver's superintendent of schools. "We (have) to find about $1.3 million in total to meet our needs."”

Ministry fundingfor SD5 - details

2009-03-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

From Ministry data (operating grants manual):

First, here is the provincial totals for education funding:

2008-2009: $4.467 billion
2009-2010: $4.551 billion
2010-2011: $4.551 billion
2011-2012: $4.551 billion

note how the amount stops growing... bet the costs of doing business won't stop growing....

now for SD5...

Category ........ 2008-09 recal'ed .... 2009-10 estimate .... change
Basic (enrolment-based) $ 31,312,908 ..... $ 30,525,948 ....... (-)$ 786,960
Supplemental Funding
Enrolment decline ......... $ 0 ..................... $ 236,962 ........... (+)$ 236,962
Unique student needs .. $ 4,160,356 ........ $ 4,136,186 .......... (-)$ 24,170
Salary differential ........ $ 1,560,857 ......... $ 1,521,623 .......... (-)$ 39,234
Labour settlement ........$ 4,807,319 ......... $ 5,708,333 ......... (+)$ 901,014
Unique geographic .......$ 4,295,290 ......... $ 4,163,771 .......... (-)$ 131,519
Transport & housing ....$ 1,461,021 ...........$ 1,461,021 .......... 0
Summer learning .........$ 46,000 ..................0 ....................... (-)$ 46,000

Total grant ..................$ 47,643,751 .........$ 47,753,844 ........ (+)$ 110,093

Note how our funding for unique student needs has dropped! So has the basic amount.

As a result, just to maintain current levels of service.... well, the board can't.

SD5 details:
Basic enrolment amounts include $157,977 for DL students, $526,590 for Alternate schools, and $1,281 for course challenges...

Enrolment decline supplement is based on a loss of 134.5 students over this year, and a total of 101 students since 2006-07.

Unique student needs money is done as follows:
-$32,000 per 'level 1' (physically dependent/Deafblind) student = $ 224,000
-$16,000 per 'level 2' ( Moderate to profound Intellectual Disability, Physical Disability, or Chronic Health, Visual Impairment, Deaf or Hard of Hearing, Autism Spectrum) student = $ 2,288,000
-$8,000 per 'level 3' (Intensive Behaviour, Serious Mental Illness) student = $ 1,000,000
-$1,174 per ESL student = $ 7,044
-$1,014 per Aboriginal Education student (targetted funding) = $ 596,232
-$20,910 for Adult Education

Labour settlement funding includes money to cover the R & R award, harmonization costs, TTOC costs, ....

Unique geographic amounts include:
-Small community factor: $ 1,468,040
-Low enrolment factor: $ 1,029,495
-Rural factor: $ 908,037
-Climate factor: $ 286,157
-Sparseness factor: $ 472,042

The source documents are on file in the FDTA office....

Applying for the job of union president....

2009-03-31T11:27:00.000-07:00

After having had a few discussions with my colleagues in union leadership positions in the BCTF... a number of us are looking at the process used by people who become local presidents.

We have come up with the following ideas:
1. The job of the president is a job - a career component.
2. The position is a paid position, paid for by the membership.
3. The local association selects (hires) the person from all available candidates through an election (interview) process.
4. All members should be able to make a choice based on the skill set of all applicants for the job.
5. The job has a huge 'learn on the job' component, BUT it also includes a fair set of desirable prerequisites (related experience) that includes; knowledge of BCTF policies, procedures, and politics. knowledge of local association roles (PD, bargaining, Collective Agreement protection, Educational leadership, Social Justice), BCTF zonal work, Employer committee work, BCTF AGM, summer conferences, RA's, and more.
6. The election/election process impacts on the local post and fill process.
7. There is a deadline for all other 'requests for transfers' within a local that flow with the 'post and fill' process. The common date seems to be March 30th of the year.
8. The outgoing president must return to the classroom (return from a leave), and should have the right to be able to apply for transfers, etc., and to prepare for a return to 'the classroom'.

Therefore;
1. In order to run for election as a local president, any and all interested parties should need to APPLY for the job, just like you need to apply for any other job in the profession.
2. Applicants should need to supply a CV and a supporting statement that outlines their reasons for applying for the position, the reasons why they feel that they can do the job, and what they will bring to the role.
3. These documents should be shared with the hiring body (the local membership).
4. There should be an application deadline - say 1 month / 30 days before the local AGM. A firm date of March 30th would bring the process in line with requests for teacher transfers in the district.
5. There should be no opportunities to 'run from the floor' - to skulk around and manipulate democracy as it were.
6. All applicants should be allowed to campaign, by way of one 8.5 X 11 document (one-sided) distributed to all members prior to the date of the local AGM.
7. At the local AGM, each candidate / applicant would be able to speak to the hiring body (the membership), and to respond to questions from the membership.

The result would be an informed vote and selection by the local membership... what do you think?

2009 BCTF AGM Report

2009-03-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

We voted to leave the ‘Roundtable’ due to the lack of progress at the table. In fact, the complete lack of any progress, the lack of attendance by the Premier, the refusal of the Liberals to use the Roundtable for its promised purpose….

Bargaining motions that supported the goal of a return to ‘full and free local bargaining’ all passed.

Motions that support a real move to address the need to improve our benefit plans all passed.

Motions to force the BCiMC to change its investment processes were debatd, and more importantly, the needed discussions around ethics in investments, and the role that large stockholders can have in forcing changes in corporate behaviours happened. Investment attitudes are changing.

BCTF fees to remain the same in 2009-2010, with a shift of dues allotment that includes more $ into the SIP fund.

FSA campaign to continue on.

There was a continued debate among BCTF members around the ‘Coalition’ and caucusing. There is a party of people who are not in agreement with the principles of the ‘Coalition’, and who meet, plan, devise strategy, select people to run for the BCTF Executive (including the election strategy of dropping off the ballot), but who pretend to be “Independent”, even though they all wore “DUE” buttons, and caucused to come up with strategies to give caucusing a negative brand. Time was spent looking at the value of groups meeting to get up to speed on topics (become better informed) before a meeting.

Another heated debate occurred around the rights of retired teachers to TTOC.

The elections for the BCTF executive went as follows:
President: Irene Lanzinger
1st Vice: Susan Lambert
2nd Vice; Jim Iker
Members at Large:
Glen Hansman, Christine Stewart, Terri Mooring, Jill McCaffery, and Rick Guenther.

We heard speeches, rubbed shoulders with politicians, and together we steered a course for the BCTF for 2009-2010.

Spring is here...

2009-03-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ah, the Friday before March break... it takes so long to get here, and it goes by so fast. Then, well, the snow is melting and you can smell Spring.

To those of you off on student trips - enjoy and be safe. To those going on holiday, enjoy and be safe.

Wednesday saw me spending a lot of time with Carole James, the Lead rof the BC NDP. We talked about Contract stripping (she recognized our loss, but said 'no', the NDP won't undo the damage done), Education Funding: we talked about the need to target $ for Special Needs children, Gray Area children, Early Intervention, Librarians, Electives, Shops, Small schools support, and other related issues.

I also spent a bit of time with the Presidents of some of the other unions in the Valley (like the Steel Workers) discussing issues facing them in their industries.
Kate, Cindy and I are off tomorrow to Vancouver to participate in the BCTF AGM - to speak on your behalf. We'll be dealing with Pensions, Politics, Bargaining, and other issues that will have a dirrect impact on your working and retirement life. Wish us well.

As the winter season comes to a close, the Association has successfully resolved a large number of outstanding grievances - some dating back to 2005! That's a good thing.

We've begun to work with the employer as the board begins the Post and Fill/staffing/budgetting season - wish us all well.

Steve