Theories abound as to why newly inducted Education Minister Peter Fassbender is seeking to suspend contract negotiations between the teachers and the B.C. Public Schools Employers Association.
Fassbender is an experienced negotiator. This may be just negotiation jiu jitsu designed to move the process off balance and force the B.C. Teachers’ Federation representatives into a defensive posture.
Or it may be that the new minister has had little time to review the convoluted history of teacher bargaining, which has, among other things, seen the government all but ignore a 2011 B.C. Supreme Court ruling by Justice Susan Griffin regarding Bills 27 and 28, which found that such legislation that basically eliminated bargaining on class size and composition was unconstitutional anyway.
This ruling resulted in the government introducing Bill 22, which repealed Bills 27 and 28, but immediately legislated their intention back into effect.
Class size is a biggie for the teachers, but class composition is the deal-breaker. The two issues are closely related. Class composition is possibly the first issue the minister must resolve in pursuit of a deal.
Among Canadian teacher unions, discussions of class size are increasingly being informed by the importance of considering the diversity of student needs within the classroom — the composition of the class.
Under B.C.’s proposed education plan for teachers, both class size and diversity matter, because teachers will be expected to do what many teachers do already — adapt their teaching methods to address the individual needs of diverse learners.
Broadly conceived, classroom composition is also about the extent to which teachers have — or have not — the supports and services needed to effectively integrate students with special educational needs.
It is the educationally justifiable practice of integrating students with identified special needs into regular classrooms that is at the heart of parent and teacher concerns. They are apprehensive about any attempt by government to ignore the implications of support for classroom diversity.
I say justifiable, because neither parents nor teachers want to see these kids shuffled off into separate classrooms where they do not experience school with all the other kids.
Students with special needs include those formally identified as having behavioural problems or intellectual or physical disabilities. There are other special-needs students, including “gifted” students who are looking for challenges above and beyond the normal lessons.
Students who are English-language learners also require additional and special attention from the teacher.
All these kids are in classrooms now and are not going anywhere. No amount of legislative weaving and dodging will improve the situation.
Beyond this, Fassbender will almost certainly need some thinking time to resolve the confusing logic of the premier’s stated mandate of a 10-year contract settlement with teachers that would effectively index teachers’ salaries to average increases negotiated by other government employees. This, say the teachers, is fundamentally unfair, because it effectively prohibits teachers from negotiating for their own salaries.
They have a point.
On Feb. 14, in a meeting with the BCTF table officers, the previous education minister, Don McRae, stated that no government could ever commit to 10 years of indexing because the economic climate changes.
That translates into a mandated 10-year plan with no guarantees about anything.
Who wouldn’t go for a mortgage like that?
Fassbender, as skilful as his history in providing public service seems to indicate, will understand that good deals are not based on contradictions and may find himself grappling with his premier on one side and the BCTF on the other.
Teachers, more than anyone, would likely welcome stability in the education sector. Hopefully, suspending talks at this point will not scuttle productive negotiations and prolong bargaining long into the next school year.
If there is any sector of public service that needs to be able to get on with its job in the absence of political gamesmanship, it is education.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
