Shortly after the B.C. Supreme Court ordered the government to restore the terms of the 2002 teachers’ contract, the education ministry canvassed the districts.
Justice Susan Griffin had just handed the B.C. Teachers’ Federation a big victory. Ordering the strict staffing requirements from the old contract back into force has huge implications for the schools. So superintendent of achievement Rick Davis had a conference call with assorted district officials to analyze the impact.
Very soon after that, the government announced it was appealing the decision. Davis then emailed the districts on Feb. 5 with a detailed explanation of what he needed from them.
The email was included in the affidavits released last week in support of the government’s application for a stay on returning to the old contract.
In the context, it’s clear an appeal was a foregone conclusion from the moment the judgment came down.
Davis wrote: “As I indicated on the call, it is important to be objective and descriptive, as your findings may form part of evidence supporting the appeal of this decision.”
What he wanted was a detailed report on what it would cost each district to comply with the 12-year-old contract, with its rigid class-size limits, specialist-teacher requirements and formulas on class composition.
“You should certainly turn your mind to how school operations are to work with the clauses restored, but no one expects that to happen overnight.”
He asked for two costing scenarios. One was the cost of maintaining current operations while also meeting the 2002 contract provisions.
The second scenario was how to return to the old contract without any additional ministry funding. If this were a war game, that scenario would be the nuclear option. It entails wholesale cancellations, shuffling and complete upheaval of current operations to free enough money to meet the contract terms.
He wrote: “Expect the list to be alarming and threatening to some of your employees, schools and communities.”
If alarming is what he expected, alarming is what he got.
Many districts responded as requested. Scenario 1 is an immediate cost of millions of dollars to hire dozens or hundreds of teachers, and buy dozens of portable classrooms.
The Scenario 2 responses are long lists of draconian cuts that would gut many districts’ operations.
Kootenay Lakes, for example, would raise the $700,000 it would need to restore the contract by reducing or eliminating dance, outdoor ed, athletic academies and secondary French immersion.
It would reconfigure and close schools, cut support staff in all categories (to hire more teachers) and eliminate summer work crews.
Other districts estimated cuts or extra costs of similar scope. One said it would need 228 new teachers. It already has recruitment issues, so it anticipated hiring only partially qualified librarians. It would need 17 portables, if it could find space for them.
The problems compound themselves. One said it would have little choice but to terminate rental contracts for preschools and daycares, losing $80,000 a year in revenue. Computer labs might have to be shut down, because the classroom space is needed.
Others raised the prospect of closing or curtailing international student programs, which have become a revenue source in some districts. One district raised the prospect of special-needs students’ rights to get programs being “severely curtailed” by limiting the number of special-needs kids in any one classroom. Once the limit is reached, such a student just would not be allowed in the room.
Some of the estimates might be torqued a bit, to maximize the urgency of the need for a stay.
But there’s enough on the record to bring home how extraordinary the impact would be on the school system.
Politicians took another run at the issue on Monday. But it was mostly posturing and gamesmanship. The solution to this mess won’t come from the legislature.
The only way out — as the judge suggests — is through negotiations between the BCTF and a government that has thoroughly snookered itself.
