The Vancouver School Board is delaying the start of summer school to July 7.
Classes had been scheduled to start July 2.
The VSB wants to allow more time for the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association and the B.C. Teachers’ Federation to work out of deal.
The district will decide whether summer school will proceed on or before July 3.
VSB public relations manager Kurt Heinrich said Wednesday afternoon the board hadn’t decided whether to proceed with summer school. The board was waiting for the Labour Relations Board to rule whether remedial summer school for secondary students who had failed a course is an essential service.
The LRB told the Courier Wednesday afternoon that a time for the hearing had not yet been set.
The BCPSEA asked the LRB Tuesday to designate remedial programs as essential services.
BCTF president Jim Iker said the federation chose to extend the strike to summer school because the federation hadn’t seen progress at the bargaining table.
“The holdup now is a lack of commitment from government to adequately fund improvements to class size, class composition, and staffing levels for specialist teachers,” Iker said in a BCTF press release.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender says the government and BCTF are far apart.
“Mediation can certainly help us to adjust that package,” he said in a press statement. “We are willing to explore puts and takes, small moves here and there. But mediation will not split the difference between our respective positions. A mediator will not shake loose hundreds of millions of dollars that we simply do not have.”
The BCTF and BCPSEA were to talk Wednesday afternoon.
Iker urged parents, trustees and the public to pressure Premier Christy Clark to fund a deal for teachers that would adequately address class size, composition and staffing ratios.
Heinrich said the VSB has cancelled summer camps for international students that would have grossed $405,000 for the board. The cancellation of academic summer school classes for international students would mean the loss of $360,000 in tuition.
Heinrich said the VSB has roughly 17,000 registrations for summer school courses and only a fraction of those are for remedial courses. Summer school includes secondary preview courses, completion courses and courses and programs for elementary students.
Outgoing VSB student trustee Nick Milum calls the continuing strife frustrating.
“I realize that the teachers are fighting for student needs… and if there were smaller class sizes and there was better composition in schools that would allow for a much better learning environment,” he said. “But I’m still frustrated on the sense that it has affected students so much in the last month, especially with exams around this time, with year end projects and with marks, too.”
For updates, see www.vsb.bc.ca.
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