Vancouver School Board chairperson Patti Bacchus wasn’t sure Tuesday morning whether missed teaching hours would be made up when students and teachers start school.
First teachers and school boards need to ratify the tentative agreement mediator Vince Ready helped the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association reach in the wee hours Sept. 16.
Teachers are to vote on the agreement Thursday.
Bacchus said Vancouver schools would open Monday at the earliest and that making up lost teaching hours hadn’t been formally discussed.
The province requires 853 hours of instruction for students in kindergarten, 878 hours of instruction for students in Grades 1 to 7 and 952 hours of instruction for students in Grades 8 to 12.
It also requires school boards to set the following year’s calendar by March 30, after a month of consultation.
As of Sept. 22, students will have missed 14 days of this school year, and the VSB’s school calendar, as it stands, wouldn’t meet the teaching hour requirements.
“It is a collective agreement issue,” Bacchus said. “We know there will be some people who will have already booked things for spring break, for example, so we, generally, are not permitted to change the calendar once it’s set. This is, of course, a very unique circumstance, so that’s something that would have to be discussed at the provincial level and there would also be some fairly significant budget implications.”
Whether anything about teaching hours was part of the tentative agreement wasn’t known by the Courier’s press deadline.
The Ministry of Education told the Courier in an email Sept. 15 that it’s “working with school districts on a strategy to reduce the impact on students once school resumes.”
“Staff are looking at options on how students can complete the courses they need to advance to the next grade level or post-secondary programs, despite the instructional days lost due to the strike,” the email stated.
Bacchus said a handful of parents have suggested the VSB should scrap the school closure days March 9 to 13 that extend spring break, which runs March 16 to 20.
But she said the VSB closed schools these days to save $750,000 in its stretched budget.
Bacchus said the government allowed the VSB to retain 20 per cent of the strike savings for May and June, or $3.3 million.
She said the government will reclaim strike savings from September.
A Sept. 12 letter to the VSB from Deborah Fayad, assistant deputy minister of the Ministry of Education, states the government wants details on strike savings that include teacher wages, utility costs and supplies. The letter stated the ministry would work with districts on a case-by-case basis on any extra strike-related costs.
Bacchus expects glitches with getting staff in the right places, classrooms sorted out and timetables firmed up.
“I know school principals have been doing much of that work through the summer and this September,” she said.
Bacchus said Monday she was concerned about vulnerable students who haven’t had access to meals, counselling services and referrals from schools. She was concerned about the anxiety senior high school students have been feeling, the extra pressure administrators have borne, the load school counsellors are sure to face once schools open and teachers’ stress levels.
“When they’ve got stress in their lives and they’re under financial stress and their own relationships with each other are probably under pressure because everyone has different opinions on what should be done, I worry about that effect carrying over on their wellness and their morale and ability to do their very best at work,” Bacchus said.
She noted some teachers have moved schools and teachers haven’t been able to get into the new Norma Rose Point school. General Gordon elementary is moving to portables at Queen Elizabeth elementary and L’Ecole Bilingue isn’t moving to portables, as planned, because of permit delays. The district also needs to deal with a couple of fires at schools, including one at Chief Maquinna elementary.
The VSB has 3,414 teachers on continuing contract and 848 teachers on call.
The district service roughly 50,000 students, including international students, at 110 schools.
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