Im a high school teacher, and I dont want to be on strike. I enjoy teaching my students, and I also need my salary. Making the decision to vote yes for the strike was heart-wrenching.
However, the contents of the Governments Bill 22 make it impossible for me to not protest.
Lets put salary considerations aside...in my 22 years of teaching, salaries have never been the prime issue for me (nor are they for most other teachers). Of course, we want fair compensation, and of course, we feel the pinch of being left behind by increases in the cost of living. But our salary position is negotiable.
The frightening part of Bill 22 is that it entrenches the stripping of our class size and composition agreements. In fact, it removes any consultation with teachers of the numbers and composition of students in our classrooms. It even says that districts do not have to publicly report class sizes nor the number of special needs students per class. I guess thats so next time we wont even be able to make signs about the number of overcrowded classrooms.
Bill 22 also directs that we cannot negotiate or discuss class size and composition with our employers until after the next provincial election. Convenientfor George Abbott and Christy Clark. Inconvenientfor the students and teachers who will be living daily with the reality of these classrooms. Bill 22 even removes limits on special needs classes.
As a science teacher, I teach 75 minute classes. Lets say I can introduce and explain a topic in 30 minutes. That leaves me 45 minutes to assist students doing worksuch as labs, activities or practice questions. In a 30 student class, that gives each student 1.5 minutes of attention. If a student with a serious learning disability or another designated special need requires 10 minutes, that impacts everyone in my class. If I have four or five of those students, they either dont get the attention they need, or they get all of my attention. Every day, I am forced to make decisions like this.
I work hard on pro-d days and in my own time to develop and improve my teaching capacity. But even the most skilled of us has a limit as to how many students we can supportand then what happens to those who dont receive the support they need?
I was leafleting for three days this week to draw attention to the fact that the elimination of any contract language around class size and composition is going to harm the students of B.C. as well as the teachers.
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Donna Morgan is a Vancouver resident and teacher at Burnaby North secondary.
