Matt Pearce showed up at Tuesday's school board meeting prepared for battle.
Decked out in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers jersey he wore as a fullback when he won the Grey Cup in 1990, Pearce left no doubt which team he will be cheering for in Sunday's game. But he wasn't there to talk about football.
As president of the Prince George District Teachers Association, Pearce wanted to make clear to trustees the real reason behind the teachers' province-wide job action is their dissatisfaction with class composition and the number of special needs students and individual education plans (IEPs) they have to deal with in their classrooms.
"Last month there was a lot of discussion around bussing and [school board chair Lyn] Hall offered the advice that next year's board should focus on bussing but I can tell you this is not the advice you will hear from teachers and the other employees working in classrooms," said Pearce.
"We think you should focus on the biggest issue facing our learners, and that's classroom composition. This year, our teachers are grieving the largest number of classes ever, and that's not a reflection on [superintendent Brian] Pepper and his administrators. I think they've done all they can do with the resources at their disposal and they're still fighting a losing battle."
Pearce said there are more than 1,600 students in the district currently in classes where their teachers disagree with the classroom composition and do not feel they can meet the learning outcomes. He predicts that number will grow to 2,000 students by the end of the school year.
One example he gave was Grade 12 science classroom of 28 students which had six IEPs, five other students with severe learning behaviours who do not have IEPs, and two students who are at least two years below grade level, with no teaching assistant in the class. A youth care worker rated 15 of the 28 students with severe behavioural issues.
Said Pearce: "The teacher's comment was, 'I do not know how to effectively educate this class.' And that's from a 15-year teacher."
Pearce wants the trustees to continue to advocate for more government funds and for them to require that Pepper include in his class-size report to the province information on class composition. He also wants trustees to guard against any proposal that directs funds away from any program that helps alleviate class composition concerns. He also encouraged trustees to visit classrooms to find out what teachers are encountering in their jobs.
n Also at Tuesday's board meeting, Kathi Travers of the SPCA asked the school board to look into the possibility of setting up a fenced-in dog park on the closed school property at Gladstone elementary school. The off-leash area would be similar to the dog enclosure at Duchess Park secondary school, which opened in the fall.
"The fenced-off area at Duchess Park is getting used, and I'm so excited about that," said Travers.
Travers pointed out that the city's off-leash advisory committee recommended allowing Ginters Field and Moores Meadow Park to keep their off-leash status, but an area at the end of Domano Boulevard in College Heights be eliminated as an off-leash area. That, she said, leaves the College Heights area without an off-leash park for dogs. The 2.4-acre Gladstone school field, would fill that need.
"We would like to have a shared-use agreement with the city up there that would dog owners in the area happy and make the city safe," Travers said.
Trustees referred the request to the district education services committee.
n The board also referred to senior administration a proposal that an advisory committee consisting of educational partner groups and relevant community groups be struck to draft and present a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender anti-discrimination policy for the district's policy and governance committee.
n District staff presented departing trustees Hall, Lois Boone, Roxanne Ricard, Valentine Crawford and Rhonda White with school handbells as commemorative gifts for their years of service on the board.
