In what the B.C. Public School Employers' Association is calling an illegal strike, public school teachers are not engaging in after-hours activities at their schools and students are suffering the consequences.
Field trips outside of normal school hours are not proceeding, provincial golf and mountain biking seasons have been cancelled, and teachers are contemplating withholding their extracurricular involvement next school year as well, which could put more student activities at risk.
"It's starting to wear on us parents because it's affecting our kids," Don Sabo, chair of the School District 57 District Parent Advisory Council.
"We don't want to see another full year of this. We've been quite patient, it's been a year almost and we want to send a message to the BCTF and the government. Parents aren't going to be too happy if this happens for another full year, next year. It's not good for our kids and it promotes a poor learning environment at school that is affecting their education."
Parents have been asked to get more involved in school events and take over duties formerly handled by teachers, but some are encountering barriers that have left them feeling alienated.
"I am sad to share that recent discussions in an alarming number of our schools in this province are not positive ones," said Ann Whiteaker, president of the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils.
"Members are reporting that the response to parent offers to volunteer to support their students and school community have been very discouraging, negative and multifaceted. Events planned months in advance are being cancelled and deposits paid being lost due to these cancellations -- citing policies, liability, [and] special certifications as reasons why parents cannot volunteer in the absence of teachers."
To protest the provincial legislation passed in March, which ended their right to strike through to end of the next school year, teachers voted 73 per cent in favour of adopting the B.C. Teachers Federation's recommendation to launch a province-wide action plan and hold back their voluntary duties. In response, BCPSEA applied Wednesday to the B.C. Labour Relations Board to seek an order that would require teachers to perform extracurricular duties.
"In our view, the BCTF's direction to its members to engage in a concerted refusal to perform these duties constitutes an illegal strike in violation of the Labour Relations Code and Education Improvement Act," said BCPSEA, in a four-page letter on its website.
The BCTF plans to take BCPSEA to court to fight the new legislation and teachers have chosen not to engage in voluntary duties for the rest of the school year. While the BCTF won't likely decide until August whether to carry on its protest into the following school year, Prince George District Teachers Association president Matt Pearce said that remains a real possibility.
"When we were allowed to make choices around our job action, we chose to make sure all those[voluntary] things happened," said Pearce. "Now that all those options have been taken away by legislation, this [protest] is what we're left with. I guess [parents] can be mad at teachers for doing the one thing that's left or they can look at the whole picture."
Some school trips from Prince George to historic sites in Barkerville and Fort St. James have been cancelled, but Pearce said most field trips are proceeding with teacher involvement, as long as they are completed within school hours. Teachers won't be organizing graduation ceremonies but Pearce said they will attend them because of their interest in seeing their students receive their diplomas.
Although the provincial track and field championships will go ahead as planned in June with teachers coaching, some student athletes, especially in sports like volleyball and basketball, are feeling their scholarship opportunities will be threatened if their fall and winter seasons are cancelled. Pearce has talked to community football coaches who are preparing to take over high school teams and he said the fall season is not in jeopardy. As long as school volunteers pass a criminal record check, he said, there shouldn't be any problems with them participating in school activities.
The B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association (BCPVPA) is worried there will be a carryover into next year that will lead to the cancellation of some sports, unless mediator Charles Jago can bring the two sides together.
"I think a lot of our fall and winter sports won't proceed if things don't change," said BCPVPA president Jameel Aziz. "I've heard from parents already who have high-calibre athletes and are wondering about what their options are for next year and many of them are looking at club teams and private schools because they want to get their child the scholarship opportunities they would need for Canada and the United States."
Jago, a former UNBC president, was appointed mediator on March 28 and has met with both sides separately on at least six occasions.
"I'm actually a little optimistic that Dr. Jago in his meetings with the BCTF and BCPSEA might be able to find some of that ground and make some recommendations that are palatable to both parties, but we won't know that until the end of June," Aziz said.
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