I could just go off into the sunset and my happy retirement, but I refuse and now that school is out, parents might like to calmly evaluate the B.C. Liberals’ plan for education.
I am angry and I am insulted at the 10-year deal that the new education minister is trying to sell.
Teachers have legally won the right to bargain for class size, composition, and specialist ratios. Government wants to put those educational priorities aside under some unworkable policy group which is going to destroy the transparency, fairness and guaranteed support to special needs students.
Having lived through the Learning Improvement Fund, this will be another limited pot of money that everyone will be competing for trying to prove their need is greater.
This is what Education Minister Peter Fassbender is peddling, a dubious “new path,” instead of legitimate bargaining.
If this deal is imposed, students will go through another 10 years of under-funding. Even though every single child in the province is owed $1,000, (that is how far behind in funding we have fallen in comparison to other provinces), they will see none of this money.
Just think how much $30,000 per class can bring in terms of staffing, books, materials and computers. How can PACs be expected to raise this amount times each class in their school per year?
That is what this government is taking away from our children, and I, like the 96 per cent of teachers who voted say: No 10-year deal.
Patsicakis Neovi