Teachers will again have the ability to bargain class size and composition following a recent ruling in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
Teachers were stripped of the right by the provincial government through the passing of a law in 2002. However, in Supreme Court on April 13, Justice Susan Griffin declared that move unconstitutional. She said the government had little consultation with the teachers' union before instating the law and that it bypassed collective bargaining.
The law removed terms of the union's collective agreement and prohibited bargaining on class sizes, class composition, ratios of non-enrolling teachers to students and teacher workload.
The government rationalized the move at the time by saying the issues at hand were too important to students to be negotiated through collective bargaining. Justice Griffin did not agree with that rationale.
"The legislation undoubtedly was seen by teachers as evidence that the government did not respect them or consider them to be valued contributors to the education system, having excluded them from any freedom to associate to influence their working conditions," stated Griffin's ruling. "This was a seriously deleterious effect of the legislation, one adversely disproportionate to any salutary effects revealed by the evidence."
Sunshine Coast Teachers' Asso-ciation president Jenny Garrels said local teachers are very happy with the ruling.
"It is huge for us. What it means is not just being able to bargain, but it really takes us back to what our language was back in 2002," Garrels said.
That language called for a cap of 26 students in lab classes like science, home economics and shop for safety reasons, but Garrels notes those classes are now capped at 30 students.
"There were also ratios for teacher librarians, so one teacher librarian for every 400 students, and now we don't have a school with a full-time teacher librarian," Garrels said.
There were caps on the number of special needs students in each classroom under the old language as well.
"In our school district, we had local language that capped it at two low incidence kids, and now the legislation says three. But we have many, many classes over that, so there's no enforcing it with the way it is now," Garrels said. "I know there's a science class at Chat that has 30 kids and 10 IEPs [Individualized Education Programs], which to me is unmanageable. You cannot do that."
Garrels said, under the old language, a high school teacher couldn't teach more than 190 students, but now, she said, they can teach 210 or more.
"So that's a big difference of workload for teachers and, of course, the amount of time a teacher can spend with individual students," she added.
She said the ruling will give teachers the ability to structure classes for optimal learning.
"Not to have that ability at the local level, it was devastating for us, and we've had 10 years of it, so the kids who were in Grade 2 when that language was taken out are now graduating. They've never known a school system that had the proper supports in place," she said.
While Garrels is excited about what the ruling will mean for teachers and students, the actual implementation of the ruling won't happen for 12 months.
The 12-month timeline will give teachers the power to restructure classes in April of next year, but School District No. 46 board chair Silas White said they have been given assurances that changes won't happen before the 2011/12 school year is complete.
"The Ministry has already assured us that they're confident they will be able to work with the BCTF [British Columbia Teachers Federation] and will not be in a situation where we suddenly have an upheaval of class sizes in April," he said.
-With files from Kyle Wells/Powell River Peak
