Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Teachers Strike In Nanaimo May 27, 2014

BCTF Job Action 2014

Information about Strike Action by BCTF
  •  UPDATE, May 20:  BCTF announces Stage two rotating strikes.  One-day strike scheduled for our district Tuesday, May 27.  Letter will be sent home with students Wednesday, May 21.
  • Stage One of the BCTF strike action started on Wednesday, April 23, 2014.
During Stage One, teachers will be in classrooms providing instruction and will continue to write report cards, communicate with parents and may volunteer to carry out extracurricular activities.

Letter Sent To Parents May 7th

Information about the Impact of BCTF Strike Action
on Activities in Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools

District Events that Have Been Cancelled, To Date
  • Elementary Zone and District Track and Field Meets – These meets are large events which bring together students from a number of elementary schools. Given the current situation with the BCTF strike action, the district believes that it cannot provide the required level of student supervision at these meets and has, regretfully, decided to cancel them.
  • Aboriginal Student Graduation Celebration – Regretfully, it has been decided that it is not feasible to proceed with this annual celebration, which was scheduled for the evening of May 22.
  • The May 6 Success for All Non-Instructional Day was cancelled, as were the one-hour early dismissals for Professional Learning Communities on April 28 and May 12.
Factors Affecting Field Trips and School Events – May and June 2014

Type of Strike Activity that Is Occurring or Anticipated:

Stage 1 of the strike by the BCTF is currently underway. Stage 1 involves the withdrawal of many teacher activities including:
  • Teachers removing themselves from administrative tasks, including written communication with the school principal. This type of strike activity could prevent the required documents for field trips being provided to principals.
  • Teachers are only providing limited supervision of students before or after school or at recess, although they may provide voluntary extra-curricular supervision during this stage.
  • Teachers are limiting their attendance at schools outside of instructional time to one hour before classes and one hour after classes.
Stage 2 of a strike would include teachers withdrawing from work on a rotating basis around the province.
  • Picket lines may be at schools.
  • If a rotating strike were to take place in our district on a day that a field trip or special event was scheduled, that trip or event would have to be cancelled.
  • BCTF is required to give two days’ notice about rotating strikes.
  • A rotating strike could cause problems with multi-day field trips out of the school district, since it is possible we would not know about the strike until after students had left on the trip.
Stage 3 would be a complete strike, province-wide.
  • If this were to take place this spring, all trips and events would be cancelled, and students already on trips would likely be required to return home as soon as possible.
  • We do not know when, or if, Stages 2 or 3 might take place.
Safety Requirements
  • With all field trips, there is important documentation that must be completed. This includes providing the school principal with details of the trip, emergency contact information, and a list of students going on the trip. This information must be provided to the principal in order for a field trip to proceed, and the principal must be satisfied that there will be adequate supervision of the students on the field trip.
  • For overnight field trips, the district requires that at least one school district employee accompanies the group. Because there are a large number of overnight trips being planned, the district is not able to ensure that staff sponsors will be available to supervise all such trips.
Contingency Planning and Cancellation Fees
  • Parents should be aware that because of the uncertainty about the current strike action and potential rotating or full-scale strike action, there is a possibility that money committed will not be refundable.
Graduation Activities and Year-End Events
  • Events that are held during the school day should be able to proceed as planned unless there is a Stage 2 rotating strike or Stage 3 full strike on that particular day. For events taking place after school hours, the situation will vary from school to school, depending on the availability of organizers and supervision.

allvoices

2 comments:

  1. What a world we are in these days since the corporations have taken over, and corporate values are being honoured.
    Unbelievable that the education of our children is being compromised because there are no short-term profits! This New World Order -rule by corporations - is so wrong, and might be the worst ever.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If SD68 and the BCTF proceed to stage 3, what will that do the upcoming BC Summer Games? Many of the venues and some billeting are school related.

    ReplyDelete

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