One year after the BC Teachers' Federation won its landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision over the provincial government restoring its collective agreement, the cost and ramifications of the ruling continue to roll out in School District 43.
And one of those costs is for additions for schools currently under construction.
Tuesday, the district announced it had spent $21.1 million on additional teachers and education assistants for smaller classes and to support special needs students, and is seeking $2.5 million from the province for extra help for teachers where classes are in violation of the collective agreement.
SD43 also needs $20.7 million for classroom additions — including additional classrooms for Smiling Creek elementary and Banting middle, two schools being built, as well as money to buy new or relocate existing portables.
The cash is needed to help the district deal with the ramifications of the Supreme Court decision last November, when the collective agreement was restored, including class size and composition ratios.
And according to SD43, many classes are still not compliant.
As many as 780 classes don’t meet the collective agreement requirements and affected teachers have the right to request support in the form of additional preparation time, opportunities for co-teaching or support from special resource teachers.
(In Victoria, the number is 900 and in Vancouver the number of class size-and composition violations is 2,000, according to the BC Teachers’ Federation.)
Meanwhile, a mini building boom is required to provide additional classroom space.
SD43 has about $10 million in its capital fund — about half what’s needed for portables and building additions at Dr. Charles Best secondary, Panorama, Smiling Creek and Westwood elementary schools, and Banting middle.
Ken Christensen, president of the Coquitlam Teachers' Association, is not surprised at the degree to which local schools have to play catch-up now that the collective agreement and class size and composition ratios have been restored.
“The effect of that [earlier government legislation stripping the contract] was that composition went crazy," he said. "The needs in those classes went incredibly high. It’s the first meaningful relief for enrolling teachers in the better part of 20 years.”
As for schools being built too small for students, Christensen said that’s a longstanding problem in which construction funds are advanced to accommodate current enrolment rather than future enrolment.
The school district has to wait until the February budget to find out whether its request for $10 million for portables and building additions will be approved.
“That’s a little worrying," Christensen said. "They make these applications for these funds with the Supreme Court victory and the implication from that is that they’ll get that, but one never knows.”
