With a public school teachers' contract settlement still expected to be a long way off, new routines are being established and Tri-City schools are finding ways to cope with the first phase of job action.
There are no plans to cancel recess, says School District 43 superintendent Tom Grant, because administrators are doing supervision and teachers are finding ways to give parents information on their children's progress.
"They are trying to develop teaching conditions that support students," said Grant.
Although formal reports cards won't be sent out and some meet-the-teacher nights are being cancelled, there are still ongoing discussions with parents of kindergarten students and special needs students with individual education plans.
"What it looks like in each case will be slightly different," said Grant, who advised parents to be proactive about their children's education and contact the teacher if they have a concern or an issue they want to discuss. "From a parent perspective, you have to look at what it is you're trying to accomplish through teacher contact."
He suggested parents get involved in their school's parent advisory council or volunteer. If they want to be part of their child's IEP team, they can ask to set up a meeting. "Teachers have said they will meet with parents and communicate in that kind of situation.
"I think teachers in general really want to support their kids and they want to ensure at the end of all of this is that we have support for public education," Grant said.
Coquitlam Teachers' Association president Teresa Grandinetti agreed that teachers will continue to reach out to parents despite the job action. "There are 2,000 teachers and 2,000 different ways," Grandinetti said, noting that meetings will be organized in some cases and in others, a phone call will suffice.
Parents who don't have a specific concern but just want to make sure things are going well can still contact their child's teacher and Grandinetti said some informal reporting will likely be done in mid-October, even though formal report cards will be discontinued during job action.
"A number of teachers might be sending those type of things home as the year progresses," Grandinetti said.
Today (Friday), the CTA plans to publish an advertisement in local newspapers to update parents on the bargaining process and to let them know teachers value relationships with parents.
Talks continue between the BC Teachers' Federation and the BC Public Sector Employers' Association, with issues unresolved on several fronts. Grandinetti said the teachers' union is also waiting for a court ruling on the status of Bills 27 and 28 (class size and composition regulations) in the hopes of seeing those issues discussed at the bargaining table.
Meanwhile, Grant said there are no plans to cancel recess, as some school districts have done, because the district's senior leadership team and school principals are managing to find time to cover the nutrition break at 37 elementary schools.
"We looked at it and our sense was that in our context - we don't face the same geographic problems some districts do and we think it's important for kids to have daily physical activity - we are not looking at it as an option at all."
School Districts in Prince George, Vancouver Island and the Okanagan have cancelled recess and adjusted schedules by 15 minutes.
