No controversy on Day one as SD 8 teachers take a professional approach to job action
By Bruce Fuhr
Day one of the B.C. Teachers Federation three-day job action came and went in the Kootenay Lake School District No. 8 without much controversy on the picket lines said Kootenay Lake Superintendent of Schools/CEO Jeff Jones.
“I had the opportunity to see some teachers on the (picket) lines around some of the sites in our district and they were all very, very respectful,” Jones told The Nelson Daily Monday.
“I’m very proud of them. They all did a very good job of sharing information with the public.”
Nelson and District Teachers Association president Tom Newell concurred with Jones.
“Day one was filled with honking from cars passing by depending on which school we were at,” Newell explained.
“If our people were at Rosemont, of course, there wasn’t much in the way of traffic but at Hume and Central, which is on Stanley Street, there were lots of people showing support.”
Students in the province were not in class as 41,000 teachers began a three-day strike with protests outside many schools, including those in the Kootenay Lake School District.
The strike is in response to legislation introduced by the provincial government to end the ongoing job action by the BCTF, which started in September with the initial phase — teachers were not performing administrative work, including submitting student’s progress using report cards.
Newell said the reason why the public didn’t see teachers on the lines during the afternoon is the NDTA decided to pool the majority of the resources during the morning.
“Seeing how we are not picketing and not blocking anyone from the schools we thought we’d have the most impact in the morning potentially when school starts to share information,” Newell said.
Jones said parents made it easier on the administration by keeping children at home.
“I’m very much appreciative of our community as parents managed to find alternative care for their children,” Jones said.
Parents must have found friends or family to watch children as most daycare facilities contacted by The Nelson Daily reported very minor, if at all, increase in registration.
“I know one parent was a little concerned about the strike before it happened but enrollment (Monday) was pretty much the same,” a person at Wee Ones Preschool and Daycare in South Slocan said.
“It was nothing drastic . . . maybe one child more today,” a spokesperson at Cornerstone Children’s Centre said.
Other than students and teachers, it was status quo in Kootenay Lake School District No. 8 as CUPE staff and administration reported for work.
Bus drivers normally transporting children to school are given other jobs for the three days.
“Nobody, in CUPE, lost a day’s work,” Jones confessed when asked about the bus drivers.
“Buses that were running were chartered by St. Joseph’s and Waldorf schools,” he added.
Newell said Day two of the job action would be much the same with teachers occupying information lines from around 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Wednesday, the job action shifts to a major rally outside Nelson City Hall.
NDTA members will be joined by other unions beginning at 11:30 a.m. Speakers will begin at noon followed by a march on Front and Vernon Streets.
editor@thenelsondaily.com
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