The mood was serious at the Pictou Fire Hall as a group of 35 concerned teachers from across Pictou County expressed their dissatisfaction with the provincial government’s embrace of a series of suggestions made in a report by Avis Glaze entitled “Raise the Bar.”
The opinion of those teachers was that the government of Nova Scotia should invest in areas of need in the province’s school system, better consult educators – and not forge ahead so quickly with the recommendations of Glaze’s report.
This comes as the province and the Nova Scotia Teacher’s Union (NSTU) are in discussions on the future of the province’s education system. Premier Stephen McNeil announced a change of plans on Monday saying that his party would not be introducing legislation to reform the education system on Tuesday as previously planned.
Pictou West MLA Karla MacFarlane and Pictou East MLA Tim Houston hosted a meeting at the Pictou Fire Hall, listening to the many concerns of teachers and educators from across Pictou County, who think the implementation of Glaze’s recommendations is a step in the wrong direction, and an attempt to solve problems that aren’t there, instead of addressing ones that are.
Sonya Purdy, a Grade 2-3 teacher at Walter Duggan Consolidated School, said she feels the problems teachers have been having with the government stem from the implementation of Bill 75, last year, imposing a contract on teachers. She noted that issues like the need for more specialists and teachers in classrooms in Nova Scotia have gone unheeded.
“We’re worried they are not listening to our concerns, and that it will affect what we are able to do in our classes. The Glaze Report is not going to benefit children in our classrooms,” said Purdy. “We’re concerned about the costs. We’re taxpayers too. There are not enough cost indications in that report. There are too many questions and not enough answers, regarding this legislation.”
Purdy noted that while some of the recommendations in the report could potentially be helpful, she – and many other teachers who gathered at the Pictou Fire Hall – are concerned. She said they are concerned with the speed with which the government plans to implement the recommendations in the report, and troubled that the government accepted those recommendations as quickly as they did without properly consulting teachers.
At the end of the meeting, MacFarlane said her intent was to hear the collective stories of the teachers in the Pictou County area. She and Houston ended up hearing from 35 teachers, and MacFarlane said most of the perspectives and opinions of the teachers aligned.
“They feel no one has come to them to speak to them with regards to moving forward. They feel their voices have not been heard. Their concerns are real,” said MacFarlane. “We see how emotional and upset they are when they talk, and we’ve learned from them, that they feel they have been abandoned by the minister of education.”
One such example of that feeling among teachers that their concerns are being brushed aside that MacFarlane referenced was the fact that Education Minister Zach Churchill sought input from 20 Chignecto-Central Regional Schoolboard (CCRSB) teachers on Monday, a day before the matter went before legislature, in a move MacFarlane, and many CCRSB teachers she spoke to felt was “a little too late.”
Houston said he felt that there was a great deal of despair among the teachers about the issues being overlooked by the government, and that the talk of illegal job action as a response to the government’s actions is proof that those teachers are “crying out to get focus on those issues.”
The report by Glaze recommended a series of administrative changes that include the dissolution of Nova Scotia’s seven public school boards, the removal of principals and vice principals from the union, the replacement of school boards with regional education offices; and the creation of a provincial college of educators. The provincial college proposed in the report would be an independent body that would license, govern, discipline and regulate teaching, a move described on the Nova Scotia Government’s website as “an improvement of public confidence in the education system.”
Last week, a majority of NSTU members voted in favour of authorizing an illegal strike or other form of job action, noting that no job action would take place if the province agreed to wait, meet and discuss the matter of legislation to amend the Education Act.
-With Files from the Chronicle Herald
