Job Action

Wow... two posts today.

I just had to put up a comment I wrote in response to our School District #46 (Sunshine Coast) chair who is looking for some public commentary he can digest concerning a meeting he is attending next Monday related to the current job action being taken by BC Teachers. In his post he referenced Vancouver Sun article describing some options considered being taken by the BC Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA). One of the quotes from that article suggest that an option may be to:

 Another option would be to reduce the pay of teachers since under the job action, they are doing less work.

For a response, I let Silas and other reading on Facebook know that this did not match with my day this week working as a principal on call at Cedar Grove Elementary school here in our district.

I said:

I can tell you that I met with teachers after school until after 5 pm working very hard on the redistribution of students that had to be done to improve things for students. The teachers did not refuse to take part in the process... they did not tell the principal this was an "administrative decision" and their discussion resolved around both the past experience of kids and their projected future for the next two or three years.
Every class I visited on that day showed signs of good instruction and not the kind of instruction that can be given without adequate preparation time. Some of the teachers there are teaching new grades so it is not like they are pulling the curriculum from past notes in their pockets. As for supervision... sure there wasn't the usual "assigned" teacher out there at recess and lunch, but I observed a good number eating lunch with their students, in the rooms catching up on emails, and enjoying the children. I've already spoken in another forum about the Terry Fox run and the work that was done in preparation for it. 
There was a lot more I witnessed on just that one day, so don't even think teachers are doing less work during this job action. It may be different work on the whole, but it is not less.

Of course I hope this matter is resolved. Personally, I think the net zero mandate is wrong and that in some way bargaining should be allowed to return to the local level as it was in the olden days.