A group of parents and grandparents is putting their support behind Nova Scotia’s more than 9,000 teachers, as they look down the barrel of a potential strike or other job action.
READ MORE: ‘How we’re here I’m not sure’: Stephen McNeil on impasse with teachers
After more than a year of negotiations and the rejection of two tentative agreements, the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) voted in favour of a strike mandate last month.
Nova Scotia Parents for Teachers — a group which started about two weeks ago — says on their Facebook page they’re standing arm-in-arm with teachers who aren’t accepting “business as usual.”
“I find myself landing on the idea that I currently trust teachers more than the government,” Tina Roberts-Jeffers said Thursday at the provincial legislature.
Roberts-Jeffers has three children in school in Halifax. She said she’s fighting for an equitable education system because teachers are parents’ allies.
READ MORE: Early support for Nova Scotia teachers after strike mandate vote
Another parent in the group, Kothai Kumanan, also has three children enrolled in Halifax-area schools. For her, supporting teachers amidst the negotiations that have so far failed to achieve an agreement, is about protecting the future of her children’s education.
“I, too have seen a lot of changes from the resources and what was available to my son when he started in primary, and Grade 1, and so on and what’s on offer for my youngest child, and it is something that concerns me every day,” Kumanan said.
READ MORE: Nova Scotia teachers seek help from conciliation board to avoid strike
The group, which has well over 1,000 Facebook supporters, cites three reasons they formed to support the province’s teachers:
- Teaching conditions have become more difficult — with class sizes, composition and non-teaching duties changing
- The Supreme Court of Canada’s protection of the right to collective bargaining and the right to strike
- Working conditions for teachers are also students’ learning conditions
“A work stoppage will certainly be inconvenient to us. But ‘business as usual’ already hurts us and cannot be tolerated,” reads a post on the page.
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