The Sask. Party government and teachers are at a standstill over contract negotiations, but the education minister claims he brought forward a solution that got turned down.
Saskatchewan education minister Jeremy Cockrill said they played with the idea of having an accountability framework within legislation to require school boards to follow through on an MOU that was brought forward by the province and school board association to address classroom size and complexity.
He said on Monday that school boards are saying that many of them already have a mechanism for accountability in place. He said this legislation would create a consistency among all the school divisions.
The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation (STF) has been calling for something legally binding to ensure that the Sask. Party doesn’t go back on its promises to address classroom size and complexity and has asked for a single line added to the MOU stating, “that the parties agree that the multi-year funding agreement and the accountability framework will be followed and honored.”
That line was rejected by the provincial government.
Cockrill tried to address the STF’s concerns around trusting the Sask. Party government, claiming that if something gets put into the Education Act it becomes law.
“That was our effort to show that we’re serious about the accountability framework, school divisions are serious about the accountability framework and that was an option that we wanted to put out there,” Cockrill said.
He said legislation hasn’t been introduced, but said that it would be a requirement for school divisions to have an accountability framework and allow that to be locally determined between school divisions and teacher associations.
He said that accountability will look different depending on where you go in Saskatchewan.
“That may look different in the catholic division than the public division, for example. Two different boards, two different groups of teachers that work in those schools.”
He said they would review what school divisions brought forward for accountability frameworks and make sure that it lived up to legislation.
Cockrill said while the provincial government is the main funder of education in Saskatchewan, the school divisions are the ones making the decision on how those dollars are spent.
“That would give teachers a more formal way to have those conversations in local divisions.”
“Even down the road I’m not necessarily closed off to the idea of the accountability framework being in a contract potentially. The concern that I have with the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation leadership language that they proposed and were public about was having the multi-year funding agreement, which the STF aren’t even a signatory, in the contract,” Cockrill added.
Teachers in Saskatchewan implemented a work-to-rule model indefinitely on Monday after contract talks hit another snag.
Staff will only be at work 15 minutes before and after work. They will also no longer participate in any voluntary actions including noon-hour supervision and extra curriculars.
“When the actions of government continually contradict their words it’s difficult to trust anything they say these days,” STF president Samantha Becotte said Friday.
“We need real commitments that these aren’t just election year promises and that they’re not just making these commitments because we’re in this dispute. We need to know that year after year, the experiences of students in our classrooms are going to improve.”
In response to Cockrill’s comments, Becotte said Tuesday that having an accountability framework in legislation wouldn’t prevent the provincial government from pulling back that same legislation whenever they wanted.
“We want to make sure what we’re agreeing to to address classroom size and complexity is there, not just in one year, but in the long term.”
She said that they want a grievance process and dispute mechanism to hash out any possible issues that may arise from this agreement, and that the best way to ensure that is to have it in the collective agreement.
Becotte said while some school divisions have consultation mechanisms in place where teachers have the opportunity to share challenges they are facing with school divisions, there needs to be a dispute mechanism, adding that accountability means being responsible for your decisions.
She said she was still holding out hope and felt like there was a light at the end of this tunnel, pointing to one of the minister’s comments Monday.
“I do think we are closer than we have ever been. Within the minister’s comments, while he did reference the potential of putting (the accountability framework) into legislation, he also talked about the potential of having the accountability framework in a contract.”
This was still something Becotte hasn’t heard from the minister directly, but she was hopeful of having that discussion.
She suggested that if Cockrill came forward in good faith willing to talk about putting this accountability framework in a collective agreement, then the STF would pull back all current job action.
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