The dispute between Nova Scotia and the province’s teachers union is having far-reaching effects — and it has made at least one parent feel like her child is being used as an unwitting pawn in a political showdown.
Candice Rideout says she was surprised to find a flyer from the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU) in her seven-year-old son’s reading folder on Friday.
The flyer describes why the report prepared by Avis Glaze — an education consultant hired by the Nova Scotia government — is “bad for education” in the province.
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Rideout says that it made her feel uncomfortable to see the union spreading information on their agenda in the school, especially when it has so many other methods of communicating.
“I didn’t really feel like another pamphlet was necessary, especially coming from my child,” Rideout said in an interview on Monday.
The Glaze report
The report by Glaze, released last month, recommended scrapping all of the province’s English school boards in favour of a single “aligned model.”
The Glaze report made 22 recommendations, including moving principals and vice-principals out of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union and into a new professional association.
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The report recommended the establishment of an education ombudsperson to investigate and resolve concerns or complaints in the education system.
Glaze also called for a provincial college of educators to license, govern, discipline and regulate the teaching profession.
In January, Education Minister Zach Churchill said the province would implement all off of the report’s recommendations.
Due to the long weekend holiday, she has yet to get answer from her son’s teacher to why the flyer was sent home. She’s planning on getting answers on Tuesday from the school’s principal and her child’s teacher.
Union responds
Liette Doucet, president of the NSTU, says that the union does not condone sending home materials with students and they have a long-standing policy against distributing any union information at school.
“So far it seems like an isolated incident,” Doucet said.
“We tell our members that they are not to distribute information through their students.”
We don't know how your child obtained the flyer. We can assure you that the NSTU and the Halifax County local have made it very clear these materials are not to be distributed in schools or to students.
— NS Teachers Union (@NSTeachersUnion) February 17, 2018
Rideout believes that means there is either a disconnect between teachers and the union or teachers are ignoring the union altogether.
Some have suggested that a volunteer could have place the flyer in her son’s folder. A problem, that Rideout says raises its own questions.
“I don’t believe just anyone should just have access to communication… through the kids to and from home. “
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Rideout says she’d just like her child to be able to go to school for an education, rather than being caught between two parties “in the middle of a divorce.”
“Would the union like it if the government was putting information into the child’s folder for them to bring home?” she said.
“I don’t think so.”
Members of the NSTU are set to hold a strike vote Tuesday. The union says that the executive will decide on Wednesday when they’ll release the results.
If any work action is taken, the government will considered it illegal, as the union would be operating outside of its collective bargaining agreement.
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