The provincial government announced changes to the province’s education system today with the introduction of the Education Reform Act.
The seven English-speaking school boards will be eliminated March 31.
Principals and Vice Principals will be removed from the teachers union and placed in a new body called the Public School Administrators Association.
They will no longer be part of the bargaining unit but will be affiliated with the Nova Scotia Teacher’s Union (NSTU).
That affiliation keeps their seniority intact but administrators will no longer be able to teach more than 50 percent of the time.
The province met with NSTU Monday to discuss their concerns with some of the recommendations from the Glaze Report.
“There didn’t really seem to be buy in for the college of teachers, that makes having a self-regulated professional association difficult to achieve,” says Zach Churchill, minister of education, adding that he also met with teachers and administrators over the past few weeks.
Government has scrapped the plan to create a college of teachers.
Instead, the Education Department will work with teachers and the NSTU to develop teaching and leadership standards.
The teachers union hasn’t responded yet to the announcement.
A vote for illegal strike action saw around 82 per cent of the union in favour.
“These are reasonable changes that have been a long time coming and I don’t see how an illegal action that will disrupt our classrooms is in the best interest of our kids,” says Churchill. “For the teachers and principals who have been concerned, they will see their voice reflected in here, that we have addressed their concerns.”
It was also announced today that fines for illegal strike action have increased dramatically.
Individuals can now be charged up to $10,000 per infraction while the union could be charged up to $100,000.
Tim Halman, the Progressive Conservative’s education critic, says as far as the changes are concerned, there are still a lot of questions.
“They’ve vaporized elected school boards, I think there’s a real vacuum right now, I think there’s a real gap as to where do parents go if they have concerns about the school system,” says Halman.
“I just don’t see the path forward in making sure we have an improved school system.”
He says he’s happy to hear there were concessions made but that the process of introducing the reforms has led to more conflict with educators.
Halman also wants to know the scope of what student advisory councils (SAC) responsibilities will be and what kind of power they will have.
The province has said that SACs will have more say in what goes on in their schools and where money might be spent in them.
Claudia Chender, the New Democratic Party’s education critic, says she sees concessions in the bill but that reforms could have been handled better.
“It obviously would have been better to have respectful and principaled bargaining happen before the introduction of a piece of legislation that fundamentally changes the nature of the association of educators in this province,” says Chender.
She is disappointed in the decision to remove school boards, particularly relating to elected Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian seats, calling them an ‘enormous loss.’
The teachers union has not yet released a response.
Acadia News has reached out to the South Shore’s representative on NSTU’s provincial executive.
You can read the full news release on the education bill from the province here.
