Provincewide teacher job action starts on Monday

Saskatchewan teachers cut back on extracurricular activities, and some schools faced sanctions for more supervision during recess.

The Saskatchewan Teachers Union (STF) on Friday announced a new round of strike action. In this announcement, it is stated that teachers will stop extracurricular activities from March 25 to 28.

These additional sanctions will affect the supervision of the fun bell in the schools of these educational districts from Monday:

All schools in the Holy Family Catholic Education Division
All schools in the Holy Trinity Catholic Education Division
All schools in North East Education Division
All schools in the Prairie Spirit school district
All schools in the Saskatchewan Rivers and Prince Albert Catholic Education Divisions
All schools in Living Sky and Light of Christ Catholic School Districts and Sakewew High School (North Battleford)
The sanctions are the result of ongoing contract disputes between the provincial government and the teachers' union, mainly over the size and complexity of classrooms.

The government continues to maintain that class size and complexity are up to local school boards, and the STF has said it will return to the negotiating table if the government agrees to negotiate the issues or go to binding arbitration.

On Friday, Education Secretary Jeremy Cockerill said in a statement that they were working to "find a way forward" with the STF.

"I will have more information next week about how we are working to ensure that students get the opportunities they rightfully deserve, including graduation," Cockerill said in the email.

Cockerill also previously announced that the government had acted on many of the issues requested by the STF and was "prepared to establish an accountability framework related to the historic multi-year funding agreement."

The Saskatchewan Teachers Union has previously said the announced budget is not guaranteed and the government could change its mind in the future.

Speaking to the media on Thursday, federation president Samantha Beckott said she learned of the government's potential framework proposal while speaking to the media.

The Saskatchewan Union of Teachers said in a statement that about 400,000 emails and phone calls have been sent to lawmakers and school board members to support teachers' pressure to bargain over class sizes and complexity.

news source