Monday’s court ruling on class size and composition will impact next year’s budget plans “significantly,” but it’s too soon to say exactly how, according to New Westminster school district’s board of education vice-chair.
The decision will affect a proposal on how to resolve some of the district’s budget issues, which Michael Ewen planned to present to the board of education on Tuesday (after press time).
“I’ll tell you right now, one of the main things I was looking at was increasing class sizes, and at this point … I don’t know what that would look like,” Ewen said.
The New Westminster school district is dealing with a $5-million shortfall it must pay back to the province and has had to make a series of sweeping staff cuts to avoid going further into debt.
Ewen said he’s not sure how the government will fund potential demands for staff as a result of the ruling.
The court ruled that the province must retroactively restore class size and composition language that was removed from teachers’ contracts in 2002 and pay the B.C. Teachers’ Federation $2 million in damages.
“I mean surely the government is not going to say, ‘OK, the 2002 contract is back in place, and we’re going to keep on our mandate … of zero per cent increase in funding for teachers.’
“But how those will play out, how those will evolve, I don’t know,” said Ewen, who is a teacher in Surrey.
New Westminster Teachers’ Union president Grant Osborne agreed that it was too early to say what the court ruling will mean for the cash-strapped school district, but he is “relieved” by the results.
“We’ve been fighting this for a long time. It’s a good day,” Osborne said, adding that the decision will impact bargaining talks, which are currently underway.
The legal fight between the British Columbia Teachers’ Union and the provincial government began in 2002, when Bill 28 removed class-size limits and class composition from the bargaining process. In 2011, the courts found that the government’s action violated teachers’ constitutional rights. On Monday, Justice Susan Griffin found legislation introduced in 2012, Bill 22, to be “virtually identical” to Bill 28, and therefore unconstitutional, according to a report in The Province.
“It’s very good news,” Osborne said. “Teachers have been pointing this out.”
Griffin also concluded the government did not negotiate in good faith with the union after the Bill 28 decision. The government was “preoccupied” by a strategy to put pressure on the union to provoke a strike and gain political points for imposing legislation on teachers, she wrote.
Education Minister Peter Fassbender told the media he is disappointed with the judgment.
“What we need to do now is sit down and look at the implications,” he said, adding “it’s business as usual” in schools until the government reviews the ruling.
The minister said it would be “premature” to say whether the government is going to appeal the decision.
