About 550 teachers in New Westminster will cast ballots in a strike vote next week.
But Grant Osborne, New Westminster Teachers' Union president, said if they vote to strike it doesn't mean schools are going to close.
"It means that we have some decisions to make," Osborne said. Initial job action should have "minimal" impact on students, he added.
"We will not be impacting teachers' communication with parents. We will not be impacting report cards, and we will not be impacting extra-curricular."
The union and government negotiators have had 40 bargaining sessions, Osborne told the board of education at its Feb. 25 meeting.
"The most-recent demand from the government negotiation has been cuts to our contracts, and we are looking at cuts to sick days, to grievance language, discussions about maternity benefits, and, again, some pretty egregious statements about salary," he said.
Trustee Lisa Graham told Osborne she doesn't want job action to affect graduating students.
"In proceeding forward, please make that a top priority," she said.
"Absolutely, I don't have an issue with at all," Osborne told her.
The B.C. Teachers' Federation announced Monday that it would hold a strike vote to push back against the government's attempt to reverse a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision, which struck down legislation that removed class size and composition from the teachers' contract. The ruling also concluded the government attempted to provoke a teachers' strike.
On Wednesday, the Appeal Court temporarily stayed the ruling, which the province argued would create disorder as school boards scrambled to hire teachers.
The BCTF strike vote will take place on March 4, 5 and 6, and results will be announced on the evening of March 6. Once a strike vote is taken, the union has 90 days to activate it with some sort of job action, according to a BCTF press release.
