Letter to the School Board, dated July 20th

Here follows the letter that I sent to the local school district office regarding the absence of their voice publicly on this issue:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I write today as a parent of two school-age children attending schools in
School District X (number redacted for privacy), with another poised to begin Kindergarten in September.

I have very closely followed the path of the ongoing labour dispute between
BCPSEA and the BCTF; I have read press releases from both parties; blog
entries by invested individuals, parents, students, and teachers; news
reports from a wide array of news sources. My children and I have stood on
the picket lines with teachers, and I have personally spoken to many friends
who work in this district as teachers and support staff. I have also read
open letters sent to the Premier and Minister Fassbender from several school
districts, including the one sent by Trustee #1 (names redacted) and Trustee #2 from this
district dated June 30 of this year.

I find it both curious and frustrating that this school district and this
Board of Education has been silent on the issue of class size and
composition, and the court rulings by Justice Susan Griffin.

Some vague mention was made of the impact this dispute has had on students,
staff and families in (our town, name redacted for privacy), but it is very distressing that this
district has utterly failed to address the BC Liberals' unwillingness to
comply with Supreme Court decisions instructing the government to restore
working conditions to pre-2002 standards, and to properly fund public
education to make provisions for optimum learning conditions for all
students.

Can you please explain to me how it is that while you are responsible for the
allocation of funding to the public schools in (our town), you have said
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this matter publicly? Your silence implies that you
have absolved yourselves of your duty of care to the children of your
district, to fight to secure sufficient funding to properly educate our
children to the standard that they have the right to receive. In so doing,
you have blithely laid the burden of negotiating work conditions at the feet
of the teachers' union.

Shame on you for your silence; it is deplorable that the BCTF not only has to
negotiate for wages and benefits, as is right to do, but also has to
undertake negotiations for their working conditions. No other union in BC is
forced to negotiate for working conditions; that is YOUR job to advocate for
teachers and support staff.

I am the parent of two gifted children; they are unique in that the system is
not failing them as much as their peers - YET. I am able to augment their
education experience at home, and they are self-motivated enough to initiate
activities that help to fulfill their IEP objectives. But I should not have
to do that; they should not have to do that. Their teachers know that my
children, intelligent as they are, are still falling between the cracks; they
see it and they talk with me about it, but we both know that they are
helpless to do anything but perform triage in their classrooms with the
limited resources made available to them. BC teachers are stretched too thin,
dealing with too many category children with nowhere near enough support.

As a parent, a tax-payer and a product of a BC public school education, I
charge you to step up to the forefront of this fight for our children. Take a
public stand on teachers' working conditions; publicly castigate the
government for their flagrant disregard for the rule of law; do your job and
advocate for the funding required to return class size and composition to
their previous state, so that we can move forward instead of sitting idly by
while the BC Liberals systematically dismantle public education to serve
their two-tiered agenda.

Step up and do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Busy Little Bee (name redacted), parent