Many teachers in North Battleford join in today's rally. (Trey Smith/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

One-day strike

North Battleford-Meadow Lake teachers hit the streets for teachers’ strike

Jan 16, 2024 | 2:19 PM

Despite the frigid temperatures of -27 and -42 with the windchill, teachers in the Battlefords and Meadow Lake area took to the streets for a one-day province-wide teachers’ strike today.

The Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) announced the job walk off last week, with the potential for further sanctions to come following stalled contract negotiations with the province.

In North Battleford, teachers marched outside Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill’s office, and made use of a warming station at St. Joseph Calasanctius Church hall.

“We would like the government to fund our classrooms,” said Jennifer Walz, who teaches with Living Sky School Division. “They are very diverse. More diverse than they were many years ago, so the extra funding would help support the students. We want more supports. Those kind of supports could be psychologists, speech therapists, counselors, EAs, anything that will help the students. We would like more funding for the students.”

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Many carried signs saying ‘Invest in our Future. Fund our Schools,’ as they walked along 100 Street.

“It’s important to fight for the future of our kids and our profession. That’s why we’re here,” said Natasha Nichol, a teacher with Living Sky School Division.

A local representative from Tri-West Teachers’ Association, Val Yockey, representing teachers from Living Sky and Light of Christ School Division and Sakewew High School, said the EAs are working today, “but they are here with us in spirit.”

“The resolve of the teachers is very high,” she said. “We are dealing with such a complexity in our classrooms. Our classrooms are so large right now we are fighting for students and the supports they need.”

Yockey said it’s not a fight about money, it’s for more support.

“The government continues to insist they are giving us sufficient funding, however with the cost of inflation of everything, with the increasing number of students coming into our province and the decrease in number of teachers in the last few years, there is not enough funding to support students,” she said.

Yockey added that schools have many new students coming from outside Canada who can’t speak any English but don’t have any support with no one to help them during the day.

Teachers take part in the strike in Meadow Lake today. (Gordon Carter/meadowlakeNOW Staff)

“We [the division] have children who see a counsellor, if they are lucky, once every two or three weeks, with extreme mental health issues,” Yockey, who is also a school teacher, added. “In our school division [Light of Christ] we have one lady in charge of all the children who need speech help.”

She notes it hasn’t been determined yet if there will be any further sanctions after today’s walk off, but that’s a possibility.

“In the fall we gave our sanctions committee 95 per cent support to implement sanctions,” Yockey said. “Today is one sanction. The committee has told us there is a strategic plan for further sanctions if deemed necessary. None of us have been given privileged information as to what comes next. But if the government doesn’t return to the table to discuss class size and complexity, the sanctions will continue, even though as teachers we don’t want it to happen.”

Province’s response

Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill said he was disheartened to see the teachers walk off the job today.

“It’s disappointing that we ended up here,” he said. “Obviously we knew it was a possibility when the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation walked away from the bargaining table in the fall. We understand that job action does have impacts on kids and on families. The best place for our kids to be is in the classroom participating in activities at school.”

Cockrill noted the province came to the bargaining table with a fair deal for teachers.

“The reality is what the union is asking for are two significant things that are just not very realistic for us in Saskatchewan,” he said. “The union is asking for ultimate control on classroom complexity, which really takes away the role of local school boards – school boards that are locally elected by their community to manage their specific schools in the communities they represent.”

Cockrill noted it’s up to the school divisions to staff classrooms the way they feel is appropriate.

He added the other ask he believes is not reasonable for the teachers’ union is 23.5 per cent pay increase over the next four years. The province is offering a seven per cent increase over three years.

“Certainly, we want to make sure teachers in Saskatchewan are well paid for the work that they do,” Cockrill said. “When you compare it to their western Canadian peers, they are well paid. We want to offer an increase, but 23.5 per cent over four years is just an ask that’s not very fair to the taxpayers of this province.”

On the issue of funding, he notes there is still some room to grow, in terms of the supports being provided to students.

“The reality is that students today are facing a wider range of needs probably than ever before,” Cockrill said. “But again, those decisions on how we resource that are between the provincial government and the school boards.”

He added the school boards take that funding and allocate it.

“I’ve been around the province meeting with school boards and getting an understanding of the challenges they face,” Cockrill said. “I think we’ve been having productive discussions around how we make sure that school divisions can offer the supports that are needed for our students and for our teachers.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsnow