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Teachers in B.C. are celebrating a landmark Court ruling. The B.C. Court of Appeal has affirmed that teachers can grieve violations of the class size numbers in the School Act. The government had previously stripped class size limits from the teachers' collective agreement, resulting in larger classes and less individual attention for students.

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Edited to add: The problem with the ATA (leadership - not teachers, or at least none I knew) isn't that they were concerned with salaries, it was they weren't concerned enough to keep fighting and support the rank and file members when the government threatened them. They caved too easily. That's what I was referring to in my comment above, actually.

[ 01 March 2005: Message edited by: dokidoki ]

Supreme Court of Canada upholds teachers' right to inform parents about classroom conditions

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The case goes back to 2002, when the BC Liberals legislatively imposed the teachers' contract for the first time, and began making cuts that eventually left school boards facing funding shortfalls in excess of $300 million.

To highlight the impact on classroom conditions, teachers distributed cards to parents that reported their children's class sizes before and after the government stripped firm limits from the collective agreement. In addition, teachers mounted posters on bulletin boards with information on reductions in staffing of specialist teachers, such as librarians and counsellors.

After some school boards attempted to prohibit teachers from distributing the class-size cards or posters, the BCTF launched a provincial grievance. Arbitrator Don Munroe, QC, ruled that school boards had indeed violated teachers' right to free expression under the Charter of Rights, and that such interference was not justified in a free and democratic society.

The employers' association challenged his ruling at the BC Court of Appeal, but that court reaffirmed that teachers' free expression is protected by the Charter. Finally, BCPSEA applied for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which was denied, with costs to the BCTF.

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