Teachers in Richmond, like their colleagues across the province, continue to work under an expired contract as negotiations are on-going on a new one.
On Oct. 1, the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) asked the mediator, David Schaub, to write a report about the negotiations, to be delivered Friday, Nov. 1.
However, a spokesperson for BCPSEA, which represents boards of education, said they won’t comment on it publicly until they’ve reviewed it with their members.
Conditions from the previous contract, which expired June 30, continue until a new one is in place.
The BC Teachers’ Federation and BCPSEA went back to the mediation table in late September after a short break.
According to the BCTF, there is a “mediator-imposed” media blackout which encompasses the process as well.
BCTF media spokesperson Rich Overgaard said on Friday he doesn’t have a timeline on when there will be any public reporting on mediation.
The old themes of class size and composition came up earlier in the negotiating process.
In early September, BCTF expressed concerns that Richmond would be one of several large school districts that would lose specialist teachers if what was being proposed by BCPSEA was accepted, while the latter claimed this was not the case.
BCPSEA said they were confident no teaching positions would be lost and had proposed a clause to guarantee “staffing stability.”
While the BCTF said the employer was proposing much larger classroom, BCPSEA claimed it was just proposing a “baseline class size” with additional resources depending on local situations.
