Teachers union pulls co-chair from classroom council over Glaze report

The Nova Scotia Teachers Union has pulled its executive director out of a group designed to improve classroom conditions.

Liette Doucet, president of the union, said the provincial government has been too quick in accepting consultant Avis Glaze's report on the education system.

She said the government failed to consult the union first and so it decided to withdraw the one member it had appointed to the Council to Improve Classroom Conditions. Union executive director Joan Ling was co-chair of the council.

The nine individual teachers and one guidance councillor who sit on the 12-member council were appointed by school board superintendents. The union said it was not telling them to leave.

The government hired Glaze to study the education system in Nova Scotia. She made 22 recommendations, including eliminating the seven elected regional school boards, and taking school principals and vice-principals out of the NSTU.

"We object to a number of things. We object most strongly with the removal of principals and vice-principals and other teachers who have supervisory duties from the NSTU," Doucet told CBC's Mainstreet Friday afternoon.

Losing those people will reduce NSTU membership by about 10 per cent. Doucet said the NSTU's objection was not financial, but because it sees principals and vice-principals as "teachers first."

"We don't want to see our schools turn into a business-type situation. We don't want to see our administrators as a boss and teachers as labourers," she said. 

Glaze also called for the creation of a new licensing and governing body for the teaching profession, a provincial College of Educators. It would be similar to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which regulates the practice of medicine by doctors.

The aim, according to Glaze, is to take weak teachers out of the classroom and provide them a chance to improve their skills or get rid of those who can't.

Doucet said following Glaze's recommendations "is not in the best interests of students," and that includes setting up a College of Educators.

"The government did not consult with the council. If it had, it would have learned that pushing forward with the changes is not helping the students at all, is not in the best interests of public education," Doucet said. 

Education Minister Zach Churchill said the government remained committed to the goals of the council.

"It's obviously very disappointing," he said Friday. "We've had teachers at the table for the first time in the province's history directing policy development, directing major investments in the system."

He said the teachers' work on the council was "critical" and he hopes they remain.

"I know there's some fear about reprisal from the union, but at the end of the day our focus is on making good decisions that improve working conditions for teachers and that improve outcomes for students," he said. 

He said the council had led to class caps, the addition of 139 new teachers and a provincewide attendance policy. 

"We're finding ways for teachers to spend more time teaching our kids and less time with paperwork," he added. 

Churchill said the council was next to look at marking and simplifying report cards, and at policies for deadlines. He said the council had $9.8 million to spend this year and next and that the council was how the government heard directly from teachers.

Council set up to address teacher concerns

The Council to Improve Classroom Conditions was set up in 2017 as one of the elements included in the contract the Liberal government imposed on teachers.

The council is intended to address concerns teachers have repeatedly voiced about the workplace. It included nine teachers, a guidance counsellor, a student, a parent, the province's deputy education minister and the executive director of the teachers union.

It had $20 million spread over two years to do that work, with a priority focus on data collection and reporting; assessment and evaluation; student attendance policy; technology such as PowerSchool; complex classrooms; scope of practice; class sizes at all grade levels; and student discipline policy.