School calendar for 2013-14 still uncertain
Plan to increase professional development days leads to dispute
School across the Island will start closing for the summer over the next two weeks, but neither students nor their teachers know when they're supposed to return in the fall.
A plan by the P.E.I. government to increase the number of professional development days for teachers has delayed the release of the 2013-14 school calendar. Gilles Arsenault, president of the P.E.I. Teachers' Federation, said there are significant changes on the table, and teachers and the province have still not come to an agreement how to implement them.
"What they have to do is to look at the full school year and try to put those days in," said Arsenault.
"Those changes could be at the start of the school year, could be the end date, the Christmas holiday. There's many different things that they were looking at."
A proposal to add PD days at the end of August, before school starts, is not allowed under the current contract between teachers and the province, said Arsenault.
The Teachers' Federation is on the committee working on the calendar.