The I Support BC Teachers thread

[Langdon Algur]

I know this thread may generate considerable political debate, and that's more than ok, the primary purpose of this thread is to give members of this large BC based internet fourm a chance to voice their support for public education in this province.

Given the governments current 'lock-out' of teachers preventing them from working with students during lunch hour or after school and from spending time preparing unique and vital lesson plans I think as parents (I'm sure some of you are) and BC residents it's time we spoke out in support of BC's teachers.

If you are not sure why the gov't is locking teachers out, while that makes two of us but you may find this letter from a BC teacher to Christy Clark interesting:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Letter+from+teacher+Christy+Clark+goes+viral/9876692/story.html

[Warhippy]

I do support them. They deserve it. They work their asses off for our kids and get dumped on from EVERYONE doing ever more with increasingly less for our kids.

Little light shone on the situation

Since 2001, Teachers have had a bare fraction of the original 2% increase promised since 2001, then have had multiple promises broken and contracts ripped up.

Since 2001 the BC government has had 4 pay increase where the average pay is now over $70k and have actually only sat in BC legislation for less then 5 total months over the last 2 and 1/2 calendar years.

Think on that

[Langdon Algur]

Thought this article was interesting

Are you sick of highly-paid teachers?

by sboucher Feb 21, 2011 9:18pm PST

Teachers' hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work nine or ten months a year! It's time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do -- babysit!

We can get that for less than minimum wage.

A friend on facebook shared this with me, and it's a hoot. Read on.

That's right. Let's give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and planning -- that equals 6-1/2 hours).

So each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children. Now how many students do they teach in a day...maybe 30? So that's $19.50 x 30 = $585 a day.

However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.

LET'S SEE....

That's $585 X 180= $105,300 per year. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).

What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master's degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6-1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.

Wait a minute -- there's something wrong here! There sure is!

The average teacher's salary (nationwide) is $50,000.

$50,000/180 days = $277.77 per day / 30 students = $9.25 / 6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student -- a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)

WHAT A DEAL!!!!

Make a teacher smile; repost this to show appreciation for all educators.

Meredith Menden

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/22/948224/-Are-you-sick-of-highly-paid-teachers

[BeefcakeBo]

Me. I think it's a lot of overblown media hype. The teachers work 9.5 months a year. They are paid better than average and they get benefits and pension. It's not really that bad. The fact that they are walking out on the students is embarrassing. The should be taking job action at the end of the summer before next year's classes can start.

[Ghostsof1915]

I support teachers. I also support people who are opposing this government's decisions on restructuring the ALR. For those of you who don't know. The Province wants to declare two types of farmland, basically making it easier for oil and gas companies up north to do more fracking. Instead of consulting farmers, agricultural groups, and experts, they are just doing their own thing with no consultation. With droughts in California, it's more important than ever to keep farmland productive so we have enough to eat. Being dependant on other nations for our food supply is to me a strategic blunder.

I also think that a government that only sits 36 out of 579 days is not a democracy. That's bordering on a dictatorship.

I don't even get 36 days off in vacation in 730 days (2 years)!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/bc-legislature-sits-36-of-579-days-is-this-responsible-government/article14245947/

Couple this with an LNG program, where industry experts state that the price of natural gas is not going to rise. Along with new agreements with China and Russia to export LNG to Asia. Sounds like we'd have to sell LNG at a loss. Why are are we doing that???

This government is a disaster. I've written to the premier, and nothing will get done unless the people of BC demand better en mass.

[aGENT]

I don't support either side. Neither of them is willing to pull their heads out of their arses to actually fix the broken system and administrative waste that are the real issues.

Teachers want more money.

Government has no money.

Kids and their parents (taxpayers) lose.

Rinse and repeat.

I'm tired of this endless and stupid PR battle the two sides are locked in. FIX THE @#$%'ING SYSTEM.

[BeefcakeBo]

I don't support either side. Neither of them is willing to pull their heads out of their arses to actually fix the broken system and administrative waste that are the real issues.

Teachers want more money.

Government has no money.

Kids and their parents (taxpayers) lose.

Rinse and repeat.

I'm tired of this endless and stupid PR battle the two sides are locked in. FIX THE @#$%'ING SYSTEM.

Agreed

[Langdon Algur]

Me. I think it's a lot of overblown media hype. The teachers work 9.5 months a year. They are paid better than average and they get benefits and pension. It's not really that bad. The fact that they are walking out on the students is embarrassing. The should be taking job action at the end of the summer before next year's classes can start.

The teachers strike was a routating strike that only affected students one day a week. It is the gov't that locked them out of working during lunch hour, staying late to supervise clubs, fieldtrips, study groups, plan lessons, ect... They have also been trying to negoiate with the gov't since before the summer but when the Supreme Courty of Canada determines the gov't is negogiating in bad faith they had little choice but to take job action. Salary is only one item the teachers are bargaining for, they are also requesting smaller class sizes and more support teachers in the class room. In other words they are looking out for the education of our kids. I currently know of a teacher that has 3 special needs students in her classroom, one of which is so low functioning he needs help going to the washroon, since the teacher can't leave the classroom and recently had her education assistant laid off the poor kid basically has to crap himself.

As for working 9.5 months, yes they do but they only get paid for that period, although full time teachers (not subs) can choose to strech their payout for the full year if they wish. As for what they get paid please read the article I posted above.

[Ghostsof1915]

I don't support either side. Neither of them is willing to pull their heads out of their arses to actually fix the broken system and administrative waste that are the real issues.

Teachers want more money.

Government has no money.

Kids and their parents (taxpayers) lose.

Rinse and repeat.

I'm tired of this endless and stupid PR battle the two sides are locked in. FIX THE @#$%'ING SYSTEM.

Well you can start by merging the school districts as the first step. Large municipalities like Surrey, Vancouver , etc can stay the same. Why not Merge Delta and Richmond districts together? The money saved by cutting admin staff and the useless School Trustees can be put into new textbooks, libraries, etc. Have New Westminster merge with Burnaby or Coquitlam? North and West Vancouver merge to a North Shore school district?

There's a lot of money wasted on administration and facilities, and not really spent at the front line in the classrooms. You can't tell me that Vancouver Island needs 11 school districts? Why not 5?

[aGENT]

The teachers strike was a routating strike that only affected students one day a week. It is the gov't that locked them out of working during lunch hour, staying late to supervise clubs, fieldtrips, study groups, plan lessons, ect... They have also been trying to negoiate with the gov't since before the summer but when the Supreme Courty of Canada determines the gov't is negogiating in bad faith they had little choice but to take job action. Salary is only one item the teachers are bargaining for, they are also requesting smaller class sizes and more support teachers in the class room. In other words they are looking out for the education of our kids. I currently know of a teacher that has 3 special needs students in her classroom, one of which is so low functioning he needs help going to the washroon, since the teacher can't leave the classroom and recently had her education assistant laid off the poor kid basically has to crap himself.

As for working 9.5 months, yes they do but they only get paid for that period, although full time teachers (not subs) can choose to strech their payout for the full year if they wish. As for what they get paid please read the article I posted above.

Just stop with the spin.

The teachers (understandably) want more resources (money) that the government (taxpayers) doesn't have to prop up a broken system with vast administrative waste.

The system is broken and there's too much waste. Until those things are addressed all the strikes, lockouts, PR battles and spin mean exactly diddly squat to kids whose education's are being affected and parents left holding the bag.

[TimberWolf]

Teachers want to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money

Govt wants the most amount of work for the least amount of money

Both sides will claim it's for the children

And on and on we go.

[aGENT]

Well you can start by merging the school districts as the first step. Large municipalities like Surrey, Vancouver , etc can stay the same. Why not Merge Delta and Richmond districts together? The money saved by cutting admin staff and the useless School Trustees can be put into new textbooks, libraries, etc. Have New Westminster merge with Burnaby or Coquitlam? North and West Vancouver merge to a North Shore school district?

There's a lot of money wasted on administration and facilities, and not really spent at the front line in the classrooms. You can't tell me that Vancouver Island needs 11 school districts? Why not 5?

Personally I'd go even farther. Islands, lower mainland, Fraser valley, coast, Cariboo, Thompson, Rockies and Northern as a starting point. We could easily get down to 10-15 for all of BC.

[Langdon Algur]

Teachers want to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money

Govt wants the most amount of work for the least amount of money

Both sides will claim it's for the children

And on and on we go.

Actually right now the gov't is forcing teachers to do less work. I really don't think this gov't cares how hard teachers work, they just want to save money so they can give it to their LNG friends.

[thedestroyerofworlds]

This spat with the teachers seems to be repeated with all public employees and government. Government supporters paint them as the enemy. That they are greedy and their demands are unreasonable.

Yet, right after the election was won the government tried to sneak massive wage increases to staffers in the government. How many senior bureaucrats get golden handshakes when they leave their positions? MLA’s themselves have had multiple raises in the past decade.

And, one common theme is repeated over and over in defense:

IT IS NECESSARY TO RETAIN/RECRUIT THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST.

Yet when it comes to teachers and other government employees, that phrase is never uttered.

Interesting.

Also, I wonder how many people will start to participate in our democracy now.

[BeefcakeBo]

The teachers strike was a routating strike that only affected students one day a week. It is the gov't that locked them out of working during lunch hour, staying late to supervise clubs, fieldtrips, study groups, plan lessons, ect... They have also been trying to negoiate with the gov't since before the summer but when the Supreme Courty of Canada determines the gov't is negogiating in bad faith they had little choice but to take job action. Salary is only one item the teachers are bargaining for, they are also requesting smaller class sizes and more support teachers in the class room. In other words they are looking out for the education of our kids. I currently know of a teacher that has 3 special needs students in her classroom, one of which is so low functioning he needs help going to the washroon, since the teacher can't leave the classroom and recently had her education assistant laid off the poor kid basically has to crap himself.

As for working 9.5 months, yes they do but they only get paid for that period, although full time teachers (not subs) can choose to strech their payout for the full year if they wish. As for what they get paid please read the article I posted above.

Lol. Please that useless article about babysitting? Half the teachers in this province may as well be babysitters since they clearly aren't educating anyone.

[Ghostsof1915]

Personally I'd go even farther. Islands, lower mainland, Fraser valley, coast, Cariboo, Thompson, Rockies and Northern as a starting point. We could easily get down to 10-15 for all of BC.

Works for me.

[RonMexico]

Collective agreements are not always about money....unless you watch the news. Sure the union wants a fair increase but most are willing to accept the standard cost of living as an increase. It's the erosion of the existing agreement that is more of the issue. Every union member knows, or should know, that by voting to go on strike, you are never going to recover lost wages. You assume a loss to protect the integrity of the agreement. It's not just spin when other issues arise.

[aGENT]

Also, I wonder how many people will start to participate in our democracy now.

The problem IMO isn't a lack of people participating, it's in a complete and utter lack of any party worth voting for or caring about.

I don't know what's sadder, that the Liberals got re-elected AGAIN last election or that the Liberals sadly were still the best choice. That doesn't exactly discourage apathy.

[Langdon Algur]

I don't support either side. Neither of them is willing to pull their heads out of their arses to actually fix the broken system and administrative waste that are the real issues.

Teachers want more money.

Government has no money.

Kids and their parents (taxpayers) lose.

Rinse and repeat.

I'm tired of this endless and stupid PR battle the two sides are locked in. FIX THE @#$%'ING SYSTEM.

Speaking of spin I'm pretty the gov't could do a better job of finding the money if they didn't spend $15 million of gov't money on those partisan "Canada starts here" BC job plan ads.

[BeefcakeBo]

The problem IMO isn't a lack of people participating, it's in a complete and utter lack of any party worth voting for or caring about.

I don't know what's sadder, that the Liberals got re-elected AGAIN last election or that the Liberals sadly were still the best choice. That doesn't exactly discourage apathy.

Exactly. The Liberals were far from being a great choice but the NDP was atrocious. What else can the people do. The whole system doesn't work and needs an overhaul.