By Tom Mark

Vernon Teachers Say No Need For Chaos

Jun 23, 2017 | 12:23 PM

The President of the Vernon Teachers` Association suggests the school district isn`t telling the whole story about the hiring of more teachers for the fall.

Lisa LaBoucane says it`s great 38 more teachers are being hired, but

“Twenty-one of those 38 were hired in February with the funds the government released at that point for interim measures. We believe there should be more teachers coming into the system and that there are some schools that will be very, very full.

She says more than 5 new portables will also be needed.

LaBoucane says she can`t give any numbers because the school district hasn`t been sharing all the data.`

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“The numbers for the composition in the classrooms are just starting to roll into the union office now, so unfortunately this is what`s going to create the chaos in September is that we haven`t been able to proactively sort out the differences and move forward.“

She says the district has been co-operative in the past and doesn`t know why it`s different this time

“We are going to be in a provincial arbitration because of the difficulties at the local level. At this point, the district has refused to do any school level meetings or district level meetings and only wants to be resolving this through the provincial level.“

LaBoucane also questions the school district`s position that it doesn`t need more special needs teachers.

She says current levels are from 1997.

`We aren`t going to be getting more specialist teachers into the system, but the composition of the classrooms, the number of special eds students in each classroom should be spread out across more classrooms`

LaBoucane says the classrooms should be smaller with less special needs so that teachers can give better support for students in the classrooms.

by Tom Mark