Point Grey / stəywəte:n PAC

Dear Melanie Joy and all BCPSEA directors,

       As a parent who has volunteered in my children’s schools for more than two decades, I implore you not to cut teachers’ pay or benefits during the job action.

      You may believe that this strategy will improve bargaining conditions in your favour, but I know that many individual teachersand their families will be hurt and this will anger parents.

     I vividly remember what happened when the provincial government gave money that had not been paid to teachers during the October 2005 strike to schools and districts for redistribution. As a PACchair, I had to help our community spend this money at an extraordinary PACmeeting. I will always remember the sadness and discomfort in the room as parents realized that we were spending teachers’ salaries on our own children.

     Please do not put parents in a similar situationagain. Probably the only thing worse than spending teachers’ wages on school furniture that I can imagine as PAC chair is sending my child to a school where his teachers are not being fully paid even though they are working. Remember, teachers are not bargaining chips to us, bu tpeople who help our children in immeasurable ways that generally go far beyond their job descriptions.  People with kids of their own, often. You don’t see their faces during your negotiations, but our children do. Every day.

     I encourage the BCPSEA and the BCTF to stop thinking of new job action strategies that will hurt the “other side” and to put all your energies into a swift, good outcome for this difficult negotiation.  Work as a team, not as adversaries.   Develop new ways to resolve issues. And please, I ask you and the BCTF to stop using children, families, school communities and our hard-working teachers as leverage. 

     I wrote the BCTF separately earlier this week.

Sincerely,

Maureen Bayless