News release: “Support staff in schools across Nova Scotia are concerned that restructuring school boards will create unstable labour relations, much like what we’ve seen happen to our health care system,” says Nan McFadgen, president of CUPE Nova Scotia. “They feel this will also negatively impact quality of education for students.”
Liette Doucet, president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union, on the unnecessary and disruptive recommendations contained in the Glaze report and adopted by the Nova Scotia government. “If we are going to fix the problems in our education system we need to work together. The government’s strategy of dividing teachers and parents, and distracting from the real issues facing students does not work.”
The Black Educators Association of Nova Scotia is unhappy with the Glaze report. In a news release it states “The Black Educators Association was neither invited nor requested to give input into this review. BEA’s membership of teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals and community members are appalled to have been omitted from such a process of paramount importance.”
Asking teachers and others who work in the school system directly what it is that works in today’s schools and what needs fixing, now there is a novel idea. Members of Educators for Social Justice (ESJ) are doing exactly that. We talk with Pamela Rogers, a member of ESJ, about the questions, the responses so far, and why it is so important to add an undiluted teachers’ voice to the current discussions.
News release issued by the Council of Atlantic Provinces and Territory Teachers’ Organizations. “Of equal interest to the education leaders meeting in St. John’s, NL were the major issues that the Nova Scotia government decided not to address. Notably absent from immediate action are many items that might have led to meaningful changes and improvements in the education system.”
Abolishing locally elected school board trustees in favour of government appointees is a threat to democracy and to the right of representation. It completely removes the local voice in education, states the Canadian School Boards Association in this news release.
“What our provincial education system needs is leadership that is willing to make the needs of students, teachers and principals a priority. By adopting the Glaze report, Education Minister Zach Churchill has demonstrated the exact opposite,” writes NSTU president Liette Doucet.
“We must work ‘with’ and not ‘on’ teachers; their input, along with that of administrators and university representatives, is essential to success,” writes Acadia professor Dr. Carol E. Harris, reflecting on the Glaze recommendations.
Contributor Alex Kronstein reviews two children books for little kids with an activist bend.
New contributor and Divest Dal member Laura Cutmore writes on Canada’s longest university campout for fossil fuel divestment, and why Dalhousie can no longer look the other way. Climate, racial, and gender justice are inextricably linked, she writes, and there simply are no more excuses for inaction.