Notes from the Revelstoke school board meeting on Jan. 12.
The Revelstoke Teacher’s Association wants more bargaining at the local level, the group’s president Bill MacFarlane told the Revelstoke school board at its meeting last week.
“It is our belief that bargaining at the local table will provide the way to ensuring that teachers enjoy the supports, conditions and autonomy that is needed to provide the best educational programs possible,” he said at the Jan. 12 meeting. “Returning to local bargaining means together we can address many of the issues that have not been dealt with over the past couple of years.”
In a public letter addressed to Alan Chell, chair of the school district’s board of trustees, MacFarlane asked that negotiations on a new contract begin on Mar. 1 to replace the current deal that expires at the end of this June.
MacFarlane said the teachers association has put together a list of concerns but that it remains confidential for now.
In an interview Friday, he elaborated slightly. He said four items – salary, benefits, hours of work and paid leave – should be negotiated provincially.
“Any other issue related to professional development, post infill, professional autonomy, those sorts of issues will hopefully be at the local table,” MacFarlane added.
Chell, for his part, said the last time local bargaining was in place, from 1988 to 1994, it ended up being very provincially oriented as different school districts looked at what others negotiated, asking, ‘why not here?’
He also said that local bargaining would result in lots of duplication of costs at the local level.
“There are very few things that are unique to one district,” he said. “The issues are common provincially.”
At the provincial level, negotiations will be conducted between the B.C. Teacher’s Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers Association.
School district, RCEC reach energy supply agreement
The Revelstoke School District and the Revelstoke Community Energy Corporation (RCEC) reached an agreement that will see RCEC supply the district’s two new schools with energy for a 20-year period.
“It is a 20-year commitment on behalf of the school district and it does look after all our energy needs at both schools as the first source of energy for both heat and hot water,” said district superintendent Anne Cooper.
For RCEC, the agreement means the corporation will maintain its customer base as it currently supplies energy to the high school.
“In terms of thermal load its approximately the same or less than the present high school because they’re highly efficient buildings that are being built,” said David Johnson, chair of RCEC.
Under the agreement, RCEC will extend its systems to the new schools and decommission the system at the old high school as construction proceeds, said Johnson.
Meanwhile the school district will be responsible for the system on the schools’ ends.
“Suffice it to say that we are very satisified and I believe that RCEC is also very satisfied that the terms and conditions are mutually beneficial so we think its a win-win,” said Cooper.
New elementary school slightly behind schedule
Revelstoke’s new elementary school is slightly behind schedule, said the district principal of operations and technology Earl Woodhurst at last week’s school board meeting.
“It didn’t get as far as I hoped at this point. There was a delay with some of the steel work so they don’t have a roof on it at present,” he told the board of trustees. “They’re still proceeding with the steel. They’ll get a roof deck on it and proceed. It slows them down a little bit but they hired some labourers and they’re shovelling snow.”
Meanwhile, he said the new high school was starting to come together nicely.
“It’s really amazing how the walls and windows are starting to take shape, you get a real sense of what it’s going to look like and it really looks quite spectacular.”