Teachers will enter their second month of job action next week with no end in sight.
"We right now are experiencing the sheer bliss of teaching and teaching only, free from administrative tasks and we are prepared to stay in this phase one until we get a fair negotiated settlement," said Sunshine Coast Teachers' Association (SCTA) president Louise Herle.
Herle said at this time teachers are not talking about stepping up job action to a full-blown strike.
"There is no talk of escalation. Before anything like that would happen we would have to have another strike vote as well, so there is a definite process for escalating from phase one into another phase of job action," Herle said. "None of us want to be going out on the picket line, none of us want to be losing pay, but we do expect a fair and reasonable settlement to be negotiated at the table."
Teachers have been looking for more pay and more control of their classrooms in a new contract to be signed with the British Columbia Public School Employers' Association (BCPSEA) for many months.
Currently negotiations between the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF) and BCPSEA centre around the division of issues between the provincial employer and local school district boards.
Local negotiations were set to start this week on Sept. 28, with a second meeting scheduled for Oct. 5.
Superintendent of School District 46 (SD46) Patrick Bocking said he is pleased with the job the teachers are doing, despite the job action now underway.
"I'm really pleased that instructional practices are of the best quality and great things are happening in classrooms," Bocking said.
Phase one of the teachers' job action involves abstaining from supervision and administrative duties, leaving SD46 staff to fill in the gaps.
"We have principals and special education teaching assistants working and supervising wherever they would have last year, so that's ongoing and lunch hour supervisors are watching [students], as well as myself and other board office staff who are covering recess duties. In fact I'm running off to Cedar Grove right now," Bocking told Coast Reporter Tuesday morning.
"So outside supervision is still taking place and the kids are safe and well supervised so we're comfortable with that."
He said the measures put in place are working for now, but he doesn't want to continue to stretch staff resources for too long.
"We really don't know how long it's going to take. Can it be managed for months and months and months? We certainly don't want that," Bocking said. "We believe it's best for teachers to be out and working with the kids at recess and before and after school on their supervision times and certainly doing the other things like collecting money and all of that kind of stuff to make things like field trips happen, and just getting back to regular work would be wonderful."
He hopes a negotiated contract for teachers is on the horizon.
"Through BCPSEA we want this over. No question about it. They are really interested in negotiating with BCTF to bring a resolution to the situation," he said.
