By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
When schools reopen Jan. 9, students at most Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB) schools will be returning from the usual holiday break of just over two weeks. However, students at Sutton School, Massey-Vanier High School and the Campus Brome-Missisquoi adult vocational training centre will be returning after nearly a month and a half.
The ETSB and the Centre de services scolaire Val-des-Cerfs (CSSVDC) jointly administer the three schools, which have English and French sectors. While ETSB teachers are represented by the Appalachian Teachers’ Association (ATA), affiliated with the Front Commun bloc through the CSQ-linked Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), CSSVDC teachers are members of the Syndicat des enseignants Haute-Yamaska (SEHY), itself a member of the Fédération autonome d’enseignement (FAE). FAE members have been on an indefinite general strike since Nov. 23; as the strike began, SEHY president Sophie Veilleux told the BCN that picket lines around the shared schools would be “watertight.”
As a result, all three schools have been closed since the FAE strike began – along with dozens of French-language public schools around the province staffed by FAE-affiliated teachers. On Dec. 22, the ETSB announced it had reached an agreement with the FAE to allow access to shared schools, and on Dec. 28, the strike ended after the FAE reached an agreement-in-principle with the government.
Education Minister Bernard Drainville is expected to announce a “catchup plan” for strike-affected schools on Jan. 9. ATA union officer Gail Klinck, a teacher at Massey-Vanier, called on the minister not to forget the three shared bilingual schools. “Our students will need the same support as FAE students, and I think the ministry is going to have to direct that,” she said. “Our kids have missed critical time, and we want to make sure they don’t get left out of the loop.” She expects teachers to have to make difficult decisions about curriculum as they try to make up for lost time: “What do you decide to skim over and what do you have to keep? If you miss a certain math topic but you need it to do something else down the road … that could impact you for several years.”
Klinck said she expects the return to class to be “kind of like coming back from COVID times” in terms of learning loss and mental health. “The kids are anxious to come back, not only for the academics but for their social lives,” she said. “The first couple of weeks, everyone’s going to be stressed.”
Drainville announced on Jan. 4 that the January ministerial exams would be rescheduled to later this month; his office has said it would not comment further before the Jan. 9 announcement. Klinck said she is eagerly awaiting ministry proposals on scheduling, year-end exams and support for vulnerable students. “There are no easy answers here.”
She also called on the ETSB, the CSSVDC and the two unions to work out a long-term agreement where “no one shuts down the other side’s school” and where dialogue is encouraged. “Even on days when [FAE and QPAT teachers] were both on strike, there was a red (FAE) group and a green (Front Commun) group, entirely separate. We need to change that – we might not agree on tactics, but we agree on education.”
Requests for comment sent to the SEHY and FAE were referred to FAE president Mélanie Hubert, who was not immediately available.
ATA members to vote on Front Commun agreement
On Jan. 7, the Front Commun – made up of four of the largest union federations in the province, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), the Fédération des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ) and the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé (APTS) announced it had reached an agreement-in-principle with the government, which included a 17.4 per cent increase over five years with additional smaller increases pegged to inflation in the last three years. Many of the details around working conditions have been hashed out by sector-specific negotiating tables and will become public in the coming weeks.
QPAT president Stephen Le Sueur said although he could not share details of the sector-specific agreement for teachers, there were steps forward on salary, workloads and class composition. “We haven’t lost anything, and we have made some gains – maybe not as much as we would have liked, but there are some gains,” he said.
Front Commun union members around the province will vote on the agreement between mid-January and Feb. 20. A double simple majority — where over 50 per cent of members in at least half of affected locals vote to approve the agreement – is needed to approve the agreement.