Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
editor@qctonline.com
Students across the province affected by teachers’ strikes will have access to additional tutoring, ministry exams will be delayed and organi- zations working with at-risk youth will receive additional financial support as part of a $300-million “catch-up plan” announced Jan. 9 by Education Minister Bernard Drainville. Secondary 4 and 5 students who fail a ministry exam and must retake it to graduate will also attend summer school for free.
Dozens of French-language public schools across Quebec, including those in the Centre des services scolaire (CSS) de la Capitale and CSS des Premières-Seigneuries service areas in Quebec City, closed from Nov. 23 through the holidays after the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement (FAE) declared an indefinite general strike. The rest of Quebec’s public school teachers, including those in English-language schools, are affiliated through regional unions with the Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ). Students in those schools missed eight non-consecutive days of school due to strikes. Although the agreements-in- principle reached between the unions and the government have yet to be ratified, school resumed Jan. 9.
Drainville said the funding would be made available to all affected schools, although further information on how it would be divided among schools and regions was not available at press time.
He emphasized that the ministry “did not want to make a wall-to-wall plan” and intended to distribute the funding to individual schools through boards and service centres, to allow schools to use it as they saw fit. “The needs are different from one student, one service centre and one school to another; the students’ needs will guide us and the schools are best placed to understand those needs,” he said.
Drainville said service centres would be responsible for organizing tutoring and enrichment activities outside school hours for students needing additional support. These activities, he said, would be led by teachers and other professionals who would sign up voluntarily and be paid for the extra hours according to their collective agreement. Student teachers and retired teachers might also be asked to pitch in. Activities are expected to start Jan. 29.
January ministry exams will take place a week later than scheduled, and June exams will also be rescheduled with new dates to be announced. The exams will count for a smaller part of students’ final grades (10 per cent instead of 20 per cent for primary school and Secondary 2 students; 20 per cent instead of 50 per cent for Secondary 4 and 5).
“We don’t know how the funding will be divided – the [schools] that lost more time to the strike will probably get more – but we’ll be happy with whatever share of the funding we get,” said Central Québec School Board (CQSB) chairperson Stephen Burke.
Burke said school teams have been asked to identify students who are struggling and teachers who are willing to work extra hours to tutor those who have fallen behind.
Parents of children targeted for extra intervention should receive letters in the coming week. “The parents have to agree to the extra effort being asked of their children and themselves,” Burke said.
Steven Le Sueur, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), said he expected teachers to “do the best [they] can” to identify and support students who needed additional help, and many would appreciate the extra paid hours after taking a financial hit from the strike. “It would have been nice if [Drainville] injected the extra funding before the strike,” he added.
Katherine Korakakis is president of the English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec (EPCA), one of the organizations consulted during the plan’s development. “It’s good to have extra hours of tutoring, but a lot of it is going to depend on parents,” she said, pointing out that many parents had to “rearrange their entire life” during the strike, and some may have to do so again, arranging transportation around after-school tutoring. She noted that the strike placed students from poorer or less educated backgrounds, students with disabilities and older students – who might have been tempted to drop out – at a disadvantage.
Burke said he didn’t see the eight days of missed class as an insurmountable obstacle. “If we had missed 24 days of class I wouldn’t be as optimistic, but we have until June to make up 40 hours,” he said.
Drainville said March Break would go ahead as scheduled – although schools could decide to open their doors for enrichment activities – and no exams would take place after June 23.