10. Teachers' strike / funding: Teachers weren't carrying picket signs on the first of school but Sept. 6 was the beginning of job action. The BCTF and the B.C. Public School Employers' Association, the bargaining agent for the school boards in the province, started negotiations for a new collective agreement in April. But the two sides failed to make any progress. BCPSEA, at the provincial government's behest, proposed a zero-net mandate, a wage freeze, and some union leaders were suggesting a double-digit raise in order to catch up to their counterparts in other provinces. In June, teachers voted overwhelmingly to take job action to back up their demands. The BCTF started phase one of job action in September with a refusal to do non-teaching duties such as supervision and paperwork and a boycott of those services continues. The impact of teacher job action was felt at report card time last month when report cards were sent home without letter grades, containing only non-academic information such as attendance. Meanwhile, there was some good news for the Surrey school district this fall when the province injected roughly $110 million in capital funding to build new schools and ease chronic overcrowding.

Photograph by: Marisa Babic , Surrey NOW