The education of our children is of paramount importance, and whatever WE decide, it will have to be considered with caution and a lot of thought

A ten year teachers contract? It's an idea that our premier, Christy Clark decided to float this week.

One of the things that I heard Christy point out was that with something like this in place, a child currently in Grade 3, would be able to get through all grades to graduation without a disruption.

Hmmm ... but what about a child that is currently in grade 1 or grade 2?

I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but what I question is the need to have a contract going for this length of time.

If I was a teacher, I would sure question whether to have something like this. After all, who knows what economic conditions will be next year ... never mind 6, 7, or 8 years from now.

And what would the government have to give up to get teachers to agree to a contract of that length?? I find it highly unlikely that teachers will go for anything like this, WITHOUT there being a huge carrot at the end.

ALSO ... on top of questionable economic conditions for everyone ... in terms of inflation, cost of living, etc ... how is the government going to know, with any certainty, what the population growth rates are going to be? Will we end up with the government locked into employing teachers where there are no jobs for them?

I just think the whole thing has far to many questions, and uncertainty, to even be considered.

On the other hand ... perhaps if the two sides sat down to look at better ways of working out wage structures, classroom composition, needs of students, etc ... that would be a far more productive and useful idea worthy of consideration.

Why do both sides need to bring themselves to the precipice of strike action every couple of years?

Meantime ... the other day I asked if people had any suggestions regarding issues of importance ... what was working well ... what wasn't ... what we needed to do better.

One of the suggestions and comments that came back to me was:

Since you have asked I will respond with public education and our society's attitude toward being an educated, healthy, happy citizen to ensure each individual person has success within their potential. 

If we do not ensure our students are educated, and, somewhat competitive with themselves as individual to ensure their own success; the majority will not be successful in their chosen career.

A poisoned atmosphere, created on both sides of the bargaining table, is not going to lead to our children being the number one concern

John Rustad is the BC Liberal MLA for Nechako Lake, and he makes good use of social media to find out what people are thinking, and asking for their thoughts. 

A post he made the other day on Facebook caught my attention; this is what he asked:

"Many teachers volunteer for extracurricular activities making an enormous difference in student's lives. Here's the interesting question: if it's voluntary, why does the union have the ability to intimidate and force teachers to not participate? If it's not voluntary, then should it be classified as an illegal strike?"

I often will post comments to the queries and so I replied to him with the following:

I do not mean to be critical, but as I understand it, teachers have a pay scale for the roughly 200 days a year that they work.

Taking their pay over those 200 days, they make far more than most workers in the province. As I understand it, that pay also takes into account a day that is longer than regular classroom time (ie: prep), and I think it’s fair to say it would also cover some time outside the classroom for student activities.

The BCTF themselves have said the average maximum salary for a teacher is $74,353 ... based on 200 days, that works out to over $370 a day.