The Burnaby Teachers' Association may be crying foul over the school district's decision to lay off 75 teachers, but the district says these layoffs are just part of the system and have to happen every year.
In an article appearing in the May 3 Burnaby NOW, Burnaby Teachers' Association president, James Sanyshyn said he was upset that the budget passed in April didn't mention any layoffs, even though layoff notices were sent out the very next day.
"To say there were no layoffs is disingenuous," he said in an earlier interview.
But the district says these layoffs happen each year and are necessary.
"Every year, we typically have a fairly large number of layoffs because that's the way the system works," said Greg Frank, secretary-treasurer of the Burnaby school district.
According to Frank, the district lays off a number of teachers at the end of each school year, depending on contractual obligations and other factors, including returning teachers. Throughout the summer, the district goes through a rehiring process that takes into consideration the number of returning and retiring teachers, enrolment across the district and changes in student demographics, Frank said.
"Then, over the coming months and through the summer and into early September, many of those staff are hired back," he said.
But the fact that most, if not all, districts across the province have to do this annually in order to balance their budgets, is reason enough to announce it to the public, Sanyshyn said.
"They should acknowledge there is a problem, and I don't think they succeeded in doing that as well as they should have," he said.
Sanyshyn said trustees should have notified the public about the annual layoffs as a way to shine a spotlight on what should be an important election issue.
"That's 75 teachers pulled away from their schools . in order to balance the budget," Sanyshyn said.
He added that in order to encourage more government funding, the public needs to be made aware of the annual layoffs. But trustee Ron Burton disagrees. According to Burton, the layoffs are a requirement of the collective agreement and therefore a contractual obligation that the district must adhere to.
"I don't think it was a missed opportunity at all," he said. "Probably 80 or 90 per cent of (the teachers) will be back."
Burton said that while government funding plays a key role in district shortfalls, even with full funding the layoffs would still happen as part of the teachers' contract.
