Students, teachers and taxpayers need a long-term solution to the perpetual funding crisis in B.C.'s schools. Education Minister Peter Fassbender has given school boards the welcome news that the province will cover the cost of any pay increases for teachers this year. He would do well to look for a way to end the roller-coaster of money questions that seem to confront school boards every year.
The promise to fund teachers' pay increases does not extend to raises for support staff such as custodians and education assistants. For these workers, who have not had a raise for four years, school boards have been told they will have to find the money through cost savings elsewhere in their budgets.
The double standard is glaring. Support staff will draw obvious lessons from the observation that while they quietly go about their jobs and are treated like second-class citizens, the teachers - whose labour disputes throw schools into chaos - have their pay increases covered by the province.
The government might not like the fruit of those lessons down the road.
The difference, of course, is that the province is driving teacher negotiations in an effort to secure a 10-year contract that will buy peace. It has pushed the B.C. Public School Employers' Association out of the picture and appointed a single negotiator for the government.
The contrasting - and changing - policies are confusing for everyone. In December, the government told trustees that they would have to find savings to cover any raises for support staff. It later backed down in the face of trustee outrage. Then this summer, after the election, the order was back on the table: Trustees would have to find the money themselves.
The message is that money is available for the things the government wants, but not for things that trustees or staff might want. The rules change, and money appears out of nowhere.
Budgets are tight and savings must be made, but this is not the way to do it.
We must find a way to pay for education in this province without constantly changing the rules and budgeting by brinkmanship.
