General Voting Day is next week (May 14) and School District 51, the Boundary District Teachers’ Association and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 2098 sent an education-related questionnaire to Boundary-Similkameen candidates.
Candidates were asked the following questions:
1)How will you/your party/government work to strengthen the co-governance relationship between boards of education and government?
2) Will you/your party/government commit to predictable and stable funding, which includes the annual addition of dollars to address costs for negotiated salary increases, increasing infrastructure expenses and provincial program implementation?
3) What is your position on free collective bargaining for the public education sector?
4) How will your government recognize and support education workers such as education assistants, custodians, bus drivers, maintenance and clerical staff in terms of a) funding whole jobs that support families and communities and b) allow for a high level of collaboration between teachers and classroom support workers?
Here is BC Liberal candidate Linda Larson's response:
I have made my position clear on these questions so will not answer them individually.
We have 73,000 less students and 16,000 more full-time teachers than in 2005.
There is a lot of money inside the current school budgets and ways of managing the current envelope without huge increases is a challenge for all.
Without putting even more money in there is no way to satisfy the requests in the (questionnaire).