Editor, The News:
Re: Strike savings will assist parents (The News, Aug. 1).
I would like to thank Finance Minister John de Jong for having accomplished a number of things for the BCTF:
• his $40-a-day bribe demonstrates that government has plenty of money, but does not want to spend it on education;
• the government is more concerned with punishing teachers, parents, students, and union-breaking than actually negotiating;
• that, at $40 a day per child under 13, teachers deserve much more compensation than they are asking for.
According to Mr. de Jong’s figures, at $40 a day per child under the age of 13, each elementary teacher should be receiving (assuming a modest class size of 28 – but there is no contract language surrounding class size anymore – $1,120 per day, $5,600 per week and at, 34 weeks in the school year, that’s a whopping $190,400 a year.
The average starting salary for a Category 5 teacher is about $43,000 a year.
I guess this is a clear admission that teachers are significantly underpaid since they are not paid as much per day as daycare.
By the way, secondary teachers have 210-plus students. You do the math.
Now we know who the puppet master is in Victoria. So, Mr. de Jong, instead of throwing education dollars away, why don’t you get back to the bargaining table with a mediator, get rid of your conditions for mediation (much like having a foot race with the precondition of who will win), and bargain with the BCTF in good faith.
One would think this is something that your government should have learned by now since two judges have ordered you to do so.
Shelley Evans
Maple Ridge
Disaster in making
Editor, The News:
Re: Strike savings will assist parents (The News, Aug. 1).
Finance Minister Mike de Jong has just announced that all children under the age of 13 will receive a daycare subsidy of $40 a day if teachers remain on strike in September.
So for your average class of 24 kids, this would amount to $4,800 per week for what may be an explosion of illegal unregulated daycares with unqualified staff, where kids will be warehoused to ensure maximum profitability with little or no concern for their well being.
This is a disaster in the making, and some lawyers must be waiting in the wings, just licking their chops.
It seems to me that this $40 per day would be a far better spent as an investment into our public education system and would go a long way in settling the current impasse with the BCTF.
Bill Jost
Maple Ridge