Education minister, students disappointed at teachers' withdrawl from HOOPLA

Job action by Saskatchewan teachers that threatens the province's largest annual high school basketball tournament has left students "begging" for teachers and government to find a solution.Some high school girls from francophone school Ecole Monseigneur de Laval in Regina attended Question Period in the Saskatchewan legislature on Monday. Grade 12 student Kira Dureault told reporters she was there to "raise awareness.""We're begging our government to reasonably negotiate with the teachers' union. It is severely impacting our lives, the students, our extracurriculars," Dureault said.Job action announced Monday morning by the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) included a province-wide strike on Wednesday and a refusal to help with extra-curriculars on Thursday and Friday.The job action jeopardizes the Optimist Band Festival in Regina and the provincial Hoopla basketball tournament in Moose Jaw.Dureault, whose team was to play in the tournament for mid-sized (3A) schools told reporters she was "devastated" by news Hoopla could be cancelled."I've worked for far more than five months just to get to Hoopla," Dureault said."Everything we do all year is to get to provincials. And every school and every team that has tirelessly had hours and hours and hours of practice, just wants to compete this weekend. That's all what we're begging for."Dureault said the dispute left students feeling "caught in the middle.""We fully support our teachers. But at a point, we're like, what have we done? All we want to do is go to school, we want to play our sports. We want to further our education and playing sports and a huge part of our education," she said.Durealt said she did not have a "side" in the dispute, but her comments seemed to sympathize with teachers."Through the multiple sanctions that were given, it was really hard for us to feel supported. And it just shows how hard our teachers work all day, every day after hours, before school, after school, during their breaks," she said."They're not getting paid to do any of that, they're not getting paid to coach us. And yeah, it really it hurts our hearts that they have to do this."Education Minister Jeremy Cockrill said it was "obviously disappointing" that job action was continuing. He noted the many athletes and coaches in the gallery for question period and said he had personally talked with Hoopla organizers and parents, athletes, and coaches involved."There have been hundreds of hours of hard work put in by students and coaches and the organizers to prepare for this," Cockrill said."The government has made moves to get to an agreement. And it's disappointing that the STF would target these types of activities that kids have worked so hard for all year long."The STF promised last week it would withdraw its participation in Hoopla unless the province agreed to binding arbitration on whether classroom size and complexity should be included in a contract with teachers.Cockrill said the province will not negotiate "with a gun to our head" and said it was "really disappointing" that union leadership would "use this tournament as a target and as a point of political leverage.""Before this week, we've invited them to 19 days of bargaining and haven't got a positive response from that. What we have brought forward is significant on salary, significant on classroom safety, significant on annualized funding," Cockrill explained.The government recently signed a memorandum of understanding to increase annual funding to school boards by $180 million. Of this, $45 million was allocated to address classroom size and complexity."Where has the STF leadership moved on any position in this whole thing? Government has moved in multiple areas trying to show goodwill to get an agreement done. I don't think the same can be said for the STF leadership, and now they're going after high school basketball tournaments, which is really disappointing," Cockrill said.Last year's budget saw the total budget for the Ministry of Education reach $3.1 billion, with $2.04 billion going in funding to school divisions. This was a $49.4 million increase from the previous year.

Education minister, students disappointed at teachers' withdrawl from HOOPLA

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