When will kids be back in class?

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – BC teachers and the government reached a tentative agreement early this morning in the education labour dispute.

The question many parents want answered is: When will kids be back in school?

Teachers are set to hold a ratification vote on Thursday and Mike Lombardi with the Vancouver School Board says the idea is to have children back in class as soon as possible.

“Vancouver kids will soon be back in their classrooms,” he tells us. “They’re going to have motivated teachers in front of them, and we’re going to cover the curriculum fully and make sure that our kids get full credit for classroom instruction.”

He says the timing may be dependent on the language contained within the tentative agreement itself.

“What we have to wait to see is if there is any back-to-work protocols negotiated in the agreement… subject to there not being anything there, we will do whatever we can to get those schools open quickly.”

Doug Strachan with the Surrey School Board says they’d like to get teachers prepping in the classroom as soon as pickets come down.

“We’re prepared to get underway immediately. But there are obviously some processes to play out with the teachers’ vote on the contract and a few other details that may still be announced. But as soon as we can have teachers in the classroom, we’re ready to go.”

“We plan to have a typical first day of school opening and get things back to normal exactly as they would have been, but granted, a few weeks out,” he adds.

Lombardi admits with the slight delay in starting the school year, it will take a bit of effort to rejig class timetables, and teachers will be spending their first hours back dealing with that.