School material covered despite abbreviated year
Posted June 26, 2015 11:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – School is officially over for public school students.
For many, the teachers’ strike at the beginning of the year is but a distant memory.
The labour dispute meant the school year was delayed by three weeks – leading some to worry how the curriculum was going to be covered.
But Gail Chaddock-Costello with the Langley Teachers Association says teachers did much of their timetable adjusting when they returned to work to make sure they’d get through the material with the time left.
“I think teachers were really conscious when they came back that they had less time, so they went to work right away adjusting their plans for the remainder of the year.”
She says she’s not aware of any classes that had a more-than-usual hectic June to push through the curriculum.
If course material can be covered in nine months, some may wonder if a shorter school year is the way to go.
But Chaddock-Costello says just because teachers managed to get through the year, it doesn’t necessarily mean they covered all topics as thoroughly as they would have liked to.
“There was definitely pressure on teachers when they came back to look at the curriculum and to ask ‘Can I cover this in tandem with something else so that the material is covered? Can I spend less time I would normally spend on this lesson?”
The strike finally ended with a six year contract that includes a salary increase of 7.25 per cent for teachers over the length of the contract.
