‘I see that there’s a path forward,’ education minister tells Bray

Saskatchewan’s education minister says the government will extend an invitation to the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation on Friday in an attempt to restart stalled contract negotiations.

Jeremy Cockrill told The Evan Bray Show on Thursday that he believes if the sides come together, a deal could be reached.

“I see that there’s a path forward to getting a deal done and there’s things we have to consider on both sides of the table,” Cockrill told Bray. “The invitation we are going to send out to the STF leadership, I hope they seriously consider just coming back to the table and starting the conversation again in a more formal way.”

Negotiations between the government and the teachers’ union have been at a standstill since early February. The STF has levied sanctions against the government, including strikes, withdrawing lunch-hour supervision and withholding supervision of extracurricular activities.

Among the main sticking points are class size and classroom complexity, which the union says must be included in the collective bargaining agreement. The government says that’s not going to happen.

The STF asked the government to accept binding arbitration on those issues, but the province refused. The union has said it won’t return to the bargaining table until those matters are included in the contract.

On Wednesday, a provincewide strike saw teachers picketing at the Legislative Building on the day the 2024-25 budget was delivered. The teachers also are withholding supervision of extracurricular activities, which spelled the end of the three-day Hoopla basketball tournament in Moose Jaw.

Cockrill said the government wants to get the teachers back to the bargaining table.

“The ball is in their court because they took the ball out of the kids’ hands this week and walked right off the court,” he said in reference to Hoopla. “We have made significant movement on several items: The significant increase to operating funding and then also the predictability going out for several years in classroom supports. I think you’ve seen government make significant moves towards getting a deal done.

“It’s time for the teachers’ union leadership to recognize that and come back to the table because I think there are far more items we agree on than we disagree on. It’s time to come to the table and start picking off those things we agree on and get closer to a deal that we can go out together and say, ‘Yep, we’ve got a deal done that’s going to provide predictability for students and families.’ ”

The budget released Wednesday set aside $3.3 billion for education, including $2.2 billion in operating funds for the 27 school divisions in Saskatchewan. Also included was $356.6 million for classroom supports in order to address class size and classroom complexity.

However, the STF is convinced the government will claw back that latter funding after the next provincial election.

The union also doesn’t believe the increased funding is enough. In a release, the STF said another 12 per cent increase would be needed to reach the same per-student funding levels that were present in 2015-16.

In that same release, the STF published graphs appearing to indicate that funding drops significantly outside of election-year budgets – like the one presented Wednesday.

Cockrill took issue with the numbers the STF put forward.

“These are not apples-to-apples numbers … and we are still doing a full analysis to try to understand where those numbers come from,” he said. “They appear to be including school capital and other spending in the education sector — whether that be for early years or child care — in the other provinces, but then they don’t include those numbers for Saskatchewan which obviously makes Saskatchewan numbers look lower than they actually are.”

Cockrill said that according to Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan is among the highest in the country when it comes to education funding per capita.

“Saskatchewan is set up well in terms of how we invest into education and how we are going to be investing into education in future years,” Cockrill said. “If we want to go on the per-student basis, per-student funding will be increasing thanks to this year’s budget and especially once we get the contract with the STF settled, it will increase significantly.

“We also have to factor in the fact this government has invested significantly into schools around the province in ensuring that school infrastructure is appropriate for our kids to go to school each and every day.”

With the dispute continuing — and with events being cancelled — Cockrill said the past week has been frustrating and disappointing.

“When we start to see our kids and students get dragged into the dispute the way they have — specifically on Hoopla but as well on several other extracurricular activities — I think it has been a really challenging week in that way for a lot of families around the province,” Cockrill said. “It’s disappointing where we are.

“I do think that when I look at the proposals that have gone back between the (Teachers’ Bargaining Committee) and the (Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee), I think there is far more we agree on than disagree on. I’m hopeful that both sides can get back to the table sooner rather than later to get a deal done.”