School administrators are struggling to understand an order from B.C’s Labour Relations Board about B.C.’s teachers strike that appeared to make summer school go ahead – but for possibly zero students.

The interim ruling appears to make summer school for students who failed a course in grades 10, 11, and 12 an essential service.

But it also appears to specify that those students must also not be able to take the course in the fall semester. It may be inconvenient for students, but nearly all students have the option of taking any failed courses next year, said Vancouver School Board Chair Patti Bacchus.

“We’re just trying to sort out who that would apply to and how we would go about providing it to a small group of students, if any,” Bacchus said. “It’s confusing.”

Both sides in the teachers strike were battling it out at the LRB, with teachers wanting to put schools behind picket lines if a deal isn’t reached by June 30.

An association of school districts argued that summer school is an essential service. The districts have since postponed summer school a week, and said they will decide to cancel summer school entirely if they don’t have a deal by July 3rd.

However the ruling, posted Friday night, declared summer school to be an essential service for the students who are in grades 10, 11 or 12 and failed a course.

“These are students who cannot take the failed course during the following school year,” said LRB Vice-Chair Richard Longpre.

That’s a problem, according to Richmond School Board Vice-Chair Eric Yung, who said his administrators will be meeting Monday to figure out which of their students are meeting that criteria.

“We’re not quite sure how to deal with those provisions. We might have to find a way to screen the students,” he said.

Prince George teacher Glen Thielmann took the point further on his blog, arguing the only students that would fit the criteria are the ones who won’t be alive for the fall semester.

“When you set up a scenario where the only students who can take summer school aren’t living, you’ve entered into a different kind of reality for sure,” he told CTV News.

The school boards must tell the teachers how many students that is, and which teachers are required, by July 3, the ruling says, and a rationale for choosing those students by July 7.

The order requires the school boards to remove their lockout provisions, which have included a 10 per cent pay cut, for teachers assigned to summer school work.

The union can continue to pick summer school sites, but has to allow entry and exit for students and teachers to allow any summer school site to function.

Bacchus said the pickets could pose a problem because it would be likely that unionized support staff would not cross picket lines, meaning the schools that were operating wouldn’t be cleaned. Another issue: it’s usually the teachers who determine whether students are eligible for summer school, and that determination wasn’t done because of the labour dispute, she said.

Usually there are about 1000 students that are in remedial summer school, she said.

The LRB decided not to rule on the issue of year-round students, who would be affected more as the strike drags through the summer.

That’s because the BCTF has decided to let teachers in those schools go back to work in the interests of fairness. That way, each student will not lose more than 13 school days to the strike.

Year-round schools account for five out of about 1,600 schools provincewide.

Yung said he’s happy the two schools with year-round classes in Richmond will likely be back on Monday.

“We’re going to have to scramble with the teachers to put them back in school but we’re happy on that,” he said.