School is back on this summer for some B.C. students despite a teachers strike, the Labour Relations Board has ruled.
In a ruling posted Friday night the LRB declared summer school to be an essential service for those students in grades 10-12 who have failed a course and are required to take a summer course.
“These are students who cannot take the failed course during the following school year,” said LRB Vice-Chair Richard Longpre.
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.
It’s not clear yet how many students this ruling will affect, or which schools and classes will be open.
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.
