Schools open Monday without classes

NEWS/ SCHOOLS — Kamloops-Thompson schools will be open Monday even though there will be no classes, superintendent Terry Sullivan said today (Thursday).

The B.C. Teachers Federation announced this morning it will escalate job action to a full-scale strike next Tuesday but will also hold a “study session” on Monday. Teachers will gather offsite but there will no picket lines.

Unless a deal is reached between the BCTF and the B.C. Public School Employers Association before Tuesday, that means today is the last day of school in the Kamloops-Thompson district because teachers will be on a rotating strike here Friday.

Sullivan said he expected support staff as well as principals and vice principals would be in the schools Monday, which will provide ane opportunity for parents with children who still have personal effects in the schools to retrieve them.

He said it would have been better for younger children to be able to take their personal things home gradually as it’s hard for them to do it all at once.

Most accesses will be locked up but the front doors to the schools will be open. “We can control that,” Sullivan said of school security.

He said he received notice at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday that the BCTF was giving 72 hours notice of next week’s strike and that all 60 districts will subject to the study session Monday.

Provincial exams were declared an essential service Wednesday by the B.C. Labour Relations Board, so district administration will be deployed to take the brunt of supervision duties, with teachers doing the rest.

On exam days, one door in the schools involved won’t be picketed so that students don’t have to cross picket lines. “The union will determine which entrance,” Sullivan said.

He will send out an update to parents today providing them with information on the impact of the teachers’ move to a full-scale strike.