Page A10 — Terrace Standard, Wednesday, December 19, “1990

TERRACE — The public needs
to get a clearer picture of what
the school board «does, says
board chairman Edna Cooper.
Cooper — re-elected by tie
board to the post of chairman at
the board’s Dec. 4 inaugural |
meeting ~~ said there are many

problems and ‘Shallenges to be

tackled.

. Many residents don’t realize
the trustees. aren't supposed to
‘have a. finger on the smallest
details of the system, she said.
.: “We don’t have the expertise
for all these jobs,’ Cooper said.
_ ‘The board is a wide and
“diverge: group of people chosen
from the community to oversee
the ‘running of our school
system. It is our business to
monitor the job — it is not our
business to do the jab.”’

She -referred' to recent
criticism that no trustee has par-
ticipated in the contract talks
for the past several months,

“It is no more proper for us
to negotiate the contract than it
is for us-to go into the
classroom and teach,” she said.
**We have to see to it that it’s
done in a proper way, but not
do it ourselves.”

To immerse the entire board
in the contract negotiation pro-
cess would be counterproduc-
tive, she said. ‘‘We wouldn’t
have an objective view of it,”
Cooper said, ‘To be objective
and see that there's a balance is
our most important role.”

Teachers’ union organizers
who call for belt-tightening in
the school district’s administra-
tion before budget cuts are
made anywhere else either don’t

' understand the whole picture or

Teachers
ready
strike
scenario

; TERRACE — School District
i 88 teachers unanimously ap-
| proved a plan last week that sets

the stage for a teachers strike

here if a contract settlement
isn't reached.

Terrace District Teachers’
Association (TDTA) president
Robert Brown said the plan
presented by the union’s ex-
ecutive received 100 per cent
support in meetings of teachers
in Terrace, Stewart, Kitwanga
and the Hazeltons.

The Dec. 10 vote came as
both sides agreed to resume
talks Jan, 11-14,

Brown said the four-phase
plan leading to a strike begins
now. with a public relations
campaign and ‘‘political
action,”’

At phase iwo, he said local
teachers would hold rallies, con-
duct a sanctioned strike vote,

_ serve 72-hour strike notice, and
have School District 88 declared

a “hot district.”

Rotating walkouts would
begin at phase ihree, Brown
said, and phase four would be a
full strike.

He said the strong approval
of local teachers gives the
bargaining committee the man-
date to carry out a strike vote at
‘ any time,

Brown said there is no set
time frame for escalating the
plan to direct job action, adding
that the bargaining committee
will remain at the initial stage of
the plan at least until talks with
the district resume in mid-
January.

-. It's dynamic — it's just like

“negotiations. It's an open-ended

kind of ‘fluid thing,’ Brown
osaid. ‘*You can’t really put

“timelines on when you imple-

“ment phase two or phase three

or whatever, It can happen in a

week, or it can happen in two -

- months.”

‘The teachers have been |

‘without'a contract since July 1,

_ Both sides remain far apart on.

the issue‘of wage increases, as
‘well, as-.dozens of.’ other
sd “articles stemming
_from ‘the: Old: contract,

“This is the strongest man-

date ‘ever given. a negotiating.
team,” said Frank Rowe, the’. .
union’s chief-negotiator, ‘The’
board should now have a clear...

are out to make vatich points,
she said.

“There are certain functions } |

of the school district that must
be covered in the budget. We
can’t eliminate, for instance,
administration in order to get
more teachers, That is not a
reasonable. expectation.”

“Our budget is mainly
payroll and benefits for
teachers. We have the second-
- largest payroll in this whole area
‘after Alcan,’ she said. We
spend $20 million in this district
on wages and payroll. That
must be properly adminstered."”
Cooper said the city’s ad-
‘ministration goes unchallenged,
yet the public reacts far more
critically to the school district’s
similar system of administra-
‘tion.

*“T don't think they unders-
tand what it's:all about. We
have a budget five times the size

Fy a, on

TRIM TIDINGS

from...

>ublic fuzzy on school |
board role, says chairiiah

Edna Cooper.

of the municipality. And yet the.

perception in the public eye is
that we do not need an assistant
secretary-treasurer to deal with
that amount of money.”

The public doesn’t’ seem to
understand the jobs of the
trustees, the administrators,

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and what a large organization
we have,” Cooper added, t
“There’s also @ perception
that the board is inaccessible to
many people,’’ she said, ‘‘and
that. really'concerns me."”
“The board’ should be ac-

cessible to the people, because’
we are their representatives. If. |

that’s the case, then there’s
something wrong.”
Cooper: said’ considerable

’ changes are needed in the ways -&

the school district deals with
both residents and teachers. ~

._ “The Year 2000 program
that’s coming forward is going
to be acompletely different type
of educational system than we
have now. But we are still work-
ing in the old ways. We — the
teachers, the board and the ad-
ministration — are not coming
to grips with ways to adjust to
what we will be doing in the

, future.”

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