Statement From Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation President Samantha Becotte

Extracurricular activities are incredibly important to both students and their teachers. Throughout this process we have provided government with multiple off-ramps to end sanctions and ensure that activities and events such as Hoopla, the Regina Optimist Band Festival, the Skills Canada Saskatchewan Provincial Competition, and many, many more could take place as originally planned. We are deeply disappointed that government simply refuses to meet teachers halfway.

This government has the power to immediately end all job action by either agreeing to binding arbitration on the contentious issue of class size and complexity or providing the Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee with a mandate to negotiate that issue. Arbitration provides a fair and objective path for resolution of this issue, and we are confident that negotiations on all other issues could be resolved quickly. Teachers are willing to present our case to an arbitrator and accept the arbitrator’s ruling – why won’t government?

We encourage everyone to continue advocating for students by asking government and elected school board trustees to agree to binding arbitration for class size and complexity.