It's back to school Tuesday for more than 14,000 kids in the Kamloops-Thompson School District. Tuesday is a partial day and it's a full day on Wednesday.
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September 02, 2013 - 9:14 AM
KAMLOOPS – More than 14,000 School District 73 students, 1,500 staff members and 76 school buses are expected to be back at school for a partial day Tuesday before resuming regular school hours Wednesday.
Superintendent Terry Sullivan does not expect any strike or job action from support staff or teachers to start the year, which means everything should be, as teacher association Jason Karpuk said earlier this summer, 'status quo' for back to school.
“There are some districts where strike votes were taken in the spring, but our local didn't take a strike vote,” Sullivan says of support staff. “At this point we're not affected.”
He says there are negotiations to figure out a provincial framework being worked on next week and until that has been figured out negotiations at the local level have been stalled. As for teachers they are not expected to go back to the bargaining table until fall while they wait for outcome on a major court case around class size and composition. Sullivan expects that will take at least a couple of months.
Then there are the students. Sullivan says initial estimates have elementary numbers slightly increasing though secondary school levels could see a decline of more than 200 students (there was just over 14,600 students as of June 2013.)
“We don't know until we see who arrives next week. We're projecting 227 fewer students at the secondary level, but elementary enrolment will increase,” Sullivan says. “I don't think it will be as great, it probably will be less.”
To contact a reporter for this story, email jstahn@infotelnews.ca, call (250)819-3723 or tweet @JennStahn.
News from © iNFOnews, 2013