It's now money in the bank – more than half a million additional dollars that School District #83 will be able to spend on staffing over the remainder of the school year.
Superintendent Glenn Borthistle says the district's share of a $50 million provincial fund now mandated is between $500,000 and $600,000.
The provincial fund is a step towards the end of a lengthy legal battle between the government and the B.C. Teachers Federation that began in 2002, when then-education minister Christy Clark passed legislation removing class size and special needs support staffing ratios from the union contract.
The dispute went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in the teachers’ favour in November 2016.
The province and the teachers' union have now negotiated an interim settlement, a $50 million fund to hire up to 1,100 teachers for the current school year.
In making the announcement Thursday of the fund, Education Minister Mike Bernier said there will be additional ongoing funding in the B.C. Liberal government's February budget to finance a full agreement.
Borthistle says School District #83's share could amount to 10 additional teachers.
"Since we're halfway through the year, we wouldn't anticipate we would be able to get people in place until the end of the month… It could mean 10 additional teachers for the remainder of the school year."
He said the North Okanagan Shuswap Teachers Association (NOSTA) and management will be meeting to decide how best to allocate the funds.
The money would mean acquiring teachers to address any outstanding class size issues, Borthistle said, as well as bringing in 'non enrolling' teachers such as learning resource teachers, speech language pathologists, behaviour intervention specialists, teacher librarians and others.
"I would use the second semester of the high school as an example," he said, noting it could be less disruptive because new classes are starting. "Where we have oversized classes in the second semester of high school – that would be an example of where we would look."
He said current space, timetables and supply of labour would all be considerations when the funds are distributed, and decisions will be made as soon as possible.
Overall, Borthistle says, "I think it's great. It's a win for students, it's a win for teachers and it's a win for the district."
Brenda O'Dell, president of NOSTA, said she's thrilled.
"At this point every teacher in a classroom is more support for kids. I will be meeting with the district starting tomorrow to talk about what this might look like for the district," she said Thursday.
"It's important for parents and the public to understand, restoring our collective agreement will make a real difference for kids in the classroom... It's been a long wait. Kudos to teachers for continuing to fight for kids as long as they have."
NDP education critic Rob Fleming said the agreement represents a "down payment on restoring 15 years of cuts" to B.C. public schools, after the B.C. Liberal government spent millions on lawyers to defend their actions and was finally forced to restore funding.
"We have something like 15,000 classrooms in British Columbia right now that are out of compliance, even with the government's own guidelines, so they're already behind in the absence of hard targets," Fleming said.
- with files from Tom Fletcher