Day: February 27, 2020

Taking care

by dougpete, posted in Education

First

AEFO

Members of AEFO will be on a one day strike today.

The planned job action by AEFO members has been cancelled due to the threat of “significant snow”.

One of the most stressful jobs in a school district has to be the person who says yea or nay to the running of school buses. The overwhelming determining factor has to be the safety of the students. A step further comes with the determination that schools have to be closed. There, the factor is the safety of everyone.

I know that I’ve been in a number of these cases where classes or school have been cancelled and the weather clears up mid-morning. But, the best possible decision has to be made with an eye towards safety in time for the impact on a system or parts of it. Despite the best and wisest decisions, there are always those second guessers that seem to be come out after the fact.

I hope that doesn’t happen in this case. With the weather forecasts and warnings from Environment Canada starting on Tuesday, the case of significant weather has been predicted well in advance. To that end, I have to agree with the decision make by those making them for AEFO. The last thing that you would ever want to endure is an accident driving to a job action site or something that actually happens on the picket line.

I have no doubt that there will be those detractors that will be spreading an alternate side to this. We’re already seeing those commenting that teacher federations won’t be striking during the upcoming March Break. My recommendation to them is to really think about what a strike action means – a withholding of services – and the fact that there would be no services to be withheld when school are on a break.

It’s a difficult time and I think that, more than ever, teachers have to take care of themselves and of each other.

Would it be too optimistic to think that decisions like these bring a sense of reality to mind and that efforts are made when talks resume to end it once and for all?

Advertisement

OTR Links 02/27/2020

by dougpete, posted in Links

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.