Local Catholic ATA files grievance over assignable hours

By Tim Kalinowski on December 16, 2017.

tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal

The Medicine Hat Catholic Local No. 39 chapter of the Alberta Teachers’ Association has confirmed it has filed its first grievance in nearly 30 years due to the Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education’s interpretation of “assignable time” presented to teachers earlier this spring.

“It’s really a change in working conditions that wasn’t expected,” says chapter president Bernie Kinch. “In the last collective agreement we signed at the central table there was provisions brought in that teachers could be assigned 1,200 hours per school year, and that includes instructional as well as various other duties.

“At the beginning of this year our teachers were notified our numbers were not at 1,200. And as such, our central office has decided to press toward a number of 1,150 hours.”

Kinch says the collective agreement cap at 1,200 hours was never intended to force teachers to take on more assignable time if they happen to come under it.

“That’s very disturbing on our part because there are various documents that have come out which said the agreement of last year shouldn’t have changed anything,” Kinch says. “It was there mainly as protection for rural area teachers who were exceeding the 1,200 hours, to kind of put limits on their assignable time. This was not something school districts should be able to use to make teachers put in more hours.”

Kinch is backed in his interpretation by the executive committee, says Jonathan Teghtmeyer, associate communications co-ordinator for the provincial ATA.

“It is very clear in the language of the recent central table agreement that the 1,200 hours is a maximum, a cap, on the time the school board can assign duties for,” states Teghtmeyer. “It is not a guideline for the amount of assignable time a teacher should be doing.”

Assignable time includes instructional hours and whatever other duties a school district directly assigns to teachers. Assignable time does not currently account for the extra hours teachers put in outside the classroom to meet professional standards and development goals, which can already add up to many hours of unpaid work per week. These are the hours teachers put in to prepare course materials, mark exams or do research for study plans.

So for any school board to demand more assignable hours be filled by teachers on top of these extra hours is concerning, says Teghtmeyer.

“These are things teachers are spending a lot of time on which have a direct impact on student learning,” he says. “Parents and others do actually recognize that teachers are doing that stuff, and that stuff takes time. But what they might be missing is there is a bunch of other extra stuff, (outside of instructional time), school boards are also asking teachers to do.”

The News sought comment on this matter from MHCBE, but no comment was received by press time Friday.