The Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation continued to be vague in terms of providing reasons for issuing a non-confidence motion against their president and former Estevan teacher Colin Keess and later stripping him of his authority and duties.
In the late afternoon of Aug. 11, the STF issued a media release regarding their action, but remained opaque on the topic of Keess's dismissal other than to state that it stemmed from recent conduct displayed in his role as president. The STF did not indicate whether it was something Keess may have said in his role as a public spokesman or some action or activity he may have engaged in, that led them to the non-confidence vote on June 19.
The STF's communications consultant, Michelle Oussoren said she could only refer reporters to the STF's policy regarding principals of conduct as being the area that was breached by Keess. She said she could not be any more specific than that.
The motion of non-confidence was passed and a hand-delivered letter to Keess informed him of their decision while offering him options to resolve the matter internally.
"For him to say now he has known about these matters for only a few days, and to claim that he has 'not a clue' about why we made this decision, is just not factual," the STF said, in their release.
By Monday, the STF vice-president Randy Cline was speaking on behalf of the STF.
"Out of our commitment to due process, we agreed to discuss this matter with him and his counsel over a period of weeks, in an effort to resolve the matter for the good of the federation and our teacher members," the STF statement read. "In fact, there were face-to-face meetings with Mr. Keess and executive members in July to try to resolve this matter."
By Aug. 1, the STF stated, it was clear Keess was refusing to accept their decision and the options provided, so they were forced to pass the motion stripping him of his powers and authority because he was proposing to act in defiance of the decision made in good faith by the rest of the executive.
"Another point that Mr. Keess has been less than factual with the media and our teacher members about is his suggestion that somehow it is the executive director of the federation (Gwen Dueck) who is preventing him from carrying on with his duties and responsibilities. Not true."
The STF release noted that these decisions were those of the executive members, and the executive director has only been acting on the instructions and in support of the elected executive.
STF members and executive can only now speculate as to how and when teacher contract negotiations will resume as Keess had been a member of their negotiating committee.
Calls by the Mercury to the South East Cornerstone School Division concerning Keess's status as a teacher at the Estevan Comprehensive School have gone unanswered to date.
In a concluding paragraph of the Aug. 11 release, the STF stated, "in conclusion, I want to emphasize that we will not have the interests of our profession sidelined by the inaccurate media comments of a single executive member."
The federation did not identify who "I" was in the release, but Oussoren said that Cline, acting on behalf of the STF executive, had made the statement.
It is believed that none of the recent actions taken against Keess had any relationship with a disciplinary hearing and subsequent actions he faced with the STF as a teacher and formerly as principal at ECS in the mid-1990s. That hearing was conducted in Estevan. At that time, the federation served as both advocate and disciplinary body for their members, something that is now undergoing change. The government and STF are moving toward the formation of an arms-length committee that will handle STF disciplinary issues in the future.
