Nathan Bromm, president of the South East Cornerstone Teachers’ Association met with the division’s board of trustees on Oct. 14 to deliver an update on the association’s recent activities and decisions.
Bromm, who has been involved in the association for the past seven years, noted that the local initiatives agreement that covers items not covered in the provincial contract that includes most of the province’s educators, had been ratified. These additional items, which tcover such things as leaves-of-absence and substitute teacher terms, had been approved by the membership with an approval rate of over 90 per cent.
Bromm said the 550 or more teachers in the Cornerstone system meet for an annual convention with Estevan, Weyburn and Moosomin serving as host communities on a rotational basis. He said Arcola and/or Regina may be added to that mix in the future, depending on accessibility and efficiencies.
Teacher workloads have reached the discussion stage among the members, he told the board as had the desire to keep developing the school-year calendar on a co-operative basis with the school boards, administration and themselves.
Bromm also informed the board members that 305 teachers had completed a volunteer survey regarding processes to use to uncover priority items.
Pam Currie, one of two Estevan representatives on the board, asked if each school division in the province is responsible for their own results, processes and methods with regards to achieving teacher feedback, and she was told that this was, in fact, the situation.
“They have found over the years there will be commonalities,” said Lynn Little, Cornerstone’s director of education.
Audrey Trombley, board chairwoman who attended the meeting via a media audio-visual hookup, said it was promising to see the teachers gathering information without adding more time commitments to their already busy schedules.
Little noted that the survey resulted in 1,400 distinct thoughts that would assist them in developing talking points for the future as they addressed local concerns.
