February 13, 2018

Principals say Glaze Report not worth the risk

Many Nova Scotian principals and vice-principals have decided to step-down and return to the classroom as teachers, if the McNeil government implements the Glaze report.

“The professional bond between principals, vice-principals and teachers is part of the fabric holding our schools together against a chronic lack of resources,” says Sue Larivière-Jenkins, vice-principal and math intervention specialist at École Acadienne de Pomquet, in Antigonish County. “I’m not interested in working against my colleagues. I want to teach children, I don’t want to be a manager, so I intend to return to the classroom.”

Lois Landry, principal at Richmond Education Centre, is also planning to relinquish her current role if the proposed changes are made. She says the government’s actions over the past three years have led to a lack of trust.

“If the recommendations of the Glaze Report are implemented as proposed, I will be returning to the classroom and relinquishing my current role,” says Landry. “While I am not afraid of change, I am not prepared to risk the uncertainty of working outside of the NSTU in the current climate. I have always worked collegially with my fellow teachers and I do not believe that taking administrators out of the union will benefit student achievement. In fact, I fear it might have the opposite effect.”

NSTU president Liette Doucet says the government should be working to unite the education system, not tear it apart.

“Given that our children’s education is at stake, it is absurd the government would adopt the Glaze recommendations without consultation,” says Doucet. “These short-sighted changes will only bring division to our schools; add to a shortage of teachers in rural communities; create a bigger, more wasteful bureaucracy; and result in the same turmoil in public education, we currently have in our health care system.”

She adds, “we need government to fix the challenges students and teachers are facing in the classroom, we don’t need it creating new problems.”