Mobilization / Negotiations 2020 - QPAT - Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers

In this section, you will find information on the current Negotiations and Mobilization tools you may wish to use to help support QPAT and your local union during this time, including:

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Add the mobilization logo to your profile photo on Facebook:

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Download the QPAT app to track the 2020 negotiations and the upcoming annual convention.

Main Elements of the Sectorial Demand

Quebec teachers want to see a tangible and significant improvement in their daily working conditions. So, they want:

A classroom composition that provides conditions for quality teaching and learning;
Services to students that meet their needs;
A humanly bearable task;
Recognition of their profession at its true and full value, particularly in terms of remuneration;
A reduction in the level of job insecurity and better conditions for professional integration so that the next generation does not leave the profession on a massive scale and the most experienced remain in it.

In order to meet these objectives, the demands have been grouped into five main and complementary issues.

Fewer Students in the Groups

To improve teaching and learning conditions and enable better identification of students’ difficulties, the FSE and QPAT are asking to review the rules for the formation of groups by reducing the ratios as follows:

Kindergarten 4 years old: average of 8 students, maximum of 10 students (currently average of 14, maximum of 17);
Kindergarten 5 years old: average of 12 students, maximum of 14 students (current average of 17, maximum of 19);
1st year of elementary school: average of 16 students, maximum of 18 students (current average of 20, maximum of 22);
Special education: reduce the maximums and averages in special classes with students of various types.
Multigrade classes: prohibit multigrade classes in schools with 100 or more students, unless there is an agreement between the school board and the union.
Adult education: establish a maximum number of students per group (currently there are none).

CLASS COMPOSITION AND INTEGRATED AT-RISK STUDENTS AND STUDENTS WITH HANDICAPS AND SOCIAL MALADJUSTMENTS OR LEARNING DIFFICULTIES (HDAA)

To ensure better group composition, the FSE and QPAT propose an innovative and targeted approach, based on a reduction in the number of students per class in places where there are more students with difficulties (other than in disadvantaged areas).

For Grades 2 to 6 of elementary school, the proposed measure would reduce the maximum number of students per class for each grade in the same school with more than 20% of students with difficulties. For Secondary 1 to 3, a significant reduction of the average to 25 students per group1 without changing the maximum, would provide the flexibility to open more groups in schools with more students with difficulties.

Teachers also want to:

Provide as many special classes as necessary to meet the needs of ALL students for whom this option is considered the best after evaluation;
Reduce the time required for the recognition process for at-risk students and students with handicaps and social maladjustments or learning difficulties (HDAA);
Make it mandatory to obtain services for at-risk students and students with handicaps and social maladjustments or learning difficulties (HDAA) at the teacher’s request.

LIGHTENED TASK

The heavy workload aggravates attraction and retention problems and explains much of the current shortage. In order to ease their workload, teachers are asking to reduce their assigned task to free up time as follows:

¹ Instead of an average of 26, 27 and 30, respectively in effect for Secondary 1, 2 and 3.
² A teacher’s workload consists of three categories of tasks. The workload consists of teaching time, makeup classes, support, recess supervision and student activities. The teacher’s complementary task is assigned by the principal and includes time for meetings and consultation with colleagues, time to monitor travel between courses, etc. Work of a personal nature is time set aside for preparation, correction, follow-up with arents, etc. It is done at the teacher’s choice, but at school.

In pre-school education, reduce the time for developmental and cognitive learning activities and stimulation by an hour-and-a-half to make way for specialities, and replace this hour-and-a-half with one hour of WPN and half an hour of another educational task;
Reduce the workload of specialist teachers according to the number of groups and the number of buildings in which they teach;
In adult education, include 80 hours of pedagogical supervision in the workload and increase the time reserved for pedagogical days to 40 hours.

Elementary school teachers also want their professional skills to be used more effectively in their educational task, particularly by removing supervision, except for the arrival and departure of students.

These demands are adjustments to presence time at school (which remains at 32 hours per week for a teacher with a full workload), but provide the teacher with more autonomy and more useful time for students, as well as for preparation and correction.

REMUNERATION

In the context of a staff shortage, an urgent need to upgrade the teaching profession and a significant gap with other Canadian provinces, the FSE and QPAT are calling for an increase in teachers’ salaries.

Beginning with the 141st workday of 2019-2020, applying an 8% adjustment to the salary scale for all teachers would bring it up to the Canadian average.

This adjustment in salary specific to teachers will complement the salary demands made at the intersectorial level that are applicable to all employees in the public sector.

VULNERABILITY AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRATION

In the context of staff shortages and abandonment of the profession, the FSE and QPAT are calling for improvements in the conditions of professional integration for teachers and those of teachers whose status is precarious, who constitute approximately 42% of the teaching staff:

Provide a voluntary coaching mechanism (mentoring) by reducing the amount of time spent teaching for mentors and new teachers;
Increase the salary for casual substitution;
Lift the ceiling of the remunerated maximum by adding a rate for substitutions of more than 270 minutes, or more than three 75-minute periods;
In vocational training, allow time in the complementary task to take courses for the Bachelor of Vocational Education degree.

Document only available in French