Daily Bulletin

Thursday, October 23, 1997

Girding for a teachers' strike

Catharine Scott, UW's associate provost (human resources and student services), said last night that she's concerned, and knows parents are facing complicated problems. "What we want to say," she told me, "is that we ask the community to be understanding and flexible about the difficulties which our working parents may have making arrangements for their children during what I hope is a short strike period."

Scott pointed out that staff, in particular, have "a variety of ways of dealing with short-term and un-planned-for absences", besides vacation time: "using some accumulated overtime, leaves of absence without pay, making up the time at some future date, rearranging their schedules, flextime where available".

The government said yesterday that it will introduce a plan to have school boards reimburse parents $40 a day per family for the cost of child care if schools are closed during a teacher's strike.

The teachers, organized in five province-wide unions, say they're resorting to a strike as the ultimate weapon against changes to the education system that are embodied in the government's Bill 160. They charge that the bill, which would give the government direct control over teachers' workloads and class sizes, is intended to save money and cut the number of teachers and will lower the quality of Ontario schools.

The government, on the other hand, says teachers are out to protect their jobs and working conditions; it says the proposed changes are "reforms" aimed at getting a bloated school system to teach children better. "I will not let struggling schools continue to decline," said premier Mike Harris in a speech last night.

The government also points out that a teachers' strike would be illegal.

UW's second annual meeting

She said the November 20 session will include presentations by the chair of the board of governors on the work of the board over the past year; by the university's provost, on internal matters; and by the president, on the provincial, national and international scene.

Board of governors meets Tuesday

• Background information on UW's financial position, an update on the current year's budget, and the audit committee's report on the 1996-97 financial statement.
• A report from the pension and benefits committee, including a couple of amendments (affecting people in special circumstances) to the pension plan. The committee is reporting that UW pensioners received a cost-of-living increase of 1.56 per cent as of July 1 this year.
• A decision on phase two of the "redevelopment" of Village I, with an estimated budget of $3.8 million. It includes a new kitchen, servery, café and dining room, as well as other central areas.
• Reports on such matters as admissions, academic department reviews, external research finding, and ways of assessing quality in teaching.
• A presentation on the work of UW staff, by the two staff representatives on the board, Sharon Adams and Barry Scott.

These other notes and events

A team from UW's faculty of science will do strange things with food today at Empire Public School in Waterloo. A "smoke and magic" show -- including a demonstration of the ghostly, glowing Frankenpickle -- is a promotion for Saturday's open house in the science buildings, described as an annual opportunity for primary school children and their families to experience science. Admission to Saturday's event (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.) is free.

Starting November 1, Paintin' Place Day Care in the Married Student Apartments will be offering something a new -- a "toddler program" for children 18 to 30 months old. Spaces are limited, but parents who might be interested are invited to get in touch with Paintin' Place supervisor Kim Cox at 888-4030.

The 1997 Big E and Special K mathematics competitions, open to all full time undergraduate students at UW, will be offered on November 1 this year. Any student in the first year of undergraduate studies may write the Special K competition; all other students in upper years may write the Big E. They're scheduled for that day from 8:45 a.m. to 12 noon, in Math and Computer room 4059, says a note from the organizers -- Christopher Small in the statistics department and Ian Goulden in combinatorics and optimization. "There is no need to register in advance. Any student who is eligible may write by turning up in time to write the competition." For more information, Small is at cgsmall@setosa and Goulden is at ipgoulden@math.

Finally . . . I haven't heard much fuss made this year about Molemorial Day, which always starts at 6:02 on October 23, since a mole is 6.02 x 10**23. But I'd like to make at least a modest fuss about a birthday today: my colleague Jan Rohrbach.

CAR

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
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