When students in southeast Saskatchewan return to the classroom on Monday, teachers start work-to-rule across the province. The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation made the announcement via press release Friday afternoon.

Work-to-rule will see teachers withdrawing all voluntary services, including lunch-hour supervision and extracurricular activities, with services from the teachers being restricted to the hours of the workday.

In their release, the STF stated the government had proposed a memorandum of understanding with teachers that would lay out the terms of an accountability framework for proposed education funding. The STF proposed that a new CBA would have to include the sentence “The parties agree that the Multi-Year Funding Agreement and the accountability framework will be followed and honoured.”

The statement from the STF said the government has refused to include this line.

“This government has lost all credibility and believability on the education file,” said Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation President Samantha Becotte in the release. “Since negotiations began last May, they say one thing and do another. They ask us to trust them and then pull the rug out from under our feet. We were cautiously optimistic when they proposed an accountability framework, but they refuse to put a single line in the contract that would actually commit to that accountability.”

At this time, there has been no response from the provincial government.

We will have more information as it becomes available.